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May 31, 2008

We Are Here!

Although I'm still not sure where "here" is. Perhaps it's called Middle of Nowhere? Or maybe just Small Town, USA? Either way we are in amongst the Pocono Mountains and it's beautiful! And it's hilly! And I'm thinking I justttt might break my top speed PR on my bike - coming down one of those big hills with race wheels and an aerohelmet? I'm thinking 40 mph is finally mine!!

O and I arrived last night and then this morning got busy! We drove out to the course (we are actually staying quite a ways away because there really isn't anything too close!) and started to check things out. I got a ride in on the course while O was busy running the run course. Turns out the run course is all on a dirt path/trails/grass so there is no "driving the run course"!

After I got back, I ran on the course (again with O) and he showed me the ropes. I'm pretty excited - I felt like it was cross country season all over again! I will definitely need to use my off road running skills that I used for years in high school and college cross country. Truthfully, most of the run is on dirt so it's not too bad but there is a big grassy hill to climb too!

Next up was a swim in the lake. O wanted to try some open water swimming so believe it or not, he got in the cold water without a wetsuit! I couldn't believe he was in there swimming around. I mean I was pretty cold in my wetsuit! But he did great and didn't freak out at all. :) The water is very clear and clean (compared to much of the water I swim in) so that was nice.

Finally, we drove the whole bike course (it's either up or down - no flat!) and picked up my packet and all this was done by noon. On the way back to the hotel it was a stop for some vittles (Subway) and then lots of time for resting up, organizing all my junk, icing, stretching, relaxing and watching tv! :)

It has occured to me that tomorrow, the day of the race, marks the 1 year anniversary of my cycling accident. Hard to believe it's been that long. I don't have anything remarkable or introspective to say about it all other than I'm glad it's behind me! And that I plan on making June 1, 2008 a MUCH better day than June 1, 2007. :)

Good night all!

Posted by beth at 6:26 PM | Comments (2)

May 29, 2008

Race #3!

First of all, I'm happy to report that the Penguins did indeed win last night and there was no incidence of octopus-throwing onto the ice by pesky Red Wings fans. Word on the street is, down in the Strip District (area in Pittsburgh where, among other strange things, they sell lots of seafood and octopus!), there was a strict clamp down on those who could buy octopus. The octopus sellers were requring people to show ID (and I'm guessing not making any sells to those from Michigan!). Take that Detroit! :)

Anyway, I have another race coming up on Sunday!!!! It's the Black Bear Triathlon near Wilkes Barre/Allentown/Hazelton, PA. Actually, I don't really know where this race is. I'm just glad O is coming along to make sure we get there! :)

I have to admit that this one kind of snuck up on me. After Columbia I had 2 easy recovery training days and then went into a nice, tough 8-9 day block of some great workouts. When I get in that hard training mode I tend to take one day and one workout at a time. And then when I was nearing the end of that block I looked up and saw RACE on Sunday! YIPPEEEE!

And I couldn't be more excited. The race on Sunday is the PA qualifier for the Best of the US race and I am SUPER excited to go after that PA slot! Making it to the Best of the US championship race has been a big goal of mine. Last year I did the PA qualifier but got crushed by Heather Leiggi, the great athlete that has represented PA the past few years at BOUS. It wasn't even close! But after that race last year I vowed to keep working hard and go after the slot again this year. Of course I was thrilled to hear that Heather is turning pro and won't be trying to qualifiy for BOUS again!! ;) But I'm certainly not resting easy because I know there are tons of other great PA gals that I will have to battle it out with!

And battle I will. The Black Bear race is actually a sprint, 750 meter swim, 18 mile bike and 3.5 mile run. I hear the course is TOUGH and hilly, much to my liking! :)

Today was three short workouts with some hard efforts thrown in and so as soon as I got off my bike this evening I effectively went into recovery mode! Lots of rest and stretching and massage and ice and sleep now! We are leaving tomorrow which of course means I should be packing...ah...the packing...

Have a great night everyone and best of luck to all those racing. As my PowerBar visor says - BE GREAT!

Posted by beth at 8:11 PM | Comments (9)

May 28, 2008

PS

I almost forgot to say - thanks for all the birthday wishes everyone! You guys are the best and really made my day. And I did have a great day! Only 364 more days until my next b-day! :)

PPS The Penguins just scored (Stanley Cup finals game #3) and O is downstairs yelling "where's your octopus now?" (which perhaps only a Detroit fan would understand... :)

Posted by beth at 8:51 PM | Comments (4)

Chomp Chomp

If you've been reading this blog for a bit (and actually recall any of the dribble that I write) you may remember that I don't really like the dentist. I guess it's not really the dentist I don't like but rather the dental hygienist. I've been very lucky to not have any issues with my teeth, maybe a cavity or two, and so I generally don't spend more than 2 minutes/visit with the actual dentist. The hygienist however...oh my...

Well today after work I had my biannual dental appointment. I got there right on time only to be greeted by the hygienist that I *really* don't like. Now don't get me wrong, she is a very nice person and in general I think I would get along with her just fine. But she's a little older and well, a bit condescending when it comes to proper teeth brushing. I knew I was in for a big lecture.

It's The Lecture that I think makes me not like going to the dentist. Like I said, I've been blessed with good teeth so it's not like I hate the dentist because I always have cavities. Or because I'm scared of the big tools. Or because I feel a lot of pain when I go there.

No, mostly I just hate being lectured about how badly I brush my teeth! I was a good kid growing up. Never got in trouble. Always did my homework. And never got lectured. Except for at the dentist's office.

So as soon as I saw which hygienist I had today I knew I was done for. I always get in trouble for not flossing enough or brushing my lower teeth properly! And sure enough, as soon as I was in the chair (actually FIRST I had to get xrays - can you say GAG?!?!) she said "wow, there is a lot of plaque/tartar buildup!" To which I wanted to reply, "yes, that's why I come here, so YOU can scrap all that gunk off, now get moving sister because I have some hard 300s to swim in the pool after this!"

But I kept my mouth shut and just listened patiently while she showed me for the umpteenth time how I should make tiny circles with my toothbrush. I suppose if I just did it right I wouldn't have to worry! But I live by the theory that just like running form, teeth brushing form is very hard to change... :)

Anyway, I did make it out of there in one piece (and with no cavities!) and headed straight to the pool where I got my 300s in! O even met me at the pool because by the time the appointment was over, he was home from work.

O actually did both my workouts with me today (I guess technically he didn't do the same swim workout I did, but he was in there swimming a ladder of some sort) because this morning he joined me on the track for a session of 400 repeats! During the track workout we were treated to the most beautiful sunrise. I will always maintain that one of the best parts of being a triathlete/runner is the astounding number of amazing sunrises I get to see each week/month/year. It's one of my favorite things to see.

Regardless, that was my day in a nutshell! I did skip over the part where I almost wrecked the car at the YMCA. That was mostly because O drove home the car I usually drive (a Saturn) and I drove home the car he usually drives (a VW). Both of the cars are sticks but the reverse in MY car is down near 5th gear and the reverse in HIS car is up near 1st gear. I failed to remember this piece of information when I laid on the gas *thinking* I was in reverse but was really in 4th. Oops! No harm done though. The car just reved up real high (probably because I also failed to remember how much longer the clutch is in the VW!). Yikes! I'm not fit to drive anything!

Good night everyone!

Posted by beth at 8:23 PM | Comments (1)

May 27, 2008

4.5K On My Birthday!

That kind of rhymes! :)

So yeah - today is my birthday! 29 big ones! (which is getting periously close to the big 3-0).

And how did I celebrate you might ask? Well, I woke up at 4:45 am to go to the pool for a big (for me) 4500 yd swim! With a main set of 6x600 I was rather intimidated! But tired as I was those last few repeats I was happy to nail the workout just as I wanted!

Then I went to work. Then I went to the YMCA to lift. Then I came home and did some laundry. Fun birthday huh?! :)

Actually, all the celebrating went on over the past 2 days, first with my family on Sunday and then with O's family on Monday. AND my co-worker (somehow remembering it was my birthday today) made brownies for me! AND I got a card in the mail from my best friend today with a gift certificate for a massage (boy, does she know me or does she know me? :). AND my hubby, as always, has made my day very special. He left the house before I got back from the pool (and I left for the pool before he was awake!) so I arrived home from the pool to see I had a voice message on my cell. Of course it was none other than O crooning happy birthday! :)

And so it goes. Another year older and hopefully wiser. Here's to making my 29th year better than ever!

Posted by beth at 6:54 PM | Comments (15)

May 26, 2008

Catching Up

Busy (but great!) past few days!

1) First of all, I have to note O's great race today at the Kevin Gatons Memorial 5K! His goal was 18:30 and he ran 18:08. Can't beat that! I was so proud to see him come racing around the final turn while I still saw 17:xx on my watch. He was cruising! He wrote about his race on his blog though so I'll let you read about it there. Either way, I have to say that being equipment manager is tough! My main concern was losing the car key but luckily I didn't. And although she tried, Roxy did not successfully rip my arm out of it's socket while trying to chase visit yet another dog/runner/walker/bagel/squirrel/etc... This was the first race we ever brought her to and it just might be her last... :)

2) Speaking of racing, I have to do a little bragging about my teammate Kelly Lear-Kaul who cruised to a 2ND OVERALL placing at IM Brazil yesterday (including all the pro women!). She went 9:52:40 and ran an astounding 3:19 marathon. Pretty impressive if you ask me, considering she is a true amateur in the sense that she works full time (forensic pathologist). Yeah Kelly! Of course she is no stranger to success seeing as how she is the reigning IM World Champ for the 35-39 women!

In other racing news, I have to congratulate my friend Chad (and Matt and Eric!) for rocking this crazy race in Ohio called the Triple T. It consists of 1 sprint, 2 Olympic distance and 1 half IM triathlons over a 3 day span. Pure craziness! Great job guys!

3) Coach says okay to the open water swim race in late June! YIPPPEEEE! I'm super excited for it and the opportunity to get a little open water practice in.

4) My training has gone well the past couple days! Long run on Sunday followed by church and then a lot of great family time with my grandparents and parents. This morning O and I woke up bright and early to drive to his race. I was on dog duty so I couldn't do my run until after O was done racing (and was sufficiently recovered) so it was a bit toasty by then, but still I had a great run. The race was in the town I grew up in so I got to run on the roads I grew up running on. Lots of memories! :)

After the race/my run O and I headed to his parent's house for more family time so we didn't get home until 4:30 or so at which point I still had a bike interval workout to do. Of course I wasn't much in the mood to do anything but lay on the couch but I got on my bike nevertheless and rocked those intervals! I was working hard, sweat flying, legs burning. Those trainer sessions can be brutal!

5) While I was on my trainer riding myself to a bloody pulp I was listening to O's iPod. Mine was out in the car and I was WAYYYY to lazy to go get it. So I was jamming to some tunes that I've certainly heard before but aren't necessarily on my top play lists. Anyway, one of the songs that came on was a song I haven't heard for quite some time but really like. It was Third Day's Carry My Cross. It's such a great song. It truly is. I know not everyone (not many people in fact) are fans of Christian music. And indeed, I agree that some of it is not so good (but trust me when I say it's come a longggggg way!). Anyway, Carry My Cross reminds me of the prayer that I started to pray some time ago before O and I were even married. I was a relatively new Christian and new to the concept of "carrying our crosses daily". So at that time I started to pray EVERY SINGLE MORNING for the Lord to help me carry my cross that day.

I've been praying that for a long time now. And let me tell you, sometimes I fail miserably at carrying my cross that day. I fail more than I succeed. But that's the beauty of God's grace. Here is what the chorus says:

"So I'll carry my cross
And I'll carry the shame
To the end of the road
Through the struggle and pain
And I'll do it for love
No, it won't be in vain
Yes, I'll carry my cross
And I'll carry the shame"

It's my prayer for every one reading this blog right now. Carry your cross daily.

Posted by beth at 9:11 PM | Comments (1)

May 24, 2008

Holy Cats!

Man was I excited for my long ride today! I woke up to a beautiful, VERY sunny morning and couldn't wait to get going! It was kind of chilly - only in the mid 40s but I knew that by the time I did my swim and got back home for the ride it would at least be in the 50s and warming up fast.

And the weather did not disappoint! I had a great ride. It was absolutely beautiful, sunny and warm and just a slight breeze. I would like to say I didn't want it ever to end but truth be told, when my 3.5 hours were up I was ready to get off my bike. I haven't ridden that long for a while! And the insane amount of climbing I did (who came up with that crazy route anyway?) was definitely taking it's toll towards the end. And that weight lifting I did yesterday? Yeah, didn't even have to blink my eyeballs this morning to know that I was definitely SORE!

But my swim went great and my ride was superb and now, even though I'm still sore, I'm happy as a clam. O and I have even been pretty productive today (although cleaning the house has yet to be accomplished). Tomorrow is long run and a ride and I'm hoping my hamstrings feel at least somewhat normal by then!

Have a great night everyone!

Posted by beth at 7:06 PM | Comments (1)

May 23, 2008

And The Angels Rejoiced

I don't even know where to start I'm so excited right now! First of all, the best news of the day - ROUTE 28 NOW HAS BOTH LANES OPEN BOTH NORTH AND SOUTH BOUND! And the angels rejoiced. This discovery was made better by the fact that it was totally unexpected. I thought there were going to be lane closures either one way or the other until November. You can't even understand how happy this makes me! Instead of a 70-90 minute commute home my time in the car will be reduced to a mere 35-45 minutes! AMAZING! All time-starved triathletes will understand what a big difference this will make in my day!

Speaking of traffic and driving to and from work, I played a little prank on O this morning that was kind of funny. Except I'm not very good at pranks because I always laugh. And that's bound to give a prank away. Anyway, O left the house before me this morning (he was actually headed to the state track meet) and so on his way out called to let me know that there was a cop waiting at such and such a place. O always calls me when he sees a cop in an area where he knows I'm headed. This may or may not have anything to do with my lead foot.

Regardless, once I was on my way to work I called O with the "bad news" that despite knowing where the cop was, I still managed to get a ticket. And worse yet, the damage was pretty bad because it was in a construction zone (where fines are doubled!). Oh man was it good! O was totally believing it too, but of course I laughed and he caught onto me. I AM SO FUNNY! (not really :)

Anyway, I sort of got off track. My other good news for the day is that I discovered an open water swim race in late June that is only about 1 hour from where we live! SWEET! I am REALLY excited about this. It's the perfect opportunity to get some more open water and swim RACE practice!!!!! So as soon as I got home from work and the YMCA I emailed my coach to see what he thought. I know too much racing (and too little training) isn't such a good idea (I'm racing the Philadelphia Triathlon the weekend before) but this seems too good to pass up. There is a 1 mile race and a 2 mile race (and no, you can't do both because of the timing, I already thought of that) and it's in a lake. Anyway, it's not like I would even have to miss any training for it because it could just serve as my hard swim for that Saturday morning and I could do my long ride or brick after it! That's at least how I reasoned it all out in my head.

So AFTER I email my coach I think to google the race to see what the results were from last year. Not that I wouldn't do a race just because I would look really slow but I just wanted to see where I would stand. Holy crap. There was a 13 YEAR OLD GIRL that swam 17:47 last year! For a full mile! (and yes, I prayed a little prayer that somehow the course was short last year... :) Luckily the older age groups had much slower people so I won't be completely last. Either way, I really hope coach goes for it! :)

As for training today, I did a bit of that too! This morning I had a drill swim and then a short run. Then, this afternoon after work I made a reappearance in the weight room. Yes - the weight room! Haven't been there for a while! But now with my next "A" race quite a while away it's back to work. No doubt I'll be sore tomorrow!

Speaking of tomorrow I'm really excited! It has been quite chilly around these parts lately (38 degrees on my run this morning and I actually wore gloves!) but this weekend it's supposed to warm up! Tomorrow should be absolutely BEAUTIFUL for my long ride and I couldn't be more excited. I feel like I haven't got to do a long ride for a while so I'm looking forward to a 60+ miler tomorrow. And then on Sunday I will get to see my parents AND grandparents! And then on Monday I will be the equipment manager for a change and go to watch O race a 5K! (luckily the equipment needed for a 5K seems to be far less than that needed for a triathlon!) Many, many great things!

Hope everyone has a great holiday weekend!

Posted by beth at 7:37 PM | Comments (1)

May 22, 2008

Even Bigger News

Things are really movin' and shakin' around here! I've already told you the good news about our new Little Cesear's and now, I have even bigger news from my little corner of the world! You are reading the blog of the proud new owner of a 100 yd swim PR, set at masters practice this morning! Yes that's right! And what, might you ask, is this new PR? Well, it's exactly 1 second faster than the previous PR - a new standard of 1:07! :)

Sarcasm aside, I really am excited about my new PR. We can never take improvement for granted, no matter how small, or how slow! Of course one day I would like to be able to swim faster than a 1:07. One day I would like to swim longer than a 100 at 1:07 pace. And one day I would like to swim more than just one or two 1:07s. But for today, I will take a lesson from Rachel's blog and practice kaizen (you can read all about this Japanese philosophy from Rachel's entry yesterday but in short it is the "philosophy of continuous improvement based on progress made in slow and steady gains in every arena of life. In time, the small improvements add up to huge gains.") Although my 1:07 doesn't seem like much I can remember a time (not very long ago!) when my PR was 1:20!

Anyway, like I said, my new PR came this morning at masters practice where, among other things, we were doing some hard 100s. First one in 1:10. Second one in 1:07. OH BOY I thought! I instantly wanted more - as in a 1:06 but after the 2nd hard one our lane leader exited the pool making me the lane leader (he is racing this weekend and needed to leave practice early) so I no longer had some nice feet to draft off of! Either way, I still went after my 1:06 on the 3rd one but came up short with a 1:08. Hmm...going the wrong way! On the last hard one I swam as hard as I could while repeating in my head "1:06, don't breathe too often, 1:06, don't breathe too often, 1:06, don't breathe too often!" and justttttt as I touched the wall, 1:07. Darn! But that 1:06 is mine next time! :)

So then it was work and now I'm at home waiting for O to get home so we can go for a run. I don't plan on setting any PRs on the run this afternoon, but rather enjoying a beautiful sunny day instead. ;)

Hope everyone has a great night!

Posted by beth at 4:30 PM | Comments (6)

May 21, 2008

Big News

Well the big news for the day is that at some point within the past week our little town of Natrona Heights, PA has acquired a Little Cesear's (just in case you aren't in the "know" - that would be a pizza shop). We don't have much else (although for some reason we do have a stand alone Macy's and I can't forget about the new Walmart and Fashion Bug either!) so this new addition is quite news worthy!

After some thought I decided I've never eaten Little Cesear's pizza. I guess there was one in the town where I grew up (which is the same town O grew up in) but when my family ordered pizza it was always from a different shop. And there wasn't a Little Cesear's at Penn State nor in Virginia where O and I lived when we were first married. So, yes, I've been Little Cesear's deprived my whole life!

I can't say that I'm thrilled one way or another. I love pizza, don't get me wrong, but to me, pizza is pizza and if it's made by a little cesear or in a pizza hut or by papa john, well, I don't really care! :) But O is SUPER excited about this new development and I guess therefore, so am I!

O made the Little Cesear's discovery when he was jogging home from his track workout this afternoon. I was on my bike doing some tempo work when he arrived home (inside on the trainer for me as it was rainy, cold and windy today!) and so when I saw how excited he was I thought he must have set a new mile PR! I should have known... :)

Anyway, in other news I swam this morning and it felt great! I feel like I haven't done many long or really tough swim workouts for a while between my St. Anthony's taper and then my Columbia taper but no fears because they are a comin'! :)

And then I went to work and got a free lunch. Seems like I'm always getting free lunches which I do not protest one bit! Nor did I protest the piece of chocolate cake that came along with said free lunch!

And that's about it for the day. Time to fold laundry. Masters practice will be here tomorrow morning before I know it!

Posted by beth at 8:48 PM | Comments (2)

May 20, 2008

The Next Phase

My college coach always used to break our cross country and track seasons down into three different phases and since then I have a hard time NOT thinking of my triathlon season in that way.

Of course my first year of triathlon was a mishmash of whatever race I could find, mostly sprints, and didn't resemble any sort of planned out process. My second season (last year) I had a little better idea of what I was doing but a mid season bike crash sort of threw everything off and I was forced to revamp mid-summer. This year was the best planning I've done yet (with the help of my coach of course!!) as not only did I get the races a little better spaced but I also more strategically decided upon periods of training as based on race distance. Hopefully it will stay that way and I won't be forced by injury or otherwise, to abandon my brilliant scheduling! :)

Either way, the three phases Coach Sullivan always talked about were the base training/early racing period, the tough training/bulk of racing period and then finally the sharp training/championship racing period. Of course I totally just made those names up and I'm sure she had much fancier terms, but you get the gist.

I just finished phase one of my triathlon season - mostly made up of a lot of base training, a little speed and two early season races. I'm calling it a success. :)

So next up of course, is the meat of the season - some down and dirty training with the bulk of the racing. And then finally, after an "A" race 1/2 IM in August, I will start on the final phase of the season where I will hopefully have 3 championship races to compete in! :)

Anyway, coach and I set up this next part of my summer training and racing and I am already so excited to get started! I get giddy looking at those tough workouts - the 4.5-5K swims, the 4 hour rides and the 2 hour runs! And of course the speed sessions, the long bricks. I was like a kid in a candy store looking through the workouts and then adding in the races, etc... And then after a while it sunk in - wow - that is A LOT of training to accomplish! At which point I quickly reminded myself to take one week, and one day at a time. :)

So here we go! After two easy recovery days (swim yesterday, bike/run today) I am rearing to go for "The Next Phase" - starting bright and early at the YMCA tomorrow morning of course... :)

Good night everyone!

Posted by beth at 9:09 PM | Comments (3)

May 19, 2008

Columbia - The Long and Boring Report

Race morning pretty much went off without a hitch and before I knew it I was standing by the dock waiting to jump into the water. This has to be the hardest part of racing - the 2-5 minutes before the start where you are mostly just waiting around getting really nervous. Or at least that's what I'm doing!

When I jumped into the water I thought "WOW this is cold!" But I think the water temperature was about 68 degrees so I have no right to complain how cold it was considering Jen was swimming in 59 degree water this weekend and I was just reading that the projected water temps for the Ironman Coeur d'Alene swim are in the range of high 40s-low 50s. Now THAT'S cold water!

Regardless, the lake was calm and the day was dawning beautiful. I think the conditions were near perfect for this race. No wind. Not too hot or cold for the run (I will admit to really cold feet getting off the bike but otherwise I was fine). And the rain held off until about half way through the awards ceremony!

Anyway, off on the swim we went! The first 200 of an open water swim is the hardest for me. I feel like I'm sprinting as hard as I can and then I look up and realize that we really didn't even get that far and I have a longggggggg way to go. Fortunately I was in a good swim zone yesterday. I felt strong and fluid and I focused on swimming HARD. I suspect one of my issues with my slow swimming in races is the fact that I'm just not swimming hard enough!

Because the water was nice and calm it was easy to site the buoys and I did a better job than usual in keeping on course. I'm still not too good at drafting. I sometimes find feet to draft off of but I worry they won't stay on course or that they are going too slow (funny someone like ME would be worried about that!). Still a work in progress for sure.

The whole time I was swimming I kept telling myself PUSH - you are swimming well, PUSH - you are swimming well and I think it sort of worked because I truly started to believe that this WAS going to be a good swim for me! And when I got out of the water and saw the clock I wanted to cry. I was so happy to finally have swam under 23 minutes and actually in the low 22s! YEAH!!!!

I would have celebrated more but honestly, I was pooped! I was obviously feeling the effort of actually swimming HARD in a race (what a novel idea!) and I was all over the place in transition. Couldn't get my wetsuit off, couldn't get my cycling shoes on, couldn't unrack my bike! I finally got myself moving and up to the mount line and then I couldn't get my feet clipped in! YIKES!!

But I am so encouraged with my swim nonetheless. Like I said, couldn't ask for an easier swim. And I still have a long way to go before I'm really pleased. But I really needed to see some improvement at some point and yesterday I got what I needed! Now I'm as motivated as ever to keep nailing swim workouts and to keep learning how to RACE in the water.

Our picture perfect water.

I think I've said this before, but just in case, I'll say it again. The bike is my favorite part of a triathlon. It's not my favorite in training, but in actual races, I love it.

So off on the bike I went (when I finally got my dang pedals clipped in). As I was riding out of the park and onto the main road to start the bike route a blazing yellow flash of brilliance catches my eye. Could it be? Was it true? Yep, that would be my very own husband sprinting up through a grass field and (I kid you not) hurdling a 3-3.5 foot fence in his attempt to beat me up to the road so he could yell some more encouragement. Maija can corroborate this story as she too saw the jumping incident. Here is O's version of the story. He is a certified nut!!

But in all honestly I consider myself THE luckiest gal to have him as a husband, cheerleader, encourager, supporter, (and the list goes on and on...). He gets SO excited for me in my races that it's pretty hard not to get excited myself, even when I'm dead tired and wanting nothing more than to sit down on the side of the road and rest for a bit. We always joke that he runs harder and longer than I do on race day!

But rest assured, I did warn him that had he not cleared that fence and instead fallen flat on his face, I would have kept riding right by at about 25 mph! :)

Anyway, I rode very hard on the bike. As predicted those "rollers" seemed a lot more like big hills during the race. But I pushed and pushed and pushed some more. I got out of the water in about 9th or 10th place and knew I had a lot of work to do and the bike is often my chance to shine. The bike at Columbia is 41K for some reason but I still wanted to try for a split in the 1:10 range and indeed that's what I did - 1:10:05, exactly 4:03 faster than last year. It helped that this year there always seemed to be at least someone in my sight to go after whereas last year I felt like I rode about 20 miles of the course alone and THEN suddenly everyone came into view. I guess that's one benefit of swimming a little faster! :)

My T2 was much better than T1 and off I went on the run. Coming out of transition O told me I was in 2nd place and 30 seconds back. Unfortunately, I knew who first place was and that she is a very good runner. It wasn't going to be easy but that didn't stop me from giving chase.

The first 2.5 miles of the run are on a path around the lake that is pretty twisty and turny so even though I couldn't see Heather I kept telling myself, "she is just right up around that corner, she is right there!" This was in an attempt to quiet the thoughts of how tired my quads were from working that bike course. I was definitely feeling those hills and my legs were protesting each hill on the run course.

I saw O again where he gave me the update that I was now 28 seconds down (about 2 miles later). Hmm...two miles and only 2 seconds...I'm not a mathematician but I could pretty much figure out that this math wasn't going to work out in my favor. But O also told me that there were 2 men in front of me and then Heather. Okay, I thought to myself, just work on getting one of those guys, and then the next...

I was still struggling up the hills but did catch one of the guys in front of me. And then we got out of the park and into the neighborhoods and I finally really did see Heather! I got a renewed sense of confidence - I CAN DO THIS!

About 2 miles later she still didn't seem any closer. :)

I am happy to report that I truly didn't give up on the hope that I could catch her until the very, very end. But over the whole 10K I only gained about 10-15 seconds on her. I finished 19 seconds down. Not my best run ever and about 70 seconds SLOWER than last year. But I'm not that disappointed. Like I said before, with a close to 4 minute improvement overall from last year, it's hard to be disappointed!

Heather and I after it was all over!

After the race was the best part. O and I got to meet and talk with so many great people! I am usually very shy and unwilling to introduce myself to anyone but the fatigue must have made me a little loopy because all of a sudden I was chatty!

Besides talking with Heather and her husband I met Maija and her husband and their VERY cute dogs Cooper and Frito! (I love the name Frito!)

And I got to meet and talk with some of the pros who are just so down to earth and well, wonderful! It was just like meeting Bree - they are people who love to do the same thing that I love, they just happen to do it faster! :) Linsey and Desiree asked me about my race and upcoming races and training and it was just another highlight in a wonderful day and experience. O and I were laughing at the awards ceremony wondering in what other sport do the pros mingle with the common folk, waiting in the same post race party food line and sitting on the curb like everyone else waiting for the awards to start? I love this sport for the fact that I can compete right along side a world champion and talk with him after the race is over!

And so went the weekend. Many lessons learned, hopefully to be put to good use in the races to come! Thank you again to everyone for their kind words regarding the race. It is a huge encouragement to me. I just read a comment from Bree that says "never give up, hard work ALWAYS pays off, sometimes it just takes forever!" I'm starting to learn that truth. So I don't plan on giving up any time soon. Luckily I have all the time in the world. :)

Posted by beth at 4:43 PM | Comments (14)

May 18, 2008

Columbia - The Quick and Dirty Report

Full race report with (many) pictures to follow! But for now, the highlights of the day:

1) Meeting and getting to talk to sooooo many great people!

2) I FINALLY SWAM SOMEWHAT DECENTLY. And I repeat - I FINALLY SWAM SOMEWHAT DECENTLY! Now no snickers from the peanut gallery when I announce my swim split, because I know it's still dismal HOWEVER it was 45 seconds faster than I have ever swam a 1500 open water swim before and for that I am so grateful! I needed (and I mean REALLY needed) to swim a PR at some point in this season before I gave up all hope that I would ever swim faster than 23-24 minutes. Now I have renewed faith in the fact that one day, my hard work in the pool just might come to use. Okay, here is it - 22:17! :) I know, I know - it's still laughable but it's moving in the right direction. You've gotta give me that! :)

3) I went 3:49 faster than last year! Partly due to my faster swim but mostly due to the fact that I biked about 3:30 faster than last year. Don't know where that came from?!

Now for the one low-light - I wasn't able to defend my amateur title from last year! But truthfully I'm not THAT disappointed because (1) my time was so much faster than last year (2) I was still 2nd today (3) I lost to a very, very good athlete in Heather Leiggi of whom I've never beaten before and really haven't even come close and (4) I really did give it everything I had on the run to try to catch Heather, but I just couldn't find that extra 19 seconds in me. I was beat! And it's hard to be disappointed when you know you gave it everything you had!

O and I really had a blast today. I feel like triathlon is so much more fun this year as we get to meet more and more people in the sport! Much more to come but for now I must sleep (I feel like I've been up for 2 days straight now...) but thanks everyone for your good luck wishes and all your encouragement! I am so lucky! :)

Posted by beth at 10:40 PM | Comments (13)

May 17, 2008

Columbia

I have to admit that when I think of Maryland I immediately think of lavish horse farms, prep schools, million dollar homes and lacrosse. I could be TOTALLY off (and likely am), but those are just the sorts of things I associate with the state. And I have to say, the Columbia area is not doing anything to dispel this myth in my head!! As we were driving the bike course this morning we were either passing a prep school, a horse farm or a million dollar house. And although I didn't see anyone playing lacrosse I attributed that to the fact that it was still early and they were probably still sleeping. :)

Anyway, needless to say, it's a beautiful (albeit very busy) area and I really like this race in general. Although I would like to try Memphis is May some year, I think we will be coming back to Columbia for many years to come!

We got in last night after a relatively short, quick and easy drive! Of course I can say that because I never do any of the driving but in my defense, nobody ever asks me if I want to drive. I have not a clue why... :)

So this morning we slept in until around 7 am and then got down to business! We headed out to the course and drove the bike route first. I remembered much of it from last year. I would call it "rolling" but I know those rollers will feel big and more like hills when I'm going really hard in the race!

And then I rode a little on the course and ran a little on the run route with O. You aren't allowed in the water here the day before (I know this because I tried last year and got yelled at) so no swimming today.

A picture of my trusty steed Scotty and I this morning. (I know, very original name considering that Scotty is a Scott, but really it's the name that stuck so who am I to second guess?) You may note the Zipp 404s that I am very excited to be using. They aren't mine but my friend Jeremy's who is so kind to let me borrow his wheels. Last year I did this race with my regular training wheels. I don't know how much of a difference race wheels make but in weight alone it has to be big! I feel like my bike weighs about 10 lbs less with Jeremy's wheels!

Next we headed to packet pickup and the expo. Now O and I are usually not expo buyers. We usually quickly walk through and decide that everything is too expensive. But today we kept finding deals. The first table we happened upon was full of running shoes for $50/pair. Now how can you pass that up? Apparentely there is a running shop nearby that allows people to buy shoes and try them and if they don't like them they can return the shoes after a certain number of days. So these shoes were worn on a run or two by someone else and returned. Now the shop can't sell them as new so what to do? Well apparently you take them to a triathlon expo to let a bunch of poor triathletes buy them for only $50/pair! (I say that jokingly because I know that anyone with enough money to even be in the sport of triathlon at all is in no way, shape or form poor, but you know what I mean :).

So O and I each found a pair of Asics that we liked. They even had our sizes which is amazing because I wear a pretty common size (7) and lots of sales usually involve women's sizes of either 5 or 10.5. :) O found his size too and off we went!

We looked around a little more before we found the table with the discount swimsuits. I can usually never justify buying suits at places like this because I get my suits for $30 through a discount outlet. Yet what do I find but suits for $30 (actually making them cheaper than my deal because I have to pay shipping otherwise)?! And good ones! And cute ones! And ones that are my size! I actually had trouble choosing because they had so many good ones. O found himself a suit for $25 and the nice lady even gave us a deal for buying 2 suits (even though one was womens and one mens). And we were off again, thus concluding our most successful expo shopping to date.

Our loot.

It wasn't even 11 am by this point so we drove back towards our hotel, grabbed an early lunch and now we are just hanging out and relaxing. I've showered, stretched, iced, rolled. I'm ready to go! We just have to drop off my bike tonight at the transition area and I want to go over the run course once in the car (you can't drive most of it because it's in a park on a little path around the lake that we swim in).

O and I are getting this "day before" routine down. Last year we struggled - got things all out of order (like trying to drop the bike off before we got the packet and the bike numbers!) but now we are becoming old pros. :) Of course it helps a lot that we remember our way around from last year. I'm already scared for the NYC triathlon later this summer where these two country bumpkins are going to be left defenseless in the big city!! :)

Posted by beth at 1:15 PM | Comments (5)

May 16, 2008

And Away We Go!

Today we leave for Columbia! I am VERYYYYY excited. Seems like I've been waiting for this race FOREVER, so it's exciting to see on my little training log countdown that it's a mere two days away!

Of course first I have to pack. Which as you all may or may not know is my absolute FAVORITE thing to do! (note large dose of sarcasm) But we are driving to this race (only about 4-5 hours away) which admittedly makes packing much easier. You don't have to worry about your suitcase weighing too much or taking your bike apart. You merely have to chuck it all in the car and hope you have everything! :)

Anyway, as far as races go, this is a pretty big one for me. We all pick and choose which will be our most important efforts. Someone's "A" race might be someone else's "C" race. Truthfully though, every race is like an "A" race to me. I'm not one of those people who "trains through" races (whatever that means) or goes into a race not wanting to be 100% fresh and ready to go ALL OUT! I can't even do that for the little community 5K let alone a pretty big, competitive triathlon! I always want each race to be my very best and I WILL be trying to PR and I WILL be trying to beat every last person I can! But I've also come to understand that training wise, more than 2 or 3 "A" races a year isn't such a great idea. And as far as training plan structure goes, some races are the target upon which you base your training weeks around, and the other races just have to fit in between.

Regardless, Columbia is a big race for me and I'm very excited! The course plays well to my strengths (hilly run and bike) and my weaknesses (probably one of the easiest open water swims around - no waves, no chop!). The weather should be just like our weather here in Pittsburgh (lows in the low 50s, highs in the mid to high 60s) so I won't be too worried about the "heat", especially in the swim where I'll likely have chattering teeth! :) Come 6:50 am on Sunday morning I will be ready to go!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and best of luck to those out there racing! As my high school coach always used to say, "the hay is in the barn, now go out there and bring home the bacon!" :)

Posted by beth at 8:59 AM | Comments (5)

May 14, 2008

Sometimes I Hate The Taper

I have a love/hate relationship with the taper. Sometimes I love it. Shorter workouts - yeah! A day off - yeah! Extra time on my hands - yeah!

And sometimes I hate it. Shorter workouts - boo! A day off - boo! Extra times on my hands - boo!

I think it has to do with how I feel going into the taper. If I'm really tired I tend to like it better. A day off and shorter workouts when I feel like I REALLY need it aren't so bad. But when I feel really good and am ready to go, a day off seems like overkill. And I want to go hard and long and the taper gets really annoying really fast. That's where I'm at right now. It truly is a good place to be - feeling good and fresh and frisky before a big race. But in the mean time taper = torture. Ahh...when will I ever be happy?! :)

In the mean time, one of my all time favorite blog entries from Simon Whitfield. I always love to read his blog but yesterday was even better than usual. As he says, "it's all about the process, if I prepare relentlessly the outcome will take care of itself."

Posted by beth at 7:44 PM | Comments (8)

May 13, 2008

Sweet Sunshine!

Well, after what seemed like 3 weeks in a row of rain, today dawned sunny and bright and absolutely beautiful! Not a cloud in the sky! (And yes, I ran in the rain AGAIN yesterday. And no, my running shoes still aren't dry.)

I had a swim this morning but this afternoon was my opportunity to get outside to enjoy the awesome weather - a ride! YIPPPPEEEE!! I got home and got changed and ready to go pretty quickly (I'm quite notorious for taking FOREVER to get going on workouts after work...). And off I went. And it was amazing! Maybe 60 degrees, not much wind. Ahhhh....

I also took the opportunity to try out my new aerohelmet today, mostly because I wanted to ride at least 1 hour in it before I raced in it on Sunday. And today was my last ride over 1 hour before Sunday. So today it was! I felt like a huge weirdo with it on, riding around town during the busiest time of the day (rush hour!) but in all honestly nobody probably even noticed. I'm glad I did it too because now I know that things sound different in there (it was loud!)! And I actually like it a little better than my usual helmet because it sits back a little farther on my head and I don't have to crane my neck so much down in my aerobars. Heck, I might just wear it ALL the time now (yeah, not so much... :)

Anyway, I was glad I had A helmet on (any helmet would do) because I almost crashed on my ride! No mom, not the kind of crash where you are life-flighted to Allegheny General Hospital and are unconcious. Don't worry! :)

But rather the kind of crash where you are trying to get started up your back alley and you can't get your foot clipped in the dang left pedal!! For some mysterious reason I was in THE biggest gear available on my bike and therefore there was no way just my right leg was going to handle pedaling by itself UP the alley (I might have had a fighting chance if it was downhill...). And my darn left foot could not, for the life of it, get into it's pedal. And the bike was going slower and slower and slower and...well...you know the rest of the story. But luckily I ripped my right foot out of it's pedal at the last milisecond (and I mean VERY LAST milisecond) to steady myself before I toppled over in a heap of aerohelmet, unruly pedals and cycling shoes! ARGHH!!! You would think that I would be past this stage of cycling newness but I'm not. And if I had to guess, I would say this same very thing could happen in 5 years, 10 years, heck, even 15 years from now. Coordination and grace were never my strong points. :)

So that's my story for today. Tomorrow it's supposed to rain again. But that's okay because O just planted some new grass in our yard and if it rains we won't have to water it! (see, there is a positive spin on everything!) Have a great night everyone!

Posted by beth at 8:30 PM | Comments (4)

May 11, 2008

Stuff

I haven’t written one of those “random” entries lately so here goes! (although it could be argued that ALL my entries are random :)

1) Happy Mother’s Day to all those mothers out there! (especially mine!) I am one of those lucky people who has two wonderful parents and I couldn’t be more thankful for it. So thanks mom for all your love and support – it has made all the difference in my life!

2) This morning I ordered a cookbook! Yes, strange I know. Not really much of a cook here. But I couldn’t pass this one up.

This is the cookbook I ordered - The Runner's Cookbook - written by Alison Wade (who happens to be the very nice person who hosts the running-blogs.com website among many, many, many other things!).

As you can see, 100% of the proceeds of the cookbook go to the Jenny Crain "Make It Happen" Fund and to the Ryan Shay Memorial Fund so not only will you be getting tons of great receipes from the country's (and world's) best runners, but you will also be helping to raise money for 2 great causes.

3) Two great workouts today! First, a ride this morning in some mid 40 degree temps. I have to admit, when the alarm went off at 6 am and I saw it was pretty chilly I REALLY wanted to save my ride for this afternoon AFTER church. But I'm glad I didn't wait because the rain started around 11 am and hasn't stopped since. :) Then this afternoon a good hard swim.

Meanwhile, O was busy with his own hard workouts! He also swam with me this afternoon but while I was riding this morning he was getting down to business on the track with some hard 800 repeats. But I guess I should let him tell you about all this himself since he does have his own blog. :)

4) The Penguins are currently tied with the Flyers in the 2nd game of the Eastern Conference Finals right now. The Pens won the first game. To say that Pittsburgh is a little hockey crazy right now is a bit of an understatement!

5) O and I just watched Evan Almighty and I really liked it! If you have seen the movie, my favorite part is when God is talking to Evan's wife in the resturant and explains to her that if you pray for courage, God doesn't all of a sudden make you courageous but rather gives you the opportunity to display the courage that you already have inside. Of if you pray for patience, you are placed in a situation where you need patience and can therefore learn it. Pretty cool if you ask me.

And here we are with the start to another week! Hope everyone has a great one.

Posted by beth at 8:33 PM | Comments (2)

May 10, 2008

Merry Berry Month of May

There is a chain of resturants in the Pittsburgh area called Eat'n Park that several years back had a little jingle called "The Merry Berry Month of May". It sung the praises of strawberry pies and cake and shakes. It was quite catchy. And O LOVED it. Mostly because O loves strawberry pie. But he knew all the words to the jingle which is quite a feat because song lyrics aren't usually something he's too good with.

ANYWAY - O and I still call May the "Merry Berry Month of May" and every year I get him a strawberry pie from Eat'n Park. This year I picked the pie up on Tuesday while he was at a track meet. When he discovered it in the refrigerator that night you would have thought he struck gold. He danced around and did a little jig and then proceeded (as he does each year) to cut the pie into 4 pieces. Yep, a huge pie cut into 4 HUGE pieces, one piece each night for 4 nights. I don't like strawberry pie so it's all his. Never have to worry about the pie going bad, that's for sure! ;)

I was thinking about all this this morning while I was eating THE best strawberries in the world. Wow - May really is the merry berry month!

But apparently it's also a very rainy month. I think the past 10 times I've run it's been in the rain, including this morning. My running shoes don't have any hope whatsoever of drying. Ever. But you will be happy to know that my cycling shoes did dry from last Saturday. Now they just stink. :) Oh well, it was bound to happen since I never wear socks when I wear my cycling shoes. That makes for one seriously stanky pair of shoes. They should get together with my racing flats who also seriously stank. Imagine opening up the suitcase after those two have been snuggling up next to each other in the hot cargo compartment of a plane. Or after sitting in a hot car trunk for hours. Okay...I'm starting to gross myself out!! :)

ANYWAY, my run was good this morning regardless of the rain. It was one of those days when you actually have to RUN a little to get the heart rate up. I love those days! Usually I'm holding myself back but today I got to RUN. I looked down at my watch at one point and it told me I was running 6:57 pace (and my HR was still in it's low aerobic zone). I did a double take. "This dumb thing has to be broken", I thought! (and no, smarty pants, I wasn't running downhill :) So yes, it was one of those good days. Of course for every one of these days I have one of those days when I'm running slow and my HR is high and I look at my watch and think "this dumb thing has to be broken!" :)

Meanwhile, O is out cutting the grass because it's approximately 5 feet tall. It grows so fast! And over the past week or so there hasn't been one dry day to cut it. So he's cutting wet grass right now because it's supposed to rain again tomorrow and if he doesn't cut it today, we will be baling hay instead (and we don't have a hay baler and furthermore, baling hay is really hard). I'm sure he is frustrated because our lawn mower gets upset with wet clumped up grass (but we can't complain because it's a hand-me-down from my grandparents and it was free!). I might need to buy another strawberry pie to comfort him... :)

Hope everyone has a wonderful day - in the merry berry month of May! (sorry, I couldn't help myself)

Posted by beth at 12:26 PM | Comments (5)

May 9, 2008

Ahh...Friday...

Great way to end the week. Two good workouts this morning (swim and run), busy but productive work day and then one fine bike ride after work. The storm clouds were rolling in but I finished the ride before the rain came. 90 minutes of pure joy.

And the Penguins are winning. Beating the Flyers nonetheless! Go Pens!

And it's Friday.

And I have another race coming up very soon.

And Roxy feels better (but is wilder than wild can be).

And life is good.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Posted by beth at 9:28 PM | Comments (0)

May 8, 2008

Uncanny

It truly is uncanny how much dogs become like their owners or vice versa. I know I've written about this theory before but it's never been as apparent to me as it has been the past couple days.

So the vet yesterday. Wow - what a fiasco! I don't even know if I have the strength to retell the whole story but let's just say, I don't like our vet, we won't be returning to his practice and that's 2 hours of my life I will never get back!

Basically he thinks there is something wrong with Roxy's ligament or tendon in her left hind "knee". I agree that this is likely the issue. We didn't see her do anything to her back leg but she is an extremely active dog and runs/jumps/does cartwheels/backflips/races/etc... around like no dog I've ever seen (except perhaps my sister and brother in law's crazy dog Luna). It's likely that she could have pulled or strained or slightly torn something while engaging in one of her crazy moves.

But the vet wanted to take an xray to make an appropriate diagnosis. Hmm...okay...sounds fair enough. I inquired if a ligament or tendon tear could be seen on xray (knowing full well that it couldn't be seen with anything but an MRI) to which the vet responded that possibly it could. He then informed me that to take this xray he would have to put Roxy under anesthesia, do blood work and also keep her over night until the anesthesia wore off. To which I responded, "umm...really?"

This was starting to sound a little fishy.

The anesthesia, he claimed, was so that Roxy would lay totally still for the xray. I asked him if it was possible if I could just put on an apron and hold her really still myself with no anesthesia (I was fairly certain I could keep her still for the 5 seconds it would take to do the film). He didn't go for that idea.

At which point I inquired of the cost of all this madness. Whoooooo man - let's just say - I didn't like the answer to that question!

After I decided (in about 3 seconds) that we could not afford the close to $600 bill for a stinking xray I inquired as to option #2. I mean really, $600 for an xray?! I was really surprised that he would even suggest that option given the fact that she is only slightly limping up stairs and while jumping and walks and runs normally. It was pretty apparent to me that her leg wasn't broken (no swelling, no heat, no nothing) so what exactly was this $600 xray going to tell us? And furthermore, where exactly do you think you are practicing your veternarian medicine, The Hamptons? I mean O and I do not live in a very affluent area of Pittsburgh and I find it really hard to believe anybody where we live would pay for this type of thing! It's one thing if I know for sure my dog needs surgery to live and it cost $600 - well than of course we'd find a way to make it work, but for an xray that likely isn't going to tell us much at all? I don't think so.

The charade continued on for a while. At one point I asked if I could just take her home as is and see if it got any better on it's own. That's when the vet laid the BIG guilt trip on me that I had to (AT THE VERY LEAST) let them do the blood work and give her the pain/anti-inflammatory medicine (which was $200) because we couldn't let her suffer like this.

Suffer? Just 2 hours earlier I had watched her dart across our yard faster than a lightening bolt to try to catch a bunny.

He told me that "just because they can't talk doesn't mean they aren't in pain." I wanted to slap him. So I agreed - blood work and pain/anti-inflammatory medicine for 2 weeks with very minimal activity and if the limp still exists or returns, it's back to the vet. Of course it won't be the same vet - it will be a different one - but back to the vet regardless. :)

So last night Roxy got an IV injection of the medicine and now today she started on oral medicine for the next two weeks.

And guess who is feeling better?

I came home today from work to find an absolute WILD dog. Unlike the past two days where she was pretty sedate, didn't jump around much and only occasionaly tried to run, today she was doing her regular mad-dog impression, racing around, jumping up, doing her crazy circles around the dining room table... Oh man. This is part of the reason why I didn't want the pain medication right away because now that she doesn't feel her pain it's going to be nearly impossible to keep her activity level low. Pain isn't always a bad thing if you know what I mean.

Which brings us to the uncanny similarities between Roxy and I. O was remarking this morning how much Roxy is just like I am when I'm injured! She was totally depressed this morning because she didn't get her usual walk and she absolutely HATES when either O or I carry her up and down the steps and up and down off the bed. I told her I know how she feels! I hate being injured too and when people tell me not to do this or that - no running or racing - well I get sad and depressed just like her! And then it starts to feel just a bit better (likely due to the medicine) and we are both all about getting back into things! I lectured her tonight about waiting until it was totally healed before starting back up again, a lecture I've heard myself about 10,000 times. There was sulking and she also scratched up her blanket leaving purple fuzz all over the house. Been there, done that myself (okay, I never scratched up a blanket but I'm sure I've done similar things while injured... :).

Truly uncanny.

So wish us luck in trying to keep her relatively tame (without the help of a cage) over the next couple of weeks while she heals. If she really is like me, there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth in the days to come.

Posted by beth at 8:00 PM | Comments (5)

May 7, 2008

The Scoop

Roxy says thanks to all those nice people who wished her a speedy recovery! Actually, she's a dog, so she didn't really say anything but mostly just begged for treats and to play ball. But you know what I mean. :)

She is still a little on the gimpy side. Doesn't look too bad when she walks around but getting up the steps and up onto the bed is not an easy task. So we are going to the vet today. Although I had planned to wait it out until Saturday, I have the day off work today so I think we might as well just get things taken care of now! Her appointment is later this afternoon.

Anyway, I 'm not sure why, but I haven't talked about my workouts lately. I've been doing a bunch of them and they have all been going well! Today was a three workout day (only 2 workouts completed thus far), all of which were relatively short but had some intensity in them.

First up was a track workout this morning. It was a beautiful, sunny morning and actually a little on the warm side! I was glad to see I had the track to myself. Because I didn't start until after 7:30 I was afraid I was going to show up and see a whole bunch of middle school kids playing soccer during their gym class. And let it be known that I am NOT a fan of doing workouts in front of any human between the ages of 13-18 years! But it was just me and the track and some gut-busting intervals. :)

I went home and ate breakfast and then didn't wait long enough before I went to the pool for my swim. I don't know why I think that cereal can be digested within 45 minutes but this morning was a reminder that it CANNOT! I survived my 100 repeats though keeping them all between 1:13 and 1:17 (they had varying rests, hence the big difference in time) and was pleased with the effort.

That of course leaves a bike workout which I am about to start after this blog entry and some ironing (I just ate lunch so I'm trying not to repeat the breakfast mistake and give it a little more time...). Although it's still beautiful outside I think I'm going to do the workout on the trainer. Of course I would always prefer to ride outside if possible but I sometimes think the trainer is great for interval workouts. You can really focus and push hard on the trainer which is difficult to do outside when you are dealing with traffic and stop signs, etc... And lately I've done all my bike interval sessions outside so it's time for a good tough one inside.

And that's about it! I was looking at my schedule over the next couple weeks and was shocked to realize that my next race is already only 10 days away! This is the best part of racing season - less training and more RACING! :) My next race is the Columbia Triathlon which is a great race in Maryland. I did it last year and had one of my best races of the season (pre bike crash of course :) so I'll be excited to see if I can improve upon my splits from 2007. Luckily the swim is in a lake that has glass like water so there will be NO EXCUSES for not swimming fast! And then the bike and run are relatively hilly which isn't necessarily my favorite but definitely plays to my strengths given the kind of terrain I train on all the time. YIPPPEEEEE!!!

Posted by beth at 12:57 PM | Comments (3)

May 6, 2008

Injury Strikes!

Fortunately I'm not talking about myself but UNfortunately our little puppy (she's not really a puppy but that's what we call her) is injured!

Not really sure how or when it happened but all of a sudden O and I noticed that Roxy was favoring her left hind leg! She doesn't appear to limp when she is walking (or even running) but she has a good deal of trouble getting up the steps and jumping up into the bed. It's so sad to see her gimping around!! She ran with us on both Saturday and Sunday and was fine.

We did a thorough check of her whole entire body including her pads and paws, checked for any hot spots, cuts, ticks, or any particularly sore spots. We can press all over the leg she is favoring and she doesn't pull away or wimper but she is certainly not herself! She usually bounds up the steps in about 0.0055 seconds and last night (and still today) she is stalling out halfway because of that dang back leg.

So of course I did an extensive google search on the matter (what did we do before either (1) the internet or (2) google?) and found about 10,000 different things her limping could be from. The consensus, however, seemed to be that we should give it a day or two or three and if it is not improved at that point, go to the vet and see what's up.

I was hoping to come home from work today and see that she was miraculously better but this unfortunately wasn't the case. Still limping. In an effort to reduce any stress on the injured leg I've been carrying her up and down the steps but she's a bad patient and as soon as I carry her up the steps she runs back down. Dumb dog! :) Then, she was begging to go outside so against my better judgement I let her out. I was pleased to see that she had just chosen to lay down on the back porch and take in some sun. So I walked away for about 2 minutes and come back to find her racing across the yard to chase a bunny out of her yard! BAD dog! I gave her a little lecture on the fact that her injury will not heal if she doesn't take appropriate measures to reduce use of the injured appendage! So what does she do? She licked me and begged for a treat. I can see this is going to be a tough!

I read that dogs generally aren't intelligent enough to know to back off when they are hurt so it's important to limit their activity even if it requires caging them. I had to laugh a little because there have been MANY times when I too wasn't intelligent enough to know when to back off when I was hurt and caging me might have been quite the stellar idea. :)

Regardless, the plan is to give it a few days and go to the vet on Saturday if we haven't made any progress. Anybody with a similar limping dog problem in the past that might have any suggestions?

By the way, it's now official, I can never have children. I've been so worried about Roxy's leg and she is a dog and it's probably only a little strain! Imagine if I had a child that was seriously ill?! I would be non-functional! I don't know how you parents do it! :)

Posted by beth at 6:02 PM | Comments (6)

May 5, 2008

Not Much Going On

Well, the title about says it all!

I only had one workout today (a swim) which I did this morning and which went very well. That meant that after work today I had plenty of time to get some things done! I had a chiro appointment and then a massage and oh...how good they felt. They both actually sort of hurt while they are happening, but in the long run, make me feel much better.

I still managed to beat O home and have dinner ready and on the table when he arrived! How is that for amazing?! (I'm sure a lot of people do that every day but it rarely happens at our house as I'm usually in the midst of another workout when he gets home :)

I was also enjoying reading all the news about Shalane Flanagan's American record run in the 10K last night at Stanford. Simply amazing! They went through the 5K in 15:17 and she ended up running 30:34 thereby running exactly even splits! Pretty tough to do if you ask me!! My one claim to Shalane fame is the fact that I met her several years back when she actually came on a recruiting visit to Penn State. Of course she ended up at the Univesity of North Carolina where she was a multiple NCAA champ!

Regardless, I'm excited that I now have nothing else on the to-do list and am headed to bed very soon. I LOVE getting a lot of sleep! Good night all!

Posted by beth at 8:31 PM | Comments (0)

May 4, 2008

St. Croix!

Wow! Double Wow!! And Triple Wow Too!!!

This has been an exciting triathlon afternoon! Upon returning home from church we turned on the MSNBC coverage of the recent women's Olympic trials and I loved every second! Those gals make swimming 19 minutes look easy, not to mention running 35 minutes look like a jog in the park! Very inspiring!

And then I raced upstairs to see the results of St. Croix and was equally inspired. Holy cats!! We were listening to the online coverage of the race before leaving for church and I was so thrilled to hear that Bree Wee was in the top group of pro women. But then we had to leave while they were on the run. No worries though because she sure did finish it off with style!! As did Elizabeth in her first big pro race!!

And then my teammates had a field day too, coming in first and second in the women's 40-44 AG and my other teammate and close friend (who was also my teammate at Penn State) winning the 25-29 AG. Kona here they come!! (and I know Kona is absolutely brutal with HEAT, WIND, HUMIDITY, LAVA and the like but truthfully, St. Croix didn't exactly sounds like a walk in the park either... :)

So congrats to everyone! Makes me so excited to race again myself. THIS IS WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT! The prize and reward for a lot of hard, long hours!

Posted by beth at 3:17 PM | Comments (0)

May 3, 2008

WET!

Upon close examination of the weather report and radar (by O, not me of course) it was decided that it would be best to do my long ride first this morning and then go swimming after so as to avoid the rain/storms coming into our area.

I usually swim and then ride/run on Saturdays but if doing the swimming 2nd meant getting to ride outside vs riding the trainer later, I was all for it! So on with my cycling gear and off I went!

Of course approximately eight minutes into my ride, it started to rain.

I guess our radar predictions were off by a couple hours. :) At first it was just a light sprinkle and so I just kept riding. I was enjoying my ride and going along happily until about an hour into the ride when the skys opened and it started to pour. At which point I was really, really, really wet.

The thought of calling O to come get me crossed my mind (he hadn't yet left for his track meet today) but I decided that I might as well just stick it out. I'm the kind of person that generally won't start a ride in the rain but if I'm out there and the rain starts, I'll continue the ride without much coaxing.

The rest of the ride was...well...very wet. It continued to rain pretty steadily up until the final 15 minutes or so but luckily it was in the 60s so I wasn't too cold and the traffic was light so I wasn't too scared about unsafe riding conditions. I can't say that I love riding in rain, but I was glad to have been able to ride outside instead of inside on the trainer.

I'm not too sure my cycling shoes will ever dry out again but that's another worry for another day. :)

Upon arriving home I immediately got in the shower because I knew I was going to get very cold very fast. Luckily I was able to avoid that scenario altogether by getting my wet cycling clothes off and getting myself into the hot water very quickly. I was even a good little triathlete and cleaned off Scotty (my bike) right away because I knew if I waited until after my swim and lunch and my ice bath and shower and stretching and... I knew if I waited at all it would be days before he got cleaned which means all that nasty road dirt I picked up along the way would be crusted on like cement.

Anyway, next up was the pool which was absolutely deserted! The YMCA altogether was pretty empty. I had a lane all to myself and got busy with a main set that had a little of everything - 300 pulls, 100s, 50s, some kick... It was a good time and I felt good and strong and was pleased with the result.

So that was my morning/early afternoon in a nutshell. Right now I feel a nap coming on which I can only assume is in part due to the still rainy, dreary weather outside. Luckily I think I know a little black furball named Roxy that would like to join me... :)

Posted by beth at 3:51 PM | Comments (2)

May 2, 2008

Head Gear

This morning when my alarm went off I wasn't quite sure where in the world I was, or if I was even in a world at all. Yep, one of those mornings. :) I did find my senses in short time though and got up and out of bed and to the pool.

I was glad when I was driving home from work today that I had already done both of my workouts for the day (after the swim I did a short, easy recovery run) because I was ready for a NAP! And sure enough, upon walking through the door, feeding Roxy and quickly checking my email, I crawled into bed. Roxy joined soon after (she eats her dinner in about 0.0005 seconds) and we made for one cozy couple. I was sooooo sleepy as was she (don't ask me how because all she does all day is sleep).

When I finally woke up (about an hour later) it was time for dinner! I was still incredibly groggy but after some food and some tv I was ready to go again. I rallied to clean up my dinner mess, get my gear ready for tomorrow's training, iron, take care of some emails, and do some other odds and ends. Quite a productive evening once I got my extra zzzz's in!

By the way, lest you wonder what I did with O, he is away at a track meet all tonight and also tomorrow. Track season is brutal. The poor guy mostly eats dinner in the car on the way to a meet or on the way home from one. :)

Anyway, as for the title of this entry, I've recently been receiving lots of head gear in the mail. First, in a package with some other team gear, this visor appeared on our door step.

Now let me tell you of my brief visor history. Back about 6 or 7 years ago when visors because popular (I believe I was in college), I desperately wanted to be able to wear one. I've always been a hat wearer when I run but the visor...it held a lot of promise. I had one major problem though - I always looked *really* dumb in visors. My head must be shaped oddly or too big or something. Visor after visor I tried and I was never pleased with the result. So I kept wearing my hats.

Fast forward a couple years when I get into triathlon. Now I really wish visors would look somewhat normal on my head because EVERYone wears a visor in triathlon. Plus it's always about 10,000 degrees by the time you get to the run in a triathlon so a visor seemed even better as it had to be cooler than a full hat.

But alas, my head still looked dumb in a visor.

But then this new visor showed up at our house and upon trying it on, I decided it didn't look too bad at all! I was very excited and proceeded to wear the visor around all night. Victory! I'm not sure what happened - perhaps it's this type of visor or perhaps my head shrunk - but either way I deemed it wearable. So now I can't wait to race again and wear my new visor. What do you think - look okay?

The next piece of head gear to arrive was a new team aerohelmet. This is also very exciting!

I decided some time ago that the aerohelmet is by far the strangest looking piece of equipment that exists in our sport. I mean really - a helmet with a pointy end? But aerodynamics are aerodynamics and apparently they don't care what you look like. So aerohelmet it is. I have never worn one so I'll be excited to try it out in my next race. Of course I'll have to do a few rides around here to make sure it works okay first. So now my neighbors will think I'm even more odd than they originally thought... :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Posted by beth at 8:13 PM | Comments (4)

May 1, 2008

Swim/Work/Ride/Sleep

WHERE does the time go I ask? Seems as if it just flys by. One minute I'm getting up and putting the contacts in to start the day and the next minute I'm getting ready for bed again.

Nonetheless let's talk swimming! This morning I made a reappearance at masters practice! I feel like I haven't been there forever but really it was just last week that I skipped seeing as how I was on a different schedule for the race. Anyway, this morning was 30x75 (we are back to SCY) set up as 3x(10x75). I really liked this workout! It was over before I knew it (and that's even considering the fact that my lane lost count and actually did 31x75! :)

Within each set of 10 there were 2x75 that were "all out" of which I consistently swam :50s. That didn't mean much to me at the time as I don't regularly swim 75s and therefore don't know what a good time might be. But while I was stretching after the workout, I was doing some calculating and decided that :50 was, at the very least, 1:10 pace and maybe a bit faster. I'll take it!

Anyway, I felt good and strong and wondered at least 10 times during the workout why I don't feel like this during the swim portion of races. But then I assured myself that sooner or later I will figure it all out.

Work was work and then home for a bike ride! I was super excited because it was VERY nice outside while I was driving home. I had been preparing myself mentally for a trainer ride because it was supposed to be stormy and raining but apparently the weathermen got that one wrong! Instead it was sunny and in the high 60s. Could you ask for better cycling weather? And it wasn't even windy!

I didn't get started until a little later in the evening but that just made for an even nicer ride because traffic had died down some. And I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Now excuse me while I go thoroughly enjoy my bed. :) Good night everyone!

Posted by beth at 9:38 PM | Comments (1)