4/20/2010

It's been a crazy couple of weeks. I've been training really hard and it's coming down the to wire. It's time for me to start tapering off a little. I've really been pushing it the last couple of weeks. I hope it pays off.

We had a nice indoor training ride and watched the 2006 Wildflower video. It was fun to watch. It seems like the event will be really great. The training session just kicked my rear end but that's a good thing. I always feel great after working really hard. 2 days later we did a moderately hilly ride with the Tahoe team and my legs felt it a bit but that didn't really hold me back.

The training session in the pool was excellent. Tim put us through the ringer so to speak. He wanted us to work on the start of the race so he had 4 of us in one lane struggling for room and he had a kick board and was making waves and splashing us in the face the whole time. We worked on looking up when we swim in order to stay on line so we don't stray too far off course and we also worked at swimming with our head completely out of the water just in case we choke or something that we'll be able to keep swimming and not get run over. Overall some good learning experiences.

I was happy with my running last week. I did 5 miles of a hill repeater. I found a hill that's a half mile long. It goes from the towpath parking lot on Rockside and up the hill to Independence. I checked it out on Map My Ride and there are sections that are a 20% grade. I was pleasantly surprised that I was not only able to run up it once but 5 times. Now I understand that running downhill is SOOOO much easier than up (I've had issues with that in the past). My knees held up fabulously on the run and have been doing well in general. Now the only issue is they started to burn a little last Thursday while I was running to work so I have to be careful, make sure to stretch and ice my shins after I run and I should be fine. I've been resting a little and will probably head to the gym in the next week or so and work a bit on the elliptical the keep my legs in shape and avoid all the pounding. I am so ready to get there and get this done. I know I have another week and a half but I feel good. My legs are starting to recover from the extreme activity that I've put them through over the last week.

On Sunday I went for a group ride with the Tahoe team. The coaches have been extremely gracious and allowing us to ride along with them. My legs were so tired to start the ride. It was raining and windy and cold. None of that really bothered me though. I just wanted to keep the legs pumping. I have issues with my left thigh if I don't remember to warm it up and stretch it really good before we start and of course I forgot. So I had some problems until about mile 25 once I was really "warmed" up. Poor Jan had a flat tire. I'm not surprised. We hit some pretty rough roads. I'm surprised I didn't have a flat. We had some issues in getting the tire changed but managed well enough. It's better that he had the flat yesterday than at Wildflower. My legs were really tired when we finished but I still felt like I could run afterward. I wish I could've run with Jan but I had to go meet with my parent's then head to my brother's for my niece's birthday. My feet were frozen by the time we finished and I actually wore my shoe covers.
I took yesterday off as a rest day. (still did some running to work, lol always late).

Yesterday we dropped of our bikes to be shipped out today. Kadence is now on her way to California. Of course I had issues. We have to remove the pedals from our bikes and my left pedal just refused to come off. We tried everything. We ended up partially stripping the bolt on there and we tried removing it with the allen wrench but it wouldn't budge. I think we even partially stripped the wrench itself. Tim said he was going to stop by this morning and see if he could get it off after we let some lube soak in. If not, she's going with one pedal. I rode to work this morning and I can't believe the difference between bikes. It felt so weird to ride my old bike. As usual I felt great when i got in to work this morning. I love to ride :)

4/6/10

My legs are a little tingly today. Had a nice brisk ride to work this morning. The training the last few days has been good. We rode with the Tahoe team again last Saturday and it was a blast. It was a hilly ride and I had so much fun. I rode 43.5 miles then we decided to run after our ride and we managed to run 3 miles afterward but we were all beat and decided to stop after 3. I would've liked to go farther than that but I was gassed. I had nothing left in the tank. I need to eat more while riding so I have something left for the run.

Yesterday I was going to swim after work and but when I got off work I was extremely tired. I was determined to at least get in the pool yesterday. After all it was the only chance I'd get this week to swim and I don't think I can really afford to take a week off at this point in my training and so close to the event. So I trudged to the gym. I got into my suit then the shower and I was already cold. Just didn't feel like swimming. I went to the pool and all the lanes were taken. Bummer. I was going to wait till a lane opened but by the time I hung up my towel there was an open lane. Good for me :)

I started my swim thinking I would do 3 sets of 500 yards followed by a 200 yard cool down. As I got swimming, I felt pretty good. The longer I swam the more of a rhythm I go into. The pool length is 20 yards so I figured 25 laps and I would take a brief respite. Then I began to think that I'd do 50 laps then rest. But as I got closer to 50 I though why not just swim 75 laps and that would be my 3 500's. The more I thought about it (and believe me there's plenty opportunity to think while swimming back and forth in a pool) the more I tried to figure out how many laps would make a mile . I came up with 88 laps. 88 laps??? That wasn't really that much farther than the 75 I had already set my sights on. What's 13 more laps? I managed to swim those 88 laps in 50 minutes. Earlier in the year Tim had us time ourselves in 10 minutes of swimming. I swam 14 laps in 10 minutes. Yesterday at an easy pace I swam 17.6 laps in 10 minutes. Not bad I'd say. Especially for someone who up till now swam purely to stay alive. When I got out of the pool I felt a little wobbly but I'll take it. I felt good after I had dinner. I slept really well last night that's for sure. Bry kept me up late all weekend and we got up early both Saturday and Sunday.

Managed to drag myself out of bed early this morning and ran 3 miles on the treadmill. I would've liked to run more but I just don't have enough time in the morning. I'll start running after work now. I need to get used to running after I ride my bike.

So far I've lost 7 lbs over the last three weeks. It seems that the weather has turned and that's always when I start losing. I don't know what it is but I can never seem to lose/maintain my weight over the winter.

4/2/2010

We got our new wetsuits! I feel like Steve Martin in "The Jerk" "The phonebook is here! The phonebook is here!..." Yes it would seem that this isn't a reason to get all worked up about but I took it to our group swim session to make sure it fit and holy cow! What a difference!!!. I swam 1700 yards in less than an hour and it didn't feel like I hardly got started when it was time to finish. Of course it took me 10 minutes to get into the suit but once I figured it out it was no big deal. I couldn't believe how much easier it was to swim in the wetsuit. I feel really good about the triathlon now. I feel confident that I'll be able to do the swim it's just how quickly I can get through it. The the bike ride is going to be tough. I really need to get my hill work in. The run is going to be equally as tough maybe tougher because it's really hilly. Again I need to get my hill work in. So now my training pretty much looks like run, run, run, swim, ride, ride, run, ride, swim, run, run ....LOL run as much as I can, ride as much as I can, and swim as much as I can and sleep in there at one point or another.