rocketpants

Progress

2011-07-28T22:28:00.000-07:00

Progress in a strength program comes in fits and spurts. Kettlebells have been an interesting journey over the year I have trained with them. The past 6 months there have been ups and downs. Some weeks I can feel my strength in every part of me, other weeks picking up the 12kg bell seems heavy when it usually feels like a peanut to me.

But today...huge progress. Huge. I retested my 100 kettlebell snatches (you have 5 mins to attain 100) for the RKC snatch test. 16kg is the prescribed weight for a woman my size (>123 pounds). I can only use chalk for the test. I actually didn't know this prior to the test and thought I could use chalk or tape if I wanted to so I was well taped...ooops...but since the test is now at the end...if my hands are dead after...so be it. The snatch test has been moved to Sunday...it used to be on Friday. This means that after 3 days of being beat down I get to do the snatch test. Sounds like fun...not.

But the last time I tested and passed the snatch test was about 5 weeks ago. You have 5 minutes to get 100 kettlebell snatches. 5 weeks ago = 4:54. This morning:

4:15

I totally crushed my goal times. 4:15 was a STRETCH goal...a post RKC goal...not a 5 week later goal. I was HOPING that maybe I could go sub 4:30 this round. But holy cow...

The thing is in the past few weeks I have FOCUSED on technique. Not a lot of high reps, just perfect reps. A few weeks ago we saw that I was 'casting' the bell a little bit too far out on the down swing. This in turn was causing pinching and callous issues on my hands. By adjusting my elbow a little bit I can now do the 'cast and catch' technique a little better and it seems I am saving my energy too. This time around just felt easier...yes I'm 5 weeks fitter, but it just seemed easier too. My HR didn't feel like it got into the high 170s/low 180s (that is total redline for me) which I know it did last time. If I were to guess, I'm guessing it was in the mid 160s/low 170s. The thing about when your HR gets high and you are swinging a heavy weight around the brain messes with you. That was the other thing I was more controlled about. My little brain was in the ZONE. I just kept calm and focused, my pace barely waivered and I didn't get nervous. When you get tired near the end the tendency is to get nervous and start using bad form.

The other thing. No resting. No wanting to rest. No putting the bell down. A few times I could start to feel the fatigue set in so I knocked the pace down a bit, but 4:15 is a pretty solid pace and time.

What's amazing is to see how far in 6 months I have come with just consistent work. Consistency is really key. I was laughing with my trainer this morning because he said: lifting weights is easy...just pick them up and put them down a bunch of times. And do it over and over. ;-)

One full week and a bit of heavy focused training and then partial taper for a week (lighter weight and a little lower volume) and full taper for the week after (mini workouts, but nothing crazy). Can't believe it is almost here. I'm excited.

6 weeks and counting

2011-07-07T22:47:00.000-07:00

That's it...6 weeks til my RKC...which really means 4 weeks of training and 2 weeks of taper. Or one week of psudeo taper and the other week of real taper. HOW does one taper for something like an RKC?? Guess I'll follow the same principle as a race...lower volume...keep the intensity.

Just got back from a small vacay...got stuck back in my hometown due to plane delays but finally got in today. Found a few kettlebells when I was home at various gyms, but found ONE proper kettlebell gym and the owner was MORE than generous with letting me train there. That was nice because all the other kettlebells I found in town sucked. I tore parts of one finger up due to the roughness of one of the bells. Not a happy girl.

But hit a PR that is BIG to me. Going into the RKC one thing I have to pass are 2 x 16kg bell presses for 5 reps. Apparently women can drop down a weight for the press if they need to, but I WANTED to do the right weights. I could get to about 3 reps and then maybe half of a 4th...but that was it. I managed it not one time but two times!! Very exciting. I changed my feet position a bit which helped. I need a little bit more of a narrow stance it seems.

Plan from here out is 3 days on, one day off, 2 days on (predominately swing and snatch practice) one day off. One of my off days will = yoga the other will be OFF. The 3 days on are to mimic what it will be like at the RKC. Three days in a row of swing, clean, press, TGU, snatch, front squat. I will rotate with weights, some days heavier some days lighter...and try to practice outside. Motto being: Nothing new on race day. (The RKC is outside)

Between now and RKC, I do plan to do 2 more tests of 100 snatches under 5 mins. One of those is in a week. Both will be 'legal' with just chalk or tape. That would help boost the confidence going into the weekend.

Getting that nervousness that is like getting ready for an A race...focused, but a few butterflies flying around.

And the new number is...

2011-06-23T22:34:00.001-07:00

Practice test #2...100 kettelbell snatches in 4:52 minutes with the 16kg bell. RKC...i'm one step closer. 8 weeks to go.

I tested with some small knit gloves and I cannot do my actual test with them. Only chalk or tape. So from now until the RKC that's all it will be about...chalk and tape when I'm doing my kettlebell snatches. It's just hard to tape your hands when you train by yourself, but I am teaching myself and have purchased both johnson and johnson Zonas athletic tape as well as johnson and johnson Coach athletic tape. Difference? Zonas is supposed to be tougher adhesive and I couldn't figure out if it had Zinc Oxide (which a random blog about the RKC mentioned you wanted tape with Zinc Oxide in it...why?? I have no idea...but I"m trusting tribal knowlege on these things right now) in it or not...which is why i bought the Coach tape. So the ultimate question is what's the difference? I don't know yet. Haven't noticed much difference. But CVS brand athletic tape SUCKS. The adhesive will get all over your bell and stay there and the coefficient of friction on the tape is higher so while the J&J brands aren't perfect the bell does slide a little easier (not much) over the tape.

Still tricky with tape though. Tape bunches and still get hot spots on my hands...but it is forcing me to try to use the cast and catch technique which really just moves the callouses on your hands to your fingers. Those are actually a little easier to work with and don't hurt so bad when you rip them. Yes that is a WHEN not if statement. You will rip your hands from time to time. Just try not to do it too much. I file those callouses down regularly to try to save my hands from ripping.

And a rant about chalk. I would LOVE it if someone could intellectually explain why chalk is good for doing kettlebell snatches...repetitively. It makes no sense to me. I think i use the chalk to make the adhesive parts of my tape less sticky...not so much for my hands. But chalk are to HELP your grip...not make it lower friction. Climbers use it to hold on tighter to the rock...powerlifters use it to...GRIP THE BAR. So WHY would I want to use it for something that is repetitive like a snatch test?? I can understand a really heavy bell that you are only doing one or two snatches with, but...something that makes your hands sweat (hence you then make paste) and also increases your grip...which means MORE hotspots on your hands...not less. The callouses on my hands are because I can't get the bell off my palms fast enough. I don't want to increase that. I have tried putting it on the tip of my fingers and on the tape (to decrease the tacky factor of the adhesive...while chalk is a friction promoter...not as bad as tape adhesive). Confusing to me. I'm still playing with it...but intellectually it doesn't make any sense to me.

And on a non-kettlebell but related note. Branched Chain Amino Acids are AWESOME. I think it is actually magic fairy dust in a bottle. My recovery seems to be...possibly better??? is the the BCAAs? I have no idea, but I think they do make a difference. I'm using them on my rides as I'm not consuming much in the way of a sports drinks as my rides are usually only around the 2 hour mark and not that hard. But I use them during the ride and after...or after a hard kettlebell workout. They rock. Xtend is the brand I use. I don't recommend the watermelon...it's a bit sour. I've heard the grape or apple are ok. But buy it online...almost half the price!

And the number is...

2011-05-27T22:17:00.000-07:00

Today was the first time I tried the RKC snatch test, 100 kettlebell snatches in 5 mins, at the prescribed weight for me...16kg/35lbs.

And the answer is...

close...so close...but no dice.

That being said: 3 weeks and I'm having a rematch!

Still 12 weeks until my RKC. I believe between now and the RKC I will be able to pass some practice snatch tests 3-4 more times. And hopefully get my conditioning to sub 4:30.

My conditioning is *almost* there...three solid weeks of training and I'll should get it within 5 minutes. I had great pacing, but just rested too long around the 60-70 mark. Learning how to keep swinging the bell when you are that state of hypoxia is interesting. It would be like trying to run a 5K and mid race repeatedly picking up heaving weights and swinging them around with a 5K heart rate. Convincing yourself you have the strength when you are tired like that is tough.

Things that went well: pacing was good. I had a good pace even when I picked up the timing after breaks.

I fought hard at the end. At 4:15 I still had 20 reps to go and I FOUGHT to get them done in those 45seconds. My typical pace when I'm not tired is is 20 reps/50-55 seconds...so being fatigued at that point I still tried to get back on pace and tried to even think about going FASTER than my normal pace which was hard at the end.

Live to fight another day.

Bring it! Fight face ON!

A newly minted Kettlebell instructor and now I have my own class!

2011-05-26T21:53:00.000-07:00

I just got my HKC (Hardstyle Kettlebell certification) on Saturday. My instructor said it would be helpful to take before my RKC (Russian kettlebell challenge) in Aug...in 12weeks.
I walked into that certification and laughed because I was the only non-health and fitness industry person in the room. I'm taking the RKC because it is a good challenge and I like training for things...not because I want to teach kettlebells...well that is what I thought until I took the HKC.

So when I walked into the HKC I just figured it would be good prep for the RKC. Learn about the layout and how it is run. Since the HKC strength requirements are minimal compared to the RKC, (15sec flexed arm hang for the women and I think 5 pullups for the guys) I figured I could just go and see what it was all about.

I left the HKC knowing HOW prepared I was for the RKC in terms of form. My swing is on track and well as my turkish getup and my goblet squat. Now...tomorrow I will know how close or far away I am from passing the 5 min snatch test with the 16kg bell and then the overall thing that freaks me out more than the snatch test are the 3 solid days of training 8+ hours a day, in the San Diego summer heat (it can get hot in Aug), with 2-3 workouts within each day. Errr...I'm not ready for that yet. 12 weeks to go.

But here was the funny thing...i passed my certification and was talking to a friend about maybe teaching a class or something. And I got to work and it practically fell in my lap. I now have my own kettlebell class at work 1 day week...possibly 2. Trouble is that I'm a little limited on bells at work both in weight (only 20pounds) and number (only 4). But we have had some discussion with people if they really like it they can buy a bell. So...i taught a few willing participants how to swing a bell properly on Wed. Very cool!

Kind of funny...esp since the teaching fell into my lap sort of accidentally.

2 PRs

2011-05-10T21:54:00.000-07:00

RKC training is going...ok for the most part. Few little odd things here and there like: did you know that your ribs can 'pop' out of alignment sorta like your spine can get out of alignment. But usually they will pop back in...eventually. I managed to pop one or two of those suckers out last week. OWCH. Fortunately it was RIGHT before my massage therapy appointment where she is the queen of popping them back in. Painful...but I'm doing better now.

My strength is coming along...but it is something that takes time and patience. You can't cram strength like you can cram for a test. You just have to be consistent and diligent...push when you need to push and rest when your body is asking for it. And the reality is that with kettlebells they can really rip you a new one if you push too hard too fast.

But...i'm still not where I need to be for my RKC. True I have 15 weeks...but still...I'm nervous. I know silly because 15 weeks out from a big race you don't expect that you can DO that race...do you? I mean if it is your first rodeo at that distance why on earth would you think 15 weeks out that you can actually be able to DO that...15 weeks out.

But there is more to my RKC than just passing the kettlebell snatch test (100 snatches with 16kg bell in 5 mins)...there is that whole 3 days 8+ hours of training that I also have to survive through...so I'm also trying to increase training load to sustain that. Consistency...and trying not to injure oneself is the goal. Err the injuries...fortunately sort of minor, but really frustrating. The rib thing came at the tail end of two EXTREMELY awesome weeks of training.

But then yesterday I PR'd...two times. I finally got a turkishget up with the 16kg bell on both sides as well as I did a chin up. Pretty sweet on both fronts! The TGU is really awesome because I have some struggles with it due to my overly active hipflexors who like to get in the action (thank you cycling) rather than my core. So I tend to struggle a bit with them...16kg just seemed so HEAVY...but I knew I might have to 'test' with it when I do my RKC...so I wondered how I would get there. And I DID. yea!!

And now it is time to get some good recovery sleep so I can train in the morning. :-)

Happening again...

2011-04-30T23:57:00.001-07:00

I happened again: Training Induced Narcolepsy.

A refresher on the term: Training Induced Narcolepsy : Random and sometimes uncontrollable bouts of sleep after a hard workout. (term...made up by me).

Two unplanned naps today happened. One of them was the: oh...i'm not that tired, i'll just lie down for a second but just in case...I'll set my alarm. 45 minutes later after being out COLD i woke up to my alarm. The second case, in the middle of a funny movie. I was laughing hard too and suddenly...asleep.

Today's bike ride was great. Roughly 45 miles. Nice burn lines on the quads to prove I went out...slow as molassas but feeling stronger. It's tough because I'd like to FOCUS on getting stronger on the bike, but my main goal this season really is kettlebells and the RKC in Aug...so I can't really do over do the endurance workouts or my kettlebell workouts do start to suffer. I can do some, but you really can't focus on two things at once like that. Well...you can, but then both of them are just marginal.

But my legs are coming back and that is a nice thing.

17 weeks

2011-04-25T19:04:00.000-07:00

17 weeks til the RKC...errr...um...yea. In two weeks I'm going to see where I am at for a 5 min snatch test with the 16kg. Considering today I smoked myself with 112 snatches in 10 mins alternating between my 14kg (new) and my 16kg bell. That doesn't bode well for the 5 min test...but the whole point of the test is to 'see' where I am at.

I found an RKC prep outline and decided to try one of the sets. Again...deceiving because you look at the list and think: easy...peasy....and then half way through the presses want to pass out. The whole set was pretty tough swing-clean/press-swing-clean/squat-swing-TGU-swing snatch-swing doing between 5-10 reps per movement. Everything double 14s (except the TGUs and snatches of course)

I got some new 'bells last week. Two 14 kg...for me right now they are perfect weight...not too heavy and not too light. They are a challenge for my presses but let me still get reasonable volume compared to pressing 2 x 16 kg where I do one...maybe two double presses before I'm done. I was able to knock out 5 clean and presses for two rounds...granted it was more like do 3 and then rest and do the other 2...but still 5. They make the snatches harder than the 12kg...so that is good because the 12 is sorta ridiculous at the moment. Weird thing is I have a 'harder' time with the lighter weights. I am told that my swings and movements tend to look 'better' with the heavier weight. weird.

So training is coming back. My transverse oblique is behaving itself. All good.

I thought it was my back?

2011-04-15T22:18:00.000-07:00

2 weeks ago mid kettlbell workout my back started to hurt. Just on swing types of movements, not on presses, but on cleans and swings. And by hurt I mean: i couldn't breathe kind of pain. The kind of pain where you go to work after your morning workout. Look at the calendar, clear you calendar and head to the doctor's office begging for muscle relaxants.

I think managed to squeeze myself into get a massage as I was in so much pain I wouldn't have been able to work anyway and hoped for the best. I hurt. She inflicted a lot of pain and I continued to hurt. But the biggest thing was that twisting motion from side to side was where I was having issue and it was just my right side, right where my lat ends and it seemed to be my anterior seratus wrecking havoc.

A week went by, I had to travel for work...so sleeping in hotel beds is not usually good on the back to start off with but now it was extra special. But I survived and finally this week got in to see my sports acupuncturist who discovered my right lat was still pretty pissed off and then started poking around...on my stomach.

And then she found the root cause: my transverse oblique(abdominus) was PISSED. A lot of not fun followed by a massage the next day with more non-fun has actually made me almost 100% functional. To the point that my body doesn't even feel like I endured the crazy pain. It's just not there anymore. Amazing what releasing a muscle can do.

Root cause: my right hip has a slight more anterior tilt than my left. This causes issues running (functional leg length issues), and so I have a 'plan' of what i need to do to help level the stupid hips out.

Stupid hip...you always give me some form of chaos in my life.

crazy week on so many fronts

2011-03-24T20:17:00.000-07:00

It's been nuts this week on a few fronts, some good some not so good as well as some EXCITING stuff going on over here. Crazy...but exciting. On a training front it's been a bizzare week. The last two weeks my training has been a little lackluster. Meaning...the workouts weren't that great. Every lift I did would feel HEAVY. Everything sucked. My kb snatch went to hell in a handbasket as well as my elbows started to be a little sore which meant i wasn't doing them right...which means: STOP DOING THEM. Ok...they weren't *that* bad, but they weren't good by any means. It was frustrating. It felt like my body was rebelling to the training. And then on sunday i woke up exhausted...like memories of last year exhausted. Which considering it has been about a year since all of that happened, slightly horrifying. But...fortunately after a couple days of rest I started to feel better. And I had an ok training day on Tuesday. And then I got to my session with my RKC instructor and...well...it was awesome.

In order to pass the physical aspects of the RKC weekend a woman has to do a flexed arm hang for 15 seconds and depending on her weight has to do 100 snatches with a 12kg or a 16kg bell. Women weighing 123 and less use a 12kg and those weighing more than 123 pounds uses a 16kg. Considering I literally have 123 pounds of lean body mass on my frame at at the moment and I don't have 0%bf...I'm in the latter category.

Flexed arm hang...check. I could do it before I started training. But the 100 kb snatches with the 16kg. This takes a lot of cardio/endurance as well as strength. When I first started I could barely get close to 100 with the 12kg...but with time.... strength has a way of creeping in when you consistently train. Funny how that works. But the other component is training well... meaning doing only quality.

First things first was technique...i had to work on the technique so that I had efficient enough form to get me through the 100 reps. First my 12kg improved. But last week my 16kg looked bad, but the 12kg was fine. Mildly frustrating. I went and worked just on one arm swings because I was losing the 'swing' on the downward side of the snatch. And...weirdly...i didn't train as much this week. I just *thought* about the technique because I need to get my elbows to bend on the way down. And you know what...today was fantastic.

So...here are a few milestones that I need in order to pass the RKC certification. Flexed arm hang for 15 secs and then 100 snatches in 5 mins with 16 kg. The milestones I think are good to get to that goal of 100/5 mins are these:
1)100 12kg snatches...in any time...check...able to do this a few weeks after I started.
2)100 12kg snatches in 5 mins...check...and now I can do it and it feels like a good workout, but not killer.
3)100 16kg snatches in any time. CHECK. I DID THIS TODAY!!! We planned out a 10 minute 100 snatches...5 each side and then rest the rest of the minute for 10 mins.

YEA!!!

AND...form was great.

next milestone...100 in 5 mins with the 16kg.

After my body rebelling for a few days...this was an awesome thing today. That boost of confidence to know that I physically can handle 100 snatches with the 16kg is awesome. There is a cardio aspect of that now I have to improve to get to 100/5 mins as well as more strength...but I'll get there before Aug.

The flexed arm hang and the snatch test are the two physical requirements but there are other testing aspects to the weekend that I am working on strength for as there is a lot of two kettelbell tests and right now it seems we are trying to get me strong enough to test with 2 x 16kg. Those overhead presses are refusing to improve quickly, but progress is never linear. I find this true especially with weights. So one day you are kicking butt and the next you can't lift anything. It's interesting.

awesome...on a few fronts...happy training

Rest and recovery

2011-03-07T22:40:00.001-08:00

Last week was a forced week of recovery. No kettlbells as I was out of town for work and work was CRAZY as it was. Considering in a 60 hour time frame I got about 6 hours of sleep...and not all at once, oye...vey. Not fun. But the day before that chaos started I did get to the gym (sans kettlbells) in a new city and mucked around for a bit. I always hate the first few times you go to a new gym because you just can't *find* anything or the equipment is just a little bit different or you don't quite know how to work something so you end up looking silly for a moment or two.

I did have some 15 year old guy call me beastly because I was doing pushups between my squat sets and apparently he couldn't do that many. I was only on set 2...which is only about 20 pushups...so the comment was kind of funny although don't kids have to go to PE and do pushups on a regular basis? Then some other kid had to help me with the silly power squat rack as I was trying to do deadlifts and didn't realize it was one of those 'high tech' racks where you can just take these pins out and you have a nice place to put the bar so you can actually pull the plates off of the bar when you are done. I was appreciative, but felt silly all the same. Granted I got ten shades of stares between my turkish getups with a dumbell and my free weight lifting (apparently women with the free weights are a rarity). I have learned to just put the eyes down and ignore it...but sometimes it's hard not to fight the stares.

Since I've been focused on kettlbells I haven't been near anything but the kettlbells I have at my house (so much fun to be able to just workout in my living room!)...so I haven't played with a barbell in awhile. I wasn't trying to go for any crazy but was able to pull on my deadlifts @ 205 (93%) of my max (220) at 2 sets of 1 so that is a good sign!

Coming home after no kettbells last week I wondered how I would fare...and it went well. Definitely rested and stronger...did the most Turkish getups to date, did the most 16kg snatches to date, could press the 16kg 1 x on each side a total of 2 full sets before my left arm started to fail and could do it with my right side another 2 times. Sweet! 20kg one arm swings feel more controlled and less crazy.

Back to business!

That just feels better

2011-02-20T22:34:00.000-08:00

Practice doesn't make perfect, but perfect practice makes perfect. It's not about repeating something over and over...it's about practicing perfect form until it is perfect. That is what I have been trying to do with the kb snatch...make it perfect. When it's not perfect my wrists are bruised,my hands hurt and frequently bleed and my elbows get a touch sore because it becomes a tough arm exercise and not a hip exercise. The snatch is really just an extension of the swing. After the hip snap...let the bell float up and around eye height (or a bit before), 'punch through' and stop at the top. Then reverse. So easy to say...not so easy to do.

But it's coming...

My training on Saturday started off brutal. It was hard. Everything felt heavy. I was just trying to do stuff with the 12kg and you would have though I was dragging around something much more substantial. 12kg is a little on the heavy side for me at the moment with turkish getups because my hipflexors like to take part in the exercise and I can't keep my leg on the ground as well...but I can do it. Just not as well as with an 18pound bell (which I don't have). But on Saturday the TGUs were HEAVY. I was dragging and i couldn't figure it out. I didn't have a heavy week of training...i chalked it up to low amount of calories for the day by that point and moved on.

But by the time I got to kb snatches...everything was right as rain. Did a quick warmup with the 12kg and form felt good. Moved on to 16kg for 5 sets around 3-4 reps per set, mixing in some swings/high pulls for technique and form...but the 16kg felt pretty decent. I wasn't smacking the bell as hard on my wrist. So just for volume sake and to focus on finer details I moved to the 12kg and did a 'half' 5 min test where I would do 5 per side and rest for the remainder of a minute for 5 minutes...giving me a total of 50 snatches. Nothing major, but right now is about perfect practice and perfect form...not volume.

And you know what...they felt great. Hip snap, punch through (almost there 100%), pulling the bell back down into the swing without 'throwing it'...it's coming together and 12kg feels effortless when the technique is correct. I love that feeling.

I haven't been on my bike this week which is a bit disappointing, but mainly my fault. This next week looks a bit gnarly on the 'life' front...ok...i take that back. The next 2 weeks look that way, but at least I will get to end the gnarly-ness with a fun...fun...trip with friends wine tasting and a visit to the spa...i need a massage. I think it will be well deserved by that point fo' sure. But the next week and a half will be a bear to get through. One breath at a time one step at a time.

But the next week and half has made me pause...in a good 'life reflective' way and made me just smack myself on the head and say: what are you doing silly? Lots to think about.

War Wounds...

2011-02-14T23:15:00.001-08:00

RKC training is going pretty well. At the moment it is basically boiling down to I need to work on strength and technique with my snatch, more practice for my turkish getups (but they are coming along nicely), continual swing technique (but most people can use that) and everything else (cleans, presses, squats) are ok technique wise, but continual strength gains will be necessary. The reality is that the snatch is an extension of the swing, so really I'm working on my swing. Although some of my 'issues' are because I stop doing my swing correctly when I move into the snatch movement. Somehow my little brain gets confused and starts doing the wrong thing. Mainly I try to stop my swing before it has the chance to go fully back into the arc position under me. This means I'm not 'loading' my hips in the bottom of the swing movement. This, in turn, makes the snatch incredibly hard and turns it into a very unfun arm strength exercise instead of a hips exercise. Fortunately, I know what my body 'feels' like when it is doing this and I have mentally been correcting it wrong. So I now know how to correct it.

My left arm has a better 'groove' than my right. Probably more out of weakness than anything else. It *has* to rely on my hips because it isn't strong enough to fling the bell around so I actually do things correctly on that side.

My right arm can't figure out how to bring the bell in on the down swing. Ok...i take that back...a few times today it could figure it out, but I'm still working on this. My problem, i'm basically throwing the bell away from me mid-air. Not such a good thing to do to your elbows. Makes them kinda sore.

But my biggest problems are that since I'm casting the bell away from me and doing some other weird things, I tend to GRIP the bell too hard on the down swing. NOT GOOD. At the end of my session today I looked down to see blood:

Left hand has been giving me grief lately anyway, but I thought it was on the mend. Then I discovered half way through the day that my right hand has blisters on it. Oye vey.

And then there is this other little issue called: I'm not punching through at the right time during the snatch. Here is some proof I'm still wacking my arms with the bell:

Um...that's the beginning of a bruise, not a sunburn. Pretty don't cha think? (AND that is with arm protection bands on too. owchie)

I have turned some gloves into possible things that will help me protect my hands when practicing, although during the RKC snatch test I can't use gloves, so this is more to help when my hands are being fussy.

oh...and see my pretty pink new chucks in the background. FUN to use to lift weights in. (preferred type of shoe is one that's flat like Chuck Taylors or wrestling shoes or no shoes...which I prefer, but I was getting owies on my feet from my Turkish getups so I put my shoes back on. :-( )

And in the world of endurance sports...I managed to get on my bike not one time on this weekend but TWO. My only question at the moment is when is that 'point' where endurance exercise and anerobic exercise counter act one another. How long on the bike where it is a 'problem' for things like weight lifting? Trying to figure that one out because those who are in the world of weight lifting would say endurance sports are evil and counter to gaining strength...but there has to be some sort of happy medium? Right? Right? I am really re-bonding with my bike right now and hope I can continue to do so for awhile.

Take no prisoners

2011-02-09T20:49:00.001-08:00

16kg of all all her glory...Tatiana will not be my master...I will be hers.

Training on monday I went through some finer details of working on my kettlebell snatch...mainly because I 'punch' through on the bell too late and let the darn thing whack me. Let me tell you...the bruised wrists from last week were not acceptable. So working on technique was welcome. The beautiful thing about this was that I knew once some of these details were worked out various things would happen a)12kg snatch would become effortless and b)snatches with the 16kg wouldn't freak me out (with my left hand) quite so much. As predicted, I knew once we went through some technique stuff when I got to trying my left hand, 16kg was do-able. HEAVY...but do-able. Training today I'm still a little sloppy on the arc on the downward swing with the 16kg...so the bell is still trying to swing me around (and not the other way around), but the right hand is so much better and the 12kg is wicked easy. No bruised wrists and I feel more confident I could whip through 100 in 5 mins with the 12kg if my left hand wasn't torn up right now. Still work on needs to be done on the down swing so i'm not beating up my left hand, but it will get better with time and attention.

Lately I have been doing with kettlebells what I do with many sports...put it in terms of physics. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine tonight at dinner about knowing now what you know...and trying not to say "i wish i had know XYZ...earlier"...because if I knew now what I know...I definitely would have done more with newtonion physics in undergrad. Right now I am fascinated with the angular momentum, torque and the amount of 'work' (in physics terms) of the kettlebell swing and snatch. Nerdy I know...but hey...that's me. Although the downside is I had the WORST physics teacher in undergrad and at the time I think I slept through newtonian physics and while my grad degree I did a whole heap load of physics, totally not related to this type. What I find funny is that when i take up a sport the ways I like to 'understand' them are in terms of physics. The number of articles (including journal articles) I read on aerodynamics, drag, and power with respect to the bike is sort of silly...but that kind of thing is bizarrely interesting to me.

But things are coming along as they will. The strength needed to get through all of the RKC requirements will take some training, but I can tell it will happen with time, and perfect practice.

trying to find my groove

2011-02-05T12:05:00.001-08:00

mmmmmmmm...tasty KALE smoothie. Tastier than it looks.
Ingredients:
Water
A bunch of kale...as in a FULL bunch you buy at the supermarket
1/2 cup of raspberries (more because I put them in first forgetting I was going make a kale smoothie. They don't have the strongest flavor, so can be omitted)
1 banana...this is necessary as bananas cover the strong bitter flavor of the kale
1/4c of pineapple
dash of lemon juice...help with the bitter
dash of agave.
1 scoop of egg protein "jay Robb" brand protein powder
1 tsp flax seed oil

Things I learned in this process: put the kale in first without any other ingredients. And put it in the blender in batches. You might need to add more water.

Kale is a vegetable that is a bit on the bitter side. Lemon juice does help with that but in the end i needed it a little sweeter for my taste and put about 1tsp of agave in with it. I think I would also then add the flax seed oil and egg protein and lemon juice and then the banana. Then I would see if the pinapple was necessary or not. I'm looking forward to trying this with spinach as spinach is a little on the sweeter side compared to kale.

I'm still in that 'futzing' stage with Paleo. My main limiter the past few weeks are I haven't taken the time to do some food prep during the week or prior to the week so that makes paleo a more challenging way to eat. But as eating paleo is pretty extreme in our overly processed society (no grains, no legumes, no dairy) because of my personality I thought it was better to just take things out while giving myself a bit of grace in it. Go for 80% of the time at the moment and then attempt to eventually get to about 90-95% by the end of Feb. So far...so good. Seems I have lost a few pounds without focusing too much on it too and since I am focused on a better than pre-sick/OTS 2010 %body comp by Sept, I am headed in the right direction.

The thing so far with paleo is this...I feel better. I'm not even 100% on the paleo wagon as far as cutting out all sugar, and being SUPER nit picky or even eating it 90-95% of the time, but I just feel better. So...i'm going with that. This week will try to be more prepared.

RKC training...met with my trainer last week. I had a Functional Movement Screening and got a 13/21...you want to be at least at 14/21...so I'm decent as far as movement is concerned...some dysfunction, but ok. There is a hilarious test (OK...it was hilarious to me since I can't do it and it SEEMS so easy) in part of it. You have this board that is about 6 inches wide and you have to put your hands on either side of it and grip it with your knees too...you are in a 'tabletop' yoga pose with your hands and knees on the ground. THEN...lift both your right arm AND RIGHT leg out to the side. In Yoga...a lot of times they make you do opposite sides (i can do that fine)...but on my right side with both my right arm and my right leg I promptly topple over. Left side isn't great, but not as severe. Being the scientist that I am...I find it rather curious and wonder what underlying issue is causing that. Probably my stupid psoas who hates me on that side.

My trainer then looked at some of my kb moves...Swing is ok over all. He's nit picking on it, but I'm the personality type that I WANT nit picky, perfect form. Since I have enough time between now and RKC in Sept, I want all my form to be correct before adding the volume. Also when someone nit picks on my form, it helps me learn how to teach something. Granted my TGU (turkish getup), and kb snatch form needs a lot of help. TGU...I can't seem to roll onto my opposite arm correctly so that I am able to keep my opposite leg down. And the KB snatch...the punch through is too late and I'm WACKING my forearms. For awhile I thought I my form was alright, and then I started doing higher reps...um...notsomuch. Bruising still with wrist bands. Bruised wrists/forearms is not the best look, but at least I can wear sweaters to cover my arms at the moment.

The only thing that really annoys me at the moment about KB training...my hands. I know it is all about training your hands to grip correctly and holding the bell with your fingers like a hook, but like most people I develop callouses on my non-dominate hand more severely. It's about holding the bell looser...and I know its about holding it looser on the down swing (either the snatch or the swing), but trying to convince your head to do that...good luck. And this week in an effort to keep my callouses small...using a scary callous shaver I managed to CUT my hand...right in the spot that is one of my 'hot spots' on my left hand. Nice...just call me Grace...thanks. Fortunately the hand dermal layer regenerates at an amazing speed. Keeping it as bandaged and out of infection's way as best as I can.

Here are my 2011 goals in order of focus #1 and #2 are really my primary:
1)100 x 16kg kb snatches in 5 mins (my RKC requirements) by Sept
2)Pass the RKC in Sept
3)Get to lower than pre-sick/2010 %body fat levels by Sept. I was about 5 pounds away from that goal %body comp pre-spring 2010 sickness.
4)100 push ups...consecutively...and yes...the standard type of pushups.
5)one pullup

This should keep me busy. :-)

She's here!

2011-01-28T22:10:00.001-08:00

Tatiana showed up this week. 16 kg, or 1 pood of beauty and brutality. I did a fun little workout today with my family of kettlbelles. I started with 15 minutes of half turkish getups with one 12kg...yes...me and my pathetic getups. I think I need at least a 10kg, because while I can sorta do the 12kg, on my left side my right leg I cannot keep down. I have trouble keeping my opposite leg down partly because I'm not rolling onto my arm correctly. I think this is a pretty good demo of the getup

And from there I progressed to double 12kg clean and presses. And in 15 mins achieved 12 sets of 3 reps. Things to work on: when i get tired I do let the 'bells slap my wrist harder than I should. I don't tame the arc very well.

And then 10 fun minutes of 20sec on/40sec off of swings and snatches. I pulled in my 20kg for the swings at the end and attempted one set of snatches with my 16kg and the rest with 12kg.

So about that 16kg...um...yea. Really what I did was high arm pulls with the 16kg on my left and and did manage 3 on my right side, but I'm going to be honest (like I was in my last post), 16kg still scares me a bit. I'm meeting with an RKC instructor on monday to have a movement screen and I will work with him towards my RKC this year...so I'm also feeling a little bit of a 'maybe I'll just work with him a bit more to get over this mildly irrational fear first'. I believe the way to move through this is found in the hip snap and the rest is mental.

What is interesting is lately I'm still reading (not commenting much) triathlon blogs and i love to hear what people are up to...what they are training for, what they want to do...but I don't have that 'pull' at the moment. But I do miss my bike (and bike fitness!!)and I do hope to visit the track this year.

The interesting thing I reflected on today is how 'easy' it is for people to come to triathlon or really anything with no background and no foundation for what they can do and what they are able to do. You sign up for your first race. You download a training plan (maybe). You follow it. You complete your race and you are all grins. Next step: new race, new training plan...and it keeps going. What you don't account for are the things that sideline you or taking a lot of time off.

I trained with my new kettlbell gym from July through the end of Sept when they closed. 3 months. Not a lot, but I had a good program that keep progressing every week. And I got stronger. And then the gym closed. And Oct when crazy, and November came around and I had my life back and I trained some...and sort of haphazard...and then there was December of more chaos in lack of focus for any kind of training and now I'm in January and I have lost that beautiful strength I had back in Sept. And what is hard for athletes is that constant thought of 'I used to not be here'. So I am letting it push me forward. I want my strength back from Sept but I also want something akin to 2009....I don't need to be in HIM shape...but this RKC certification process will put me in something equivalent. But this must happen without my body rebelling again like last year.

Forward!

Names

2011-01-18T22:57:00.000-08:00

Some People name their kettlebells...other people don't. Some people name their cars, and other people don't. I'm someone who sometimes does these types of things when inspiration hits me. My car name in New Zealand was: Kermit. He named himself when I bought him. Little green Mazda 626, the minute I saw him I just thought: Kermit and it stuck. After I moved back to the states in 2002 I bought a Mazda Protege which I still have. Brown. Sorta boring, but a good little car. But not inspiring for a name. I've tried to name him...but it's too hard after the fact. Same with my bike. Gasp...i know...the closest I've come is 'George'...but it doesn't really stick. Poor guy...i do heart him so, and yet he is nameless. snif.

But my new family of 'bells? Yep. I bought them and their names pretty much surfaced right away: Borris for the 20kg...Tatiania is on her way (the 16kg), Vlad and Anastasia for the two 12kgs and time will tell if I get a smaller guy too. I talked through the good, the bad and the ugly with Katie B about RKC certification. I get the feeling there will be a few 'Come to Jesus' moments during the 3 day grueling process, but that is why I signed up. It will test my limits. In order to pass the physical I have to be able to do 100 kettlebell snatches with the 16kg in 5 minutes. That's no joke of a test considering (shh...don't tell my secret) I'm a little intimidated to snatch the 16kg bell at the moment. I know I have the strength to do it. I can one arm swing the bell and do high pulls all day long, but prior to my new kettlebell family (which is currently missing it's 16kg family member anyway) I trained at a standard gym at the moment where proper use of a kettlbell is looked at strangely. So if anything goes awry dumping the bell and getting out of the way would probably get me kicked out. I know it is purely mental and I am fine, strong and safe with it, but I think I would rather do it in the privacy of a park. You know...those private grassy parks with other random strangers. At least they won't kick me out of the park.

Although talking through the RKC certification process with Katie B., she also suggested if I could practice (once I had the strength) to train with a heavier bell then the 16kg so that effectively the test seems 'easier'...hmmm... RKC bells don't come in an 18kg variety, but it does seem that I can buy a 40 pound bell from some other random brand. His name would be John if I try this type of training. First I need to start with the 16kg 'bell and go from there.

One reason I like kettlebells is the simplicity of them and how brutal they can be. Yesterday...three bells, one evil ab wheel = BRUTAL workout. We were doing double kb work so 2 x 12kg on a variety of moves, snatches, presses, cleans and presses, swings...in an increasing type of ladder. Yea...no big deal...except for the part where our instructor said: for 15 minutes. After 5 my arms were on fire and my grip was dying. What is brutal about kettlbells is that the workouts look really simple and almost (gasp) easy. And then after 5 minutes you wish it were over. Effective. Truly.

Onward and forward...apparently i'm in a blogging mood. Maybe it will stick?

The Trigger is Pulled

2011-01-17T15:26:00.001-08:00

Meet the new additions to the family. I also ordered a 16kg along with...SIGNING UP FOR RKC CERTIFICATION IN SEPTEMBER.

No...i'm not excited...not.at.all. eeeek...ok I lied...i'm really...really...excited.

3 very tough days to get certified to teach kettlbells and one challenging test to be considered to teach. The physical requirements are 15 second hang (for the ladies)...which I can already do since it can be either fist toward or away from you and I can at least do forward for 15 seconds (chin up style...maybe I should also make it my goal to be able to also be able to do pull up style...which is reasonable since one 2011 goal is to do ONE pull up). But the 100 kettlebell snatches with 16kg in 5 mins...oye...vey. Now THAT will be a challenge. I can probably do 100 already with a 12kg...but 16? 1 pood. Bring.it.on.

So...I bought 2 x 12kg and a 20kg today. They didn't have a 16kg on hand, so I ordered it when I signed up for the certification. Then my little kb happy family will almost be ready. Although i think i might need an 8 or a 10kg since my turkish getups are pretty pathetic at the moment....but where I can get them without shipping here in SD didn't have any 10kg on hand either.

I like goals. So this is a big one. I will probably also do a HKC certification in the spring as there is one here in SD and depending upon when the tactical strength challenge in the Fall is...I will probably sign up for that too. But I refuse to sign up for that until I can at least do 1 pullup. I doubt I will be ready this spring for that, but who knows. April is close...and far at the same time.

Piece by piece

2011-01-16T21:52:00.000-08:00

This summer/fall I was back with some training, mainly doing weights and other things, but doing *something*. And then October hit...which came in to about 70 hours of work/week combined with two things I was working on...both my main job and other...and any type of training took a back seat. I've since been doing some kettlebell work and lifting, but not as organized as I have meant to be and it totally shows.

Of course I'm the silly one and decides to throw down 45 miles in the saddle after 4+ months of not riding. Smart one. I've actually been running this week..2x...i don't know what that is about...except molasses. I actually wore my Garmin both times, so i"m not lying on that. I'm actually kind of fascinated by how slow i'm running at the moment. Not thrilled, but sort of facinated.

So...the plan is to 'do something' 7 days a week. Yoga, kettlebells, trainer, running, swimming...are all legit. But right now I'm after 6 weeks of consistency. Consistency is what I need right now and it is usually the first 3 weeks that feel like hell in this training circuit after not doing stuff constantly. So...that's the plan.

Long term plan. Still working on the next 9 months. Until I pull the trigger on my thoughts I'm not ready to publish.

Paleo: this week 3 out of 7 days went ok. It's a bit of a change taking out ALL grains, dairy, legumes...so one that need fore thought and planning. I also need to understand my energy needs. I'm reading Rob Wolfe's book as well as Joe Friel's "Paleo for Althetes" book. I'm possibly looking into some Primal books as well. I figure at the very least I will have some good recipes. I tried a paleo pancake this morning...meeh. More tasted like fluffy eggs...but trying to work on this. Too bad I A)hate grocery shopping and B)hate cooking. And by hate i mean...HATE. It's a challenge. I've given up trying to like it...because it is such an effort and chore to me. I had a friend try to show me the 'joy' in learning to cook. He somehow thought that by teaching me to cook I'd learn to like it. Here's the thing: I know HOW to cook...i just abhor it. So that is an added challenge to the Paleo cooking, but only in a little way. Eating paleo is pretty easy for main meals...meat, lots of veggies, healthy fat and if I'm recovering from a workout...some sort of starchy veggie (potato, sweet potatoes, pumpkin) and some fruit (again a good recovery source for workouts when you need carbs).

That's my random ramblings for now.

Observations

2011-01-13T14:24:00.001-08:00

It's been over 2 months since my last post: when writers block hits, it hits every area of my life.

Some days can be improved solely by going running with pigtails and a running skirt, fortunately today was one if them.

Pigtails might just be my 2011 "thing" although tough for under a helmet. I might be 33, in a career-y type of job, a professional degree of sorts, but pigtails during workouts might just be in order.

How do visors get stretched out? I don't let people with big noggins borrow them so why would they one day be too big? Oh the mysteries in life.

Thank goodness I still have a trunk like a chaotic athlete. I forgot my sports socks for my run but had a spare in my trunk. ( along with a myriad of random other things)

Want to strengthen those glutes? Pistol squats. Don't even weight them and don't worry if you can't squat all the way down (A2G) use a step bench (I've got 4 risers at the moment ~6inches off the ground) I promise stronger glutes. Or at least sore ones.

I need more Zen in my life. I wish I didn't hate yoga so much. I have to try not to hate it and practice being Zen.

I'm trying to go paleo: no grains, no dairy, minimal sugar. Today is day 4. Day 3 was a bit of a bust. Cake AND ice cream were involved.

I hope to be posting more in 2011, but I'm not holding my breath either. Happy New Year!

Been awhile!

2010-11-10T23:01:00.000-08:00

Life got in the way there for a bit...but it was for the greater good...and while super...super...super busy it was all for an amazing event in the end. So that was good.

Now I have to deal with the reality that my kettlebell gym closed at the beginning of Oct...but I have discovered an awesome Kettlbell program that I could do at my YMCA since I have a few kettlebells there. Or i've even toyed with buying my own so that people stop STARING at me when I swing kettlebells around. Or walking in my way. Um...HELLO...swinging a 25-35 pound object around. Sometimes above my head. Please don't walk in my swinging path. The one thing I can't really get around are the staring when I'm deadlifting/squating/pressing. I just need a new gym and while there are more 'lifting centric' gyms in this area...they have their own host of weirdness.

So...i have an adventure I think brewing. I'm excited and do now have plans and time to be back in this area of bloggy land so maybe i will be around a bit more these days.

And the final numbers...

2010-09-25T20:40:00.000-07:00

Max lifts on lifts I cared about:

220lbs Deadlift

145lbs Front Squat

and what impressed me the most this week...

175lbs (rock bottom...ATG)Back Squat...a 36 pound improvement over Sept 08! And to think that I was down 2 pounds of lean body mass over April 2009 when I started this lifting plan due to being sick this spring.

Gym is still closing next week, but I have about 4 different possible plans that might come to fruition, I'll know more by next Friday.

One thing I have learned about triathlon is that I like training plans and I like training goals. But right now...I don't really like triathlon. So...i'm swimming in a sea of 'what's next'? The thing that has been hard is that finding a road race or a triathlon or something that is semi related to swim-bike-run is EASY. Finding something that looks interesting to me that doesn't include 'endurance' training or is related to swimming biking or running is hard to find...I'm trying to sort through that right now.

I'm kind of going through a "What is out there?" moment. Could I pick up a new sport? If I ever find the time in the next few weeks I'm going to try out Netball. Funny sport similar to ultimate frisbee with a ball...but funnily enough is British in origin, yet I never played it in the UK or NZ when I lived there. Of course that would so be ME to pick that game up now that I don't live there...it was like the fact I picked up the american sport of Ultimate frisbee when I lived in the UK. I never do things the 'normal' way...do i?

But over the past few days a few thoughts have come to mind and I've started researching a 'what's next'...and it is not related to swim-bike-run in any form. I'm kind of excited about it...but it will be awhile til I declare it. ;-)

til then...it's finally summer here. Just in time for fall.

Weight max week and what next?

2010-09-22T21:10:00.000-07:00

This week is our max test week. I'm a big nerd and have been really excited about it. Why? Because I want to know how I have improved over my Sept 08 max from when I was doing Crossfit. At that time my Deadlift max was 210# and my backsquat was 139#. Monday I broke my DL max @220#. I still think there was a little more in me, but my nervous system was a little fried. And today I front squatted 145#. I don't have a max really for that because I have never tried to figure it out. I also was throwing around 20kg for cleans and jerks with the kettlebell which sort of surprised me a little bit. So that was fun. I also had a good laugh over my instructor telling me to do my general kettlebell swings with heavier weights because I tend to cheat and just 'muscle' the lighter weights (16kg and below)on my swings. I found this comment pretty funny.

Last week I broke my backsquat PR with 145# x 3 reps so Friday when I test my backsquat it will be fun to see what I can do beyond 145#.

So what's next? I have some random things I might be interested in working towards, but the verdict is out on what's next. I had flirted with doing Carlsbad half marathon in January...and then my affection grew a little cold. It'll probably sell out before I can make a decision. Some days I like to run, and some days I don't.

But the major bummer of what is next is...my gym is closing. :-( They were only open in this small format for a short while and due to some administrative issues the whole thing is being closed...like at the end of next week! I'm sad. I'm cooking up some options for myself, but at the end of the day...i'm sad. I was so happy there. I enjoy my instructor. I'm learning lots and finally starting to feel healthy again. I'm still far from the level of fitness I would like to get to...but it is such a difference from this spring! Something will work out. And until then...sniff.

7 weeks down and living in week 8

2010-09-15T21:06:00.000-07:00

I think some days everyone wonders about their blog...why they do it? Who really cares? Why do other people read it? And one thing I sometimes wonder is why is blogging any better than me just writing all this down in my own journal somewhere squirreled away where no one has to read my blathering. I don't know...maybe because at least saying things 'outloud' with a random audience whether or not they say anything in return feels better than just talking to myself. And considering how often I talk to myself...maybe it just signals a way that I'm getting out of my thinking head and onto 'paper'. Been thinking about that a lot. What purpose does this serve? But strangely even though I thought blogging was the weirdest thing ever back when I started it...and the two people who got me into this crazy endeavor have stopped blogging...I enjoy it. So somehow it helps me process.

Lately things have been...um...chaos. I'm SUPER busy while concurrently being emotionally on two ends of the spectrum which makes things a bit hard as well as hard to stay focused, but that is life at times. Kettlebell class is going great. Next week marks the end of our first set of programs...which means next week = max lift testing. I'm pretty excited...strangely...but still excited.

Today I am pretty sure I PRd my front squat...granted, I used to RARELY front squat so I don't think that really counts. I don't know my front squat max...but I did squat 130lbs today and it was HEAVY. I almost pschyed myself out before hand until I thought: what's the worst that will happen? You have to dump it?

At my gym it's acceptable to dump weight on the floor so it really wasn't a big deal. AND i didn't have to. It was mighty heavy though. Deadlifts came in this week at 180...but we have been progressing SLOOOOOWLY. I should have pushed it awhile back. The last few weeks I've just been loading them up. Sept 2008 max DL = 215...goal next week...to meet or break that. I think I should be able to break that, but I do have a weaker grip now than I did then.

Backsquat...2008 max 140...donno. Friday is backsquat day and due to some scheduling stuff I actually haven't backsquated in over 2 weeks. So who knows.

But I must go to bed now...because I'm going now on off days and doing body weight stuff/active recovery which is super fun. But has reminded me that I need to continue to work on pushups. I did 75 Bosu ball pushups (not consecutively...but 5x15 within a big set of other stuff)...and I'm a bit sore today. I also did some wacky medicine ball pushups where you hold the medicine ball with one hand, lift your opposite leg (or same leg if you wish) and do a push up. I think those were around 3x3. Then there were the fun ones I could only hold where you put your foot on a medicine ball, lift the other one and then do a push up. I just held that since I started to fall on my face every time I tried to do those. But pretty fun. Sometimes I feel like we are attempting circus tricks on some of this body weight stuff, but hey it's pretty cool.

6 weeks down

2010-09-06T13:06:00.000-07:00

Another week in the books for kettlebell training and another week where I'm feeling 'normal'. Energy is good and all is well and almost to the point where this spring feels like a dream. Was I really that sick? Did that really happen? It's weird to first have your body completely freak out on you, have doctors not know what is *really* wrong with you, then start to figure out how to fix yourself and then get to a point where you are healthy and full of energy where you can take care of your life and everything around you and it almost feels like it was all a dream. That is actually dangerous.

But as I feel better physically some rough stuff has taken place the past week or so. Since I'm not much of an over-sharer in my 'offline' life...that's about all I'll say on my blog. But I managed to get out of town this weekend, see some old friends from NZ, and get away and gain a bit of perspective on life. It's been good all around.

I did discover this weekend that I might actually sign up for a half marathon in January and even with the intent of really training for it. Goal time and everything. That thought came out of the blue after seeing a bunch of half marathoners at Disneyland this weekend. So we will see how long that thought lasts. I'm barely getting past that feeling of "why do people run this sucks" feeling of being out of shape. I have had a few brief moments of runners 'bliss' or that feeling where your legs are just under you and the breathing and legs just feel together and linked. But they have been fleeting thoughts...but I do know that they come about more regularly with more running. So...we will see. I'm still giving myself space on the topic of endurance sports.

Life is getting really busy with some chaos with a job this fall...and it is good. I'm excited.

So...definitely round a bend. Just don't know what this road has to offer me at the moment. Guess we will see.

5 weeks down

2010-08-30T21:28:00.001-07:00

Ok...at some point I will stop counting, but maybe after the 3 month mark. So 5 weeks of kettlebells and powerlifting/strength and I feel...well pretty darn strong. I actually made it through my 3x10 sets of burpees this morning and didn't have to stop to rest quite so much. Oye the first week I had to do those it was like do 3 burpees, stop, do 3 more...stop...finish the final four and want to lie on the floor. Now I can get through the full set of 10...even if I start to falter a little at the end I'm still able to do all 10. So yes, i'm getting my fitness back which is soooooo nice. Interesting observation was with hanging leg raises today...where I hang on some rings and lift my legs up...4 weeks ago...could barely do 5. Today..12 wasn't so hard (ok a little at the end...but these are not sissy exercises).

And good new...Fatigue is still at bay...so I really do think I"m on the mend. And I'm more and more thinking Magnesium did have something to do with it. Been running a bit...still pretty laborious...how did we ever get into running? Those first few weeks of running...SUCK. But I did have a fun end of a run the other day where my friend and i pushed it at the end of the run and it felt good. I'm almost to venturing past the 40 minute mark. I know...sounds so short.

And I wont' be doing the half mary i was contemplating in November. Too much chaos in Oct to deal with. One insanity at a time please. Maybe carlsbad half in January? Donno.

But all in all its good. Checked my body comp this weekend, body fat is down, % bf is down and I have regained the lean body mass I lost this spring which is also a good thing. Side comment on body composition though...who says you can't spot reduce? Seriously...I wouldn't believe it except if you have the YEARS of trends with how your body loses weight...what you are doing *does* influence where you lose more fat. I'm so not kidding. The first time I went in to see my nutritionist over 2 years ago we would notice I would lose weight from some parts faster than others and she would comment: are you doing more XYZ? And I would blow off the comment as I didn't believe in the idea that doing something that used a section of your body would cause more fat to disproportionately leave that area. I just figured 'that's my genetics'.

Ok...i'm now super suspicious. Last time I was working with her back from 2007-spring 2009...i tended to equally (and these two spots I would lose the most body fat from)...lose from my quads and my waist. This time? My quads alone DROPPED a disproportionally greater amount than ANYWHERE else. She asked: are you doing lots of squats?

Well...yes I am...but why would that cause me to drop MORE fat from my quads?

Last time I was working with her I was doing swim-bike-run plus some crossfit. This time i'm doing kettlbells/powerlifting, running and vinyasa yoga. It's kind of bizarre. So maybe you *can* do some spot reduction. But I think if you that is all you do you won't lose anything...you do lose fat all over the body, but it does come off not at the same rate from the same places. That's kinda weird too.

Three weeks down

2010-08-15T14:47:00.001-07:00

Three weeks down with my strength/conditioning kettlebell class and all is going well with the class. I love the class. To the point that I am sad on the days I don't get to go and excited on the days that I do...Waking up at 5am doesn't even bother me and that is SAYIN' something considering I am no early bird. It's interesting because the program is periodized and so we have had 3 heavy weeks progressively getting heavier weights and then decreasing number of sets...so for example the first three weeks for my deadlifts looked like this: 5x3, 4x3, 3x3. Next week it is 2x3, but also a decrease in weight on all lifts. I had gotten up to 135 on the DL last week which is progress...i was doing 3x5 @ 145-150lbs in January. So the strength is coming back. I probably could pull that right now, but I wanted to start conservative considering I'm getting back onto the training wagon at the moment. But good news...energy is high and spirits are too.

It was interesting last week because I was in a discussion about a random supplement that is making its way into the trimarket...what's new there? But it got me thinking about how I feel like I have 'rounded the bend' almost fully on a few different spectrums in the last 3 weeks which had me thinking: is it just that I can train again? Taking a fair amount of starchy carbs out of my diet unless prepping or recovering from training (similar to Paleo for Athletes), or is it the fact that I decided to see if some Mg supplementation might be beneficial?? I am a data point of one, but I might be leaning toward that I may have been Mg deficient. I have been reading a lot of both endurance athletes as well as the impact Mg has on mood and it makes me wonder...its not too out of the realm of possibility more out of the fact that I have come up short on so many other things this spring that I tend to wonder what else I might be missing. I eat a pretty heathy well rounded diet, but things have pointed to that I don't efficiently absorb the nutrients in food. Either way, I'll probably take it more out of insurance than anything. After this spring's issues and how so much has surfaced with deficiencies...i'm pro-multivitamin and pro-multimineral now.

On the endurance front I am considering a half marathon in November, more out of the fact it would be a way on my off training days to continue to burn high amounts of calories. And while I truly believe calorie in- calorie out = weight change, I can't help but be annoyed that while I have been extremely diligent tracking calories and exercise in training peaks...and I have been running a deficit very consistently for over 2 weeks...the scale has decided not to be a pal and reflect this hard work. It actually is saying i'm heavier at the moment. In two weeks I will know better with a bf test...the pants do fit a little less snug, so I have to go with that. I have been known to lose fat as quickly as I gain lean body mass...and considering I've been doing more weights/week than I ever have over the past few years, who knows how my body will freak out. Granted one goal was to gain back the 2 pounds of lean body mass I had lost since last year, I think I'm there.

More fun to come I'm sure.

One week down

2010-08-02T20:58:00.000-07:00

Week one of kettlebells/powerlifting has gone really well. I'm sore. I knew I would be. But not too sore and the type of soreness is not related to how I used to get sore when all the overtraining syndrome started...so maybe I'm heading out of the woods. I still need naps it seems on the weekends and I will be honest...if I could nap around 3pm in the afternoon I would do it. That would have been good today, but I will make this short and head to bed early.

But the best thing is that it just feeeeeels good. So many months of barely getting my HR up and finally being able to be out of breath during a workout just gives that great rush of endorphin high that is so wonderful. I heart endorphins. In all honesty I'm more surprised that I'm not MORE sore. I mean, don't get me wrong...friday's squat fest (a zillion and two lateral squats combined with a bunch of back squats made me barely able to move around this weekend) put me in a sorry state, but really not a severe degree. Soon enough I will be moving beyond that initial 'owchie i haven't lifted in a while soreness' to the different type of soreness that comes with just moving new heavier weights. The later hurts a little less.

But most of all...i'm enjoying it and having fun. And really that is the most important.

But again it has me thinking...will I *ever* come back to triathlon? I know I don't have to. And I won't until I think i will love the multisport schedule, but it is just so weird to think that I may not come back. I am having a day where I'm really not sure if I ever will return. But then again...tomorrow I might think differently. I would say I'm about 50:50 split at the moment...so it depends on when you catch me.

In the meantime...I'm learning to master that kettlebell swing.

On an edge...but it's all good

2010-07-26T18:06:00.000-07:00

That fear sits in the back of my brain as I start embarking on training. And in all honesty...it's hard to manage because it isn't like fear of a race: Can I do this? Can I do the training? Will I get through the race? Will I over heat? ect. Those sorts of fears I somehow am able to 'think' through them and manage them. This fear of the bottom falling out without warning, there is no 'crisis' management since my only option if the bottom falls out is starting back at square one and waiting until the body decides it is healthy enough to deal with the situation.

Reintroducing 'training', 'exercise', whatever you want to call it right now is one of those weird things at the moment. I'm gun shy to be honest. I'm scared of doing too much, but i HAVE to do something. I was telling a friend that my main motivation to lose the 10 pounds I have gained this spring has little do to with 'oh i need to lose weight because of XYZ reason' and more to do with the economics of the situation and the fact i hate shopping: I don't want to buy new pants.

So...i need some exercise that is a little bit more aerobic than yoga. Granted vinysa yoga does make you sweat a bit and gets the heart rate up...but not quite like other things. But my kettlebell class officially began this week...and that will definitely get the HR up. And I have been biking on the weekends a bit. But here was the situation this weekend. I rode 35 miles, they were hilly but I did not go out and smash myself. Then I came home and need an hour and a half nap. That is kind of frustrating. I had done the same route the week before and no napping was needed. So it is that sneaky thoughts of doubt that creep in and then say: are you doing too much? Are you trying to train too much right now? What if your body gives up again like it did back in March?

So managing the sneaky thoughts is much harder than I would have thought. But alas...one must manage them. But I have to say getting back into something with some intensity where i'm sweating and HR is high feels SOOOOOOO good. Ok, the being sore that it hurts to cough isn't super fun, but I miss the feeling post intensity exercise. I am sure in a week or so I won't be so sore anymore.

Granted on Tuesday I was most annoyed that my soreness was all due to body weight exercises, evil burpees, pushups, one legged pistol squats. Seriously? I didn't even need a barbell to make myself hurt like this? Well one thing I do miss are my deltoids so I guess those will come back in a hurry.

So it is good...i'm enjoying this and starting to think about more exercise on my off days (tues-thurs-sunday), but I'm also trying to make sure my body is ok and recovering well this first week. I'm also starting to look into other sports. Maybe venture back to Ultimate Frisbee? Or stand up paddleboarding looks kind of fun too. New adventures!

Overtraining Syndrome Part 1

2010-07-23T19:31:00.000-07:00

I had a comment a few days ago from Ruby Dragon asking about my experience with overtraining syndrome (OTS) since it seems she is going through the same thing. There is information out on the web, but not a lot of accounts of what happens during overtraining syndrome. This is a long post and many may or may not find it useful...but hopefully it might help someone who is going through it. OTS is hard because it just levels you after being so active.

Last year in May I got a little over trained. Classic HR too high when it shouldn't be and too low when it should be high. I remember being on a run where I couldn't keep my HR over 120bpm...and I was running at a good clip. And I was tired. And I was cranky. And I was in the middle of training for Vineman 70.3 and we realized I need to back off. So I did for a little bit. Few extra days of rest. Fluids. Good healthy eating and I was right as rain. All was well. That is sorta the 'normal' situation when us triathletes get a 'little' overtrained. But it does happen...the super chronic form of OTS

Washed-out feeling, tired, drained, lack of energy
Mild leg soreness, general aches and pains
Pain in muscles and joints
Sudden drop in performance
Insomnia
Headaches
Decreased immunity (increased number of colds, and sore throats)
Decrease in training capacity / intensity
Moodiness and irritability
Depression
Loss of enthusiasm for the sport
Decreased appetite
Increased incidence of injuries.
A compulsive need to exercise

But most people don't really talk about it. Even doctors. They don't really know what it is or why it happens. Hormone imbalance? Cortisol too high or something like that? No one knows. Some people their training will put them into a state of OTS because the body has just had ENOUGH. They have been pushing without enough eating/fluids or recovery to support the training. In my case I think it was a combination of SUPER high stress (ie cortisol) for a NUMBER of years combined with poor digestion which resulted in some nutritional deficiencies (folic acid, ferrtin, Vit D...) mix in 8-12 hours of consistent training and the body will say enough at some point.

Last season I noticed I don't recover well from training (probably due to the bad digestion thing)...but then in january it just went down hill. These things are actually hard to notice until the bottom just falls out. It's that whole fable that if you were to throw a frog into boiling hot water he would jump out, but if you put him in a pot of water and slowly heat the water you can boil the frog without him noticing it or jumping out. OTS I think is a culmination of things and it is hard to detect. Sneaky, sneaky. Especially with us type A's who think we need to push the envelope in every training session and that we can go go go and when we are utterly exhausted we just rest a wee little bit, maybe one nap and all is right again.

The reality is that consistently cutting corners on the nutrition, sleep, too much caffine, too much refined carbs, will lead to an erosion of health and one day you will wake up to find yourself at a bottom of a canyon. Filling that back up...takes time and patience and a lot of sleep.

Here was my progression. I found this in my training comments. This is why taking notes for training can be important. I kept a weekly journal for my coach at the time and so this isn't how i felt ALL week, just on one or two particular days within a week.

Week of Jan 18th “Slept in a long time. Very 'heavy' when I woke up. Slightly dehydrated so I ate breakfast and drank a bit of fluids hoping my body would respond so i could run ok. Warmed up for 10 minutes, got through my running drills and was utterly exhausted. Ended up walking back to the car and not running any more.”

Week Feb 1st “body wasn't feeling much more than an aerobic pace, but speed was very encouraging for going aerobic/not really feeling it pace.”

Week of Feb 8th I was swimming like a rock still after the weekend when I felt like lead all weekend.

Week of Feb 15th Sunday: woke up feeling sick...not a cold, just upset stomach, low energy.

...did see the stress 'show up' on Tuesday when I was running and running REALLY SLOW. Last week stress + less sleep + poor nutrition the night before = slow.

Week of Feb 22nd woke up EXHAUSTED...got a 4 mile run mixed with some walking in, but was supposed to do 75mins but couldn't drag myself out of bed early enough due to my exhuastion. My level of exhuastion on Sunday was actually concerning.

I may have a few clues to my lack of recovery that i'm trying to square away but this has been happening more frequently than it ever did before. For some reason

I'm a bit frustrated at the moment because it seems that when my energy levels are good...things are starting to 'click' and come together but I have been having an equally hard time recovering from some of my long rides but it doesn't feel like my muscles are pushed and are exhausted...i am just tired. Like i might wake up from 8-9 hours of sleep but i feel exhuasted and drained. I am sure it is a combination of many things... work, travel and training... But the weird part is one day I have a ton of energy and the next i won't. Sunday i felt miserable all day long, tired, headachy, horrible. But this morning I woke up with a ton of energy bouncing off the walls. I seem to be either full of energy or not and it is pretty extreme on both sides.

Week of March 1st...Raced this week and it was sort of the beginning of the end

had major energy melt down last week. I'm sure everything else that is going on in my life with work and travel isn't helping...but i think there is possibly something else going on. Underlyingly i feel like i have a lot of energy...my body is not tired from training...i'm just exhusted in general. If that makes sense. I have the energy underlyingly to do everything, but i am battling with a desire to sleep all the time.

Week of March 8th

Considering how I felt all week I hope the tests show something conclusive because I was dragging and extremely exhausted and generally feeling rotten, much worse than the week before.

I did half of my TT on Wed only to be so completely exhausted on Thursday (even with 9 hours of sleep) that I had to come home early and take a nap.

Week of March 29th

This week was marginal. Traveling on top of this fatigue i think really wore me out. In some aspects I am feeling better. My biggest problem with all this fatigue is that it is a HUGE paradigm shift for me to have to focus on not having a go-go-go mentality. Which is hard for me. I'm doing ok...and trying to be ok with it all...but it's not mentally easy either.

Week of April 5th First D.N.S

Sunday: I woke up, got ready, ate and was getting ready to pack my car when I could tell that if I raced i was going to dig myself a HUGE hole that would take a LONG time to get out of. It was a really hard decision not to race this morning, but after I went back to bed and woke up 4.5 hours later, still very tired, I knew I had made the right choice. I had wanted to come down and cheer everyone on, but was still really exhausted when I woke up.

April 12

Still pretty lethargic which makes me less motivated since it takes so much emotional energy to do much of anything

April 26th

sports medicine doctor thinks it is 'over-training syndrome' and I'm to check back with him in a month and keep my activity 'in check' in the meantime basically meaning if it makes me too tired it was too much.

still fatigued and pretty apathetic towards training most of the time still...but that seems to be a negative feedback loop of being fatigued and being frustrated that i'm tired and then just not wanting to do anything because it usually makes me pretty tired.

That night...Went to the ER...couldn't stop throwing up for no real reason at all. Took DAYS to recover from. Not really related to OTS, but showed how fragile my body was...it was just freaking out all the time.

May: The pit of despair.

Basically in May, I cancelled a lot of bike ride. I slept in a lot. I was unmotivated a lot. And I tried to just focus on other things a lot. I tried not to let the nagging thoughts of 'will I ever'...what if and all of that eat me alive. It was hard to tell people over and over: I just can't. My body just can't.

It hurt. Recovering from 2 hour bike rides required equally long naps. I wanted to sleep all the time. I probably still didn't sleep enough. More out of apathy than out of not doing it.

June

First bike ride that didn’t wipe me out

Consistency starting to come back...key...not to push.

July

Kettlebell classes have started and 3 weeks of learning.

Trying not to drink coffee anymore.

Realized coffee basically makes me 'high'...talk about a norepinephirine rush. No wonder my poor adreanals hate me.

Next week...first week of some actual consistent higher heart rates.

So while I am slowly on the mend, I also know I'm not totally out of the woods either. I'll admit it. I'm gun shy at the moment. I'm about to start kettle bell training in more 'full effect' and have a nagging worry that I'll stop recovering again. But...i have to try.

I say this as 'part 1'...as I think i have some other thoughts on the topic. But..well...i'm tired. Maybe later.

Discoveries

2010-07-17T17:10:00.000-07:00

As I have been talking about in my past few posts, i'm finally finding something I enjoy again and being active is about finding things you enjoy. Someone was asking me about what do I 'do' to be fit and active because they wanted to take some 'tips' from me. My first answer to that question always is: what do YOU enjoy doing? Being fit and active needs to come from enjoyment. Sure there are times when I'm in a training plan and I'm not enjoying how I'm tired or that a particular workout is killing me, but underneath it I enjoy it. Hence why for awhile I am putting multisport training away. I know many people claim they don't like to do anything active, but I think some of that 'aversion' is born out of fear. Fear of learning something new. Fear of worrying what other people will think. Fear of being bad at something new. We all like the comfort of the familiar, but sometimes we all need to branch out and grow and try to figure out what it is we like. I usually feel like i'm making a total ass out of myself when I'm first learning something and in truth... typically I AM...so I've learned to laugh at myself too. But I have found that with practice that awkwardness and self conscienceness does goes away...i promise.

After my foray into cross fit I discovered: I like lifting heavy weights. Give me a heavy deadlift and I am a happy camper. I think this kettlebell thing I'm doing now which will also incorporate some powerlifting and olympic lifting in a setting that is designed more to what I need as an athlete might be the perfect fit for me. Although I'm sure the first few weeks might be a lot of complaining about how sore I am. After all I'm really out of shape right now.

And as of late my biggest concern with my lack of activities has been more around my pants becoming too snug. So I made a date with my sports nutritionist and got my %bf tested. The good news, compared to March of 2009, my lean body mass has only gone down 2lbs. Not bad considering how horrible a spring and how inactive I have been (and for me putting on LBS is easy...so I actually wouldn't be surprised to see those 2lbs back on me pretty quickly). I know I had lost some strength, although this is a comparison from over a year ago. I kinda wish I knew what my LBM was in January...although that might depress me. So let's pretend that Jan 2010 I wasn't that much different fitness levels than March 2010. Granted I was, but I think if I knew I had lost much more LBS i'd be depressed so let's just leave them as close to being equal. And then the truth of the %bf. Looks like i have 10 pounds to drop to get to March 2009 levels. So let's start there.

My nutritionist and I discussed finding activities I might like and that it doesn't have to be swim bike run. It's nice to be reminded I SHOULDN'T swim bike run unless I WANT to. I know this, but it makes my aversion to running and swimming of late almost a relief. Wanna know a secret: i still pack my running stuff and swimming stuff hoping that if the urge to run or swim overcomes me I am ready. I guess i'm not ready yet. ;-) And yes running with friends and swimming with friends I will go and do...but it's being able to enjoy it on my own that I am waiting to come back to me. I still believe that one day it will. I ran 2 miles on my own a few weeks ago, and every part of that run was wonderful...but it was born out of a desire to run and I'm still waiting for it to return. Until then I will try to be 'ready'.

I know there are times to push through some things, but right now is not one of those times. I know that if I am too harsh on myself or force my self into any swim-bike-run that I'm not keen to do the long term consequence of the short term calorie burn isn't a good trade off. But I'm not going to lie when I say I might push a wee little bit and try one swim and one short run this week. There are also realities in life like those 10 pounds that I really would like to go away so that my jeans aren't so snug.

Another discovery I made today was white flour. I know it's not good for you. I know stay away from it. I know...I know...but sometimes we don't always do what we know is best for ourselves. I had some pancakes at lunch...and an hour and a half later I could barely keep my eyes open. A solid 1.5 hour nap later I'm finally awake. And the crazy part? I have dramatically cut back on coffee to the point that a cup of coffee makes me super alert these days and I EVEN had a cup of coffee during my drowsy period before I succumbed to the nap and it did NOTHING. So...bye bye pancakes. I heart you, but you don't heart me. I might actually try this experiment with wheat pancakes and see if it is wheat causing the power nap desire. I did have the pancakes with protein and some fat to try to slow the insulin spiking, but apparently not enough.

So...lots of discoveries made today a bit of a rambling post, but I think right now I'm trying to sort through some stuff in my head that I haven't been able to for the past few months. If I have the energy I hope to be here a bit more in the future.

Power

2010-07-14T21:17:00.000-07:00

Power = is the rate at which work is performed

Work = is the amount of energy transferred by a force acting through a distance. W = F d

Force = m(ass) a(cceleration)

So...if you have a heavy mass, accelerate it quickly you have a high force. If you then move that object a specific distance you have how much work is done and power is related to the time of that work performed. So...if you lift a heavy object and accelerate it quickly over a great distance in a short amount of time there is a large amount of power generated.

Returning to doing some weight lifting, particularly olympic weight lifting which a given lift you have to have large amounts of power makes me think of physics a lot. I'm weird like that.

Recently I am discovering that for whatever strange reason, i'm quite physically strong for a woman. Even in my out of shape and undertrained state I still have a reasonable about of strength and it more gets me thinking where it comes from and why does it stick around. Also makes me think about the reality that I can gain strength rather quickly from lifting as well as pretty rapidly gain lean body mass from minimal lifting. I know it's all about genetics, but sometimes I wonder how far away from the norm I really am. People like to talk about women and how they don't want to lift because they are afraid of gaining too much muscle. Most weight lifting coaches laugh at this 'concern' and say 'women won't bulk up'...bla, bla, bla. I'm not really concerned about this as much as much as this is just reality for me. Last spring, not even in the fittest condition I have been in over the past year and change, I more realized that compared to other women my height I have as much lean body mass as I am supposed to weigh according to height/weight charts. I don't really bother with those and more am concerned about %bf...but it does make me pause a bit. I mean...that's a bit nuts if you think about it.

Today we started playing with olympic lifts. I like those for the most part but I will admit they can be scary because there is quite a lot of 'throwing' the bar and having to 'get under it'. But with practice they can be fun. Today we did practice some snatches, but the 45 pound bar intimidated me more out of 'feel 'than I think I can do strength wise. I'd like to wait until we have a lighter bar to play with before trying this.

I am looking forward to start really training in just over a week. Right now we are just learning lifts. But it brings me to questions like: what are my goals? Where do I want to go with this? I don't really know. Being 'strong' is just such an ambiguous thing. Even "doing one pull up" is a bit random and ambiguous. It's not like with triathlon where one thinks: I want to do this race. It is just different to contemplate.

So time will tell.

But best thing: i am enjoying it a lot...and really that is all that matters.

Like a kid at Christmas

2010-07-09T21:57:00.000-07:00

Well my excitement has shown to be justified. I went to my strength training thing 3 times this week and every time...i was soooooo wicked excited to go. Yesterday it was almost funny because as the time approached about 9pm all i could think was: you HAVE to go to bed NOW because you are getting up at 5am. In the end I got to bed at 10pm, but then proceeded to wake up a few times during the night because i was SO FREAKIN EXCITED and didn't want to miss my alarm. Yes...I'm a nerd...and this is news?

And so far the excitement is super justifiable. I leave my classes excited about the next one. And that is HUGE for me these days. I mean excited about something active?? Phew...maybe aliens didn't take my body after all!

We have been working on a few things, standard lifts like the deadlift and squat as well as power lift, jerk press. And then today was all about body weight. Pushups...pullups...one legged pistol squats. There are a whole range of them all. I think what is cool about the pushups is that we will be doing a strength progression to get us to a point of doing one armed pushups. Now that's pretty awesome. Granted with all the push up stuff...i can tell my arms are going to be sore tomorrow. Hopefully not too bad.

I did try to run or swim this week...and really didn't get far. Sigh. I think triathlon will be on super hold for awhile. I'm ok with that, but it's sorta weird to realize that I need to find other ways to become healthy and fit that are not triathlon. It's a new chapter...and while I say it's a new chapter it doesn't mean that triathlon won't ever be revisited, but i'm pretty sure i'm not going to flirt with it (much) for at LEAST the next 6 months. The 'plan' at the moment is to work on my strength and flexibility so that if I decide to ever come back to triathlon I will have a good base to work from. I will get some runs in and hopefully not completely lose my feel for the water, but at the same time I'm not going to push that anymore. This spring I had more than one occasion where I would just SIT in the car and negotiate about swimming for almost 45 minutes. I remember thinking: if i had just not negotiated I would be DONE by now. When every workout becomes a negotiation it becomes a reality check into whether or not an activity is a good thing to be doing.

I still love reading about everyone's ventures. And there is still a part of me who enjoys the races and such, but I have come to realize that maybe right now...i really don't need to be triathlete-rific. And that's ok.

So...i have created 'schedules' that range from ONLY doing my strength stuff + something on the weekend to mixing into it all some swim-bike-run in reasonable quantities. Basically I have told myself that my basic commitment per week will be about 5 hours (3 weights + 2 hours on the weekend...bike riding or whatever)...but I have created bigger schedules (like i outlined in the last blog) about doing yoga and some swim-bike-run on the off days. Here is my thought: if all that happens great...but if not...my first commitment is to my strength classes.

And yes...i'm quite excited about all of this when I realized today that it was definitely the weekend and while i am excited about the weekend...i also was a little sad when I realized it would be two whole days before I went back to class. I guess i'll survive. :-)

Excited that I'm excited

2010-06-19T13:49:00.000-07:00

I do hope that I've made a turn. It seems I might have. Fingers crossed. Toes crossed...all that can be crossed is crossed. So what's the turn? I actually think i might be on the mend. Seriously. But...oh...yea...i'm also seriously out of shape.

And in all honesty...it's kinda funny. I went and was throwing a frisbee around the beach for awhile last week...now keep in mind I used to actually play ultimate frisbee...competitively. (I know, many people don't know about the secret frisbee leagues and how competitive a game like Ultimate can get...but it can get ugly.) So I was actually throw-throwing the disc around and lunging like one does when they do throw the disc...not like one is just tossing the disc on the beach kind of throwing...but *throwing* the disc. Anyway...what's my point? Felt a wee little bit of soreness the next day in my throwing arm and opposite pivoting leg. So not impressed.

So...what's the excitement about? I'm starting a strength conditioning thing on Monday! It's almost like private strength training without the cost of it. Small classes with planned out training. I'm excited. And I"m excited to be excited.

Of course me being...me...has scheduled myself to death and it looks a bit like this:

Monday: Strength AM Yoga-PM
Tuesday: either bike to work or run or swim
Wed: Same and Monday
Thursday: Same as Tuesday
Friday Same as Monday and Wed.

The bike to work thing...well i don't live quite close enough to bike from my house so that it isn't a HUGE trek everyday, but there is a park-n-ride that is about 10 miles from my work...so i'm going to start trying to actually bike to work for part. I'm excited.

And yes...i'm excited that i'm excited because that is the biggest thing to me.

That and making sure those jeans of mine don't stop fitting. Oye vey...yes it is time.

I have also realized that really my life in blog land will still be sparse until late Oct. It's just the truth. Too much going on. So...i'll try to keep posting occasionally. I am still reading blogs, I just fail to comment on them. Blame Google Reader. Wrong email logged in. Anyway...that's just an excuse I need to stop having.

Until next time...

I am a triathlete*

2010-06-05T22:20:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting experiment...i just got an ipad...so let's see how this turns out. I had some trouble with a different blogging situation with my ipad so maybe this will work. Granted I can't find how to actually link to anything at the moment, so we will see.

The point of this post has nothing to do with the ipad though. It's that weird dilemma I am in right now with my 'training' or just in general because I am...well...not training. I'm doing a whole lotta yoga...but that's about it. I didn't really write about it, but about 6 weeks ago I had a sports med doctor give me the 'overtraining syndrome' diagnosis...which doesn't make any sense in the grand scope of things. At the same time I have spent a lot of time this spring educating the medical community in my life about how to treat me.

For some reason i get a little irked when I am TELLING my doctor what is wrong with me. Donno...i'm a doctor but not THAT kind. I mean...seriously. Why did my insurance just pay you 200 dollars for me to both educate you as well as tell me what I thought you were going to tell me: a whole lotta BS or a crap diagnosis of a way to say: we don't know what the eff is wrong with you. Sorry.

My other diagnosis is around fluid in my ears and allergies. That...after too many blood tests to count and even a chest x-ray in there for fun. To say I'm less than impressed with doctors at the moment would be a gross understatement.

Truly this whole 'overtraining syndrome' diagnosis/allergies is its own post in itself. So back to regularly scheduled blog post.

I was talking to someone last week in yoga about how stiff in general I am and I said something weird like: um...cuz i'm a triathlete. In my head I'm thinking really? I feel like it needs an asterisk next to it explaining: yea i'm not 100% healthy right now...no i'm not training for anything...yea nothing is on the books. I don't really feel like a triathlete right now. I see people post pictures of triathlons and talk about their up and coming race and I sit and reflect on my season and well I just sold my SDIT bib and have no other triathlons on the book for the season. In all honesty I don't know how to *feel* about it.

Some people think that as long as you have done one triathlon for the season then you can call yourself a triathlete. Well...i've done ONE and then DNS another one. So I've *paid* for 2...actually if you count how little I got back from IMCDA i've paid mostly for 3 and oh yea, and I have 50% of Wildflower waiting for me for next year too...so as far as my pocket book cares I am a triathlete but this is sort of weird territory for the moment.

Last weekend I went for a GREAT bike ride with Lisa where for once I didn't feel like for once I was going to die on a 2 hour bike ride. And I had a reasonable week, but then I woke up on Friday feeling ROTTEN. Two steps forward...one step back it seems like at the moment.

"Well life is both a major and a minor key" --Travis

The funny thing about this whole 'overtraining syndrome' is that there is a huge mental component to it where I have a bad case of the 'i don't wannas'. So the reality is I have to just...wait. Wait until I WANT the schedule and the training. I don't love yoga...see my previous posts on that one, but I'm learning to just *do* it and fortunately I have a friend who does keep me reasonably accountable to doing it so that is helpful.

But most of all i get the feeling this summer will be a lot about just discovering new stuff about myself and myself as an athlete. What does it mean to not be a triathlete but do other things? How do I stay 'healthy' when I'm not trying to train 10 hours a week? Will I ever find that shift in myself again where I will thrive on the schedule like I used to? Will my body ever come back to the middle where i will stop worrying about it freaking out on me over nothing? (like me getting sick this week was possibly related to eating pizza.) I feel like I have an overly sensitive system at the moment and well...i have no choice but to listen because when I don't I end up very unhappy.

So...learning to have patience and just *be*. Easy to say and some days easy to do. This week was filled with days that were not easy. Hopefully next week will be easier to embrace.

I.HATE.YOGA

2010-05-04T22:50:00.000-07:00

Really...i do. Ok...HATE might be a strong word. Ok...i've learned to like it in my training days as it does help keep me out of PT. But as a prime exercise modality. NOT my favorite. AT. ALL!

But...we suck it up when we have to. And I"m having to suck it up right now. I'm having to let go of a training season I was all excited about. I'm having to let go of training...period. I'm having to let. go. Not easy for a dopamine dominate/type A/overachiever like me to do. And yet, so much of my body is just sorta freaking out right now. My mental focus has sucked the past 2 months. THIS is concerning. My drive for general things in life (not including triathlon) is just not there. I used to joke in grad school that I lost my 5th gear because all the stress wore it out...and that I tend to live my life in 5th gear...just goooooooooo. But I'm now down to a few more gears and left mainly with first and second gear. It's a little freaky to be honest. I miss my old self, but I've been consulted that I dug myself into a big hole and now I have to figure out how to get myself out of it. And it involves a lot of...nothing.

sigh

I've taken up yoga seriously. Ok. i'm not sure I can say 'seriously' when i' just signed up and SAID that's what i was going to do. I've only gone to this particular studio 1x. The goal is 6-7 times a week for the next month. and then do the same the month after...and...

ugh

Fortunately I have a yogi friend who won't let me get away with being slackster about it or talking trash about it either.

Really all this lack of training has just made me Ms Cranky Pants. She's not very much fun in my opinion. I've already had to apologize for her recently.

And for all of those interested...what's the root cause? NO ONE KNOWS. I've been given the ambigous BS answer of 'overtraining syndrome'. In reality it probably is a malabsorption issue that the training then exacerbated. Funny...when you don't get enough vitamins you don't get what you need to function properly.

so...until later

namaste

SuperSeal: D.N.S

2010-04-14T22:44:00.000-07:00

Things are...uh...interesting around here at the moment. Had my first D.N.S. for a race (did not start) this weekend. Well I guess I will have a few others this season too, Wildflower and Ironman CDA, but I actually have planned not to race those races at this point...Super Seal I had planned to race until 6am that morning.

Let me back up. Pretty much since the week before Desert Triathlon I have dealt with unexplained fatigue. Still waiting on 3 more tests this week but so far all i have been told is that i have low-ish ferritin levels and low-ish Vit D levels (not anemic, thyroid is completely normal). Nothing that would explain drawn out fatigue for now...uh...two months. And this is: i'm unmotivated to get out of bed type of fatigue/unmotiviated to get my work done type of fatigue. I stopped worry about my training and just started worrying about my job. And I do have to say things have gotten a little better with a few supplements to help boost motivation levels...but the fatigue has stayed with me.

On Saturday I made it to packet pickup just before they closed and was able to catch up with fellow TNS peep who was racing the next day too. We chatted and said our 'see ya laters' and parted ways. I FULLY expected to race the next day. But...i did have a nagging thought of: is this really that smart?

I had a friend of mine email me earlier in the week and say: really...you are going to race because you don't want to take a hit on the race entry? That doesn't sound like the smart girl you are.

But i ignored that thought.

And then it gnawed at me.

And then I woke up race morning and thought about that thought and realized: hmmmm if I have to dig myself out of another massive fatigue hole like I had to after Desert tri (two FULL weeks of barely getting out of bed...and now just general mailase) so..not...worth it. So after getting up, eating, packing and gettting ready to leave the house I decided the trade off would just be not worth it. Spending another who knows how long being extremely fatigued was so not worth it when i'm finally at the level of *just* that constant moderately fatigued. (i'm being sarcastic...it's pretty ridiculous actually...18 mile bike ride 2 weeks ago almost left me in bed for the afternoon)...so i decided i would then just take a short nap and then go spectate for the race.

FOUR AND A HALF HOURS LATER...i groggily woke up and could barely pull myself together. No spectating for me. I was a bit of a disaster on Sunday but considering how LONG i slept after I went back to sleep I KNOW i made the right decision and i have NO regrets (aside from wasting money).

So for right now i'm dealing with the fact I want to exercise more but I don't really know how much is too much. I have a holistic nutritionist trying to help me through this as well as my doctor although my nutritionist is scaring me to death at the moment and has all kinds of not too fun thoughts of what might be going on. But for the moment i'm waiting for a cortisol test, mono test and a lupus test. If nothing comes back conclusive...i'm totally out of ideas.

In the meantime I have cleared my plate of triathlon. I take long walks along the beach now. I ride my bike as much as it will let me before i get fatigued. I do run a little here and there and try to do minimal training. The goals these days is: stay active. A little yoga, a little weight lifting...and a whole lotta: whatever keeps you being active is good enough.

Well it is mid april and i hate to say it...but it seems my season is over for a little while. That's kinda weird to realize. But the great part: some wonderful beaches and wonderful walks and sunsets and making new friends and enjoying what I can and mainly not focusing on what I can't do, but what I still can.

errr..yea...

2010-03-30T20:54:00.000-07:00

A LOT of stuff is Long over due...particularly: one race report from Desert Tri. Here is the quick version of that one: IT.WAS.COLD...IT WAS WET...but hey I stayed upright and even got to meet a newly minted pro! Charisa and I have managed to be at 4+ events, but never have managed to actually meet. So this was a long overdue hello.

The race itself was pretty uneventful aside from the rain that started coming down when I got to t2 and never let up. My swim...was awesome. I took 13 seconds/100y off of my Malibu swim time and 18 seconds/100y off of my Vineman 70.3 pace. Those ridiculous drills all winter have paid off HUGE. The bike went ok considering i was FREEZING. Avg pace decent and I really just cared about staying upright and not getting too cold. The run...i couldn't feel my feet for the first loop which was tough and my pace showed. A bit slower than I had hoped, but reasonable for me ~8:30mpm.

Overall it was an alright race. I came into somewhat...fatigued and was happy that I did well with it. The problem...that fatigue has gone from 'somewhat fatigue' to 6 weeks later I can barely get out of bed kind of fatigue. The week after the race was horrendous and now i'm ok except post any sort of effort the next day I am peeling myself off the floor. It's not good.

And I've seen the doctor and they bled me...good news: i'm pretty darn healthy. not so good news: um...maybe lowish ferritin levels? So my doctor: we are going to refer you to a sports medicine doctor. Maybe you are over trained?

um...ok...no...i'm not over trained. And considering how much non-training I have done in the past month I am REALLY not over trained and now i don't get to see the doctor for another month. By that point I'll be as non-overtrained as possible and i'm not thinking this is going away any time soon.

really...miss optimist is at it again. Actually it might be more like 'miss realist'.

Actually miss optimist is wondering if her triathlon season is actually more likely to be over in exactly 12 days...post Super Seal.

Wildflower Long Course is off the table due to a few things...mainly though: i can't get past this fatigue.

I'm not doing Ironman (see the last post)

Here's the thing...my normal doctor doesn't know what's wrong. My nutritionist is starting to suspect I put myself on the brink of adrenal exhaustion during graduate school and the fact I do endurance activities is exacerbating an underlying issue. The problem with this suspicion is...what IS adrenal exhaustion?

Here is where mainstream medicine frustrates me. With the adrenals...you are either healthy or you have Addision's disease where the adrenals have completely stopped working. I don't have that...all my blood work looks great. But this other possibility is just so...vague and well not well studied. But that being said it was through this holistic pathway that we found out that some health concerns that have plagued me in the past 7 years are due to a simple folic acid/b12 issue. No one in mainstream medicine took the time to test me for that...which quite simply makes me pretty mad and skeptical.

But while my skeptic is fighting with this one thing I do know: i'm tired and no one can tell me why. My training in the past 5 weeks has wrecked havoc on my body after any effort and more importantly...PAST all of this triathlon stuff...i'm way more worried about the fact I can barely peel myself out of bed for work. Screw triathlon...that's a hobby. I have bigger fish to fry in this whole issue.

And this is where i almost wish I had a tangible injury. THAT at least you can go to the PT and it doesn't impact your daily life...it might make training a drag for awhile, but THIS...ohhhh..THIS is no good. No answers.

So...what does this mean? I don't know. But I took that picture above on my slow bike ride on Saturday to remind me: I'm still a lucky girl.

Or the whale watching excursion where I got to see a bajillion dolphins and share a beautiful day with a friend...I'm a lucky girl.

Or spending the afternoon shopping and hanging out with a good friend of mine I've known since elementary school and now lives in San Diego...I'm a lucky girl.

I have a lot of things that are really great in my life right now. I am a bit frustrated with my current state of training and the reality my body might be asking me to: slow down. Time will tell.

ironman...we are breaking up (for the time being)

2010-03-03T18:00:00.000-08:00

Ironman...it is with great sadness that I have to say: we are breaking up. I know you will always be there and I will revisit this relationship in the future, but for the time being I have to tell you good-bye. Upon embarking upon this demanding relationship I knew there would be hurdles and sacrifices and when I pushed the button for IMCDA last year I embraced your demanding needs and accepted the high attention you would require. I had sequestered the time in my life necessary for you. As with many new relationships it is easy to give that time up when everything is new and shiny.

And currently I still feel like our relationship is a little 'new and shiny' but ironman...you do not play well with others it seems. You are an awfully jealous partner and can cause one's anxiety to run high when the demands of the training are high. And to be honest, I knew this going into the relationship. I accepted your needs and was willing to meet them.

But then...then...then...yes my heart did wander. I could not help it. An opportunity of a lifetime that is my dream came along...but in truth my heart did not wander...my heart was always with my dream, just laying dormant until that dream became a tangible reality. I somehow thought that since on paper it was possible to share my time between you and my dream I could do it. But alas the sleep you need, you were not getting, the attention you need you were not getting, and then there was that pesky job of mine sending me all over the place that you did not like.

sigh

So...ironman...for the time being we are breaking up...and I am sad. But I know it is the right decision. Until I can give you the time that you deserve, you can find me in cahoots with your less demanding relatives half-iron and oly. And while it is with great sadness that we are breaking up, I know you will always be there. And don't be surprised if in the future I start flirting with you again...when my time and heart are not so divided. I do not know if that will be next year or down the road. Much depends upon the opportunity with the dream and what happens this year with that.

Granted it does mean that the velodrome and I can be much closer friends. I was going to have to break up with the velodrome for 2 months...for YOU!! Don't you see the kind of sacrifice i was willing to give you??? But i know...i know...working 60+ hours a week and traveling and my heart and focus being with my dream doesn't really mix with what you need. Until that time in the future...good bye ironman.

15 seconds

2010-02-26T22:07:00.000-08:00

I need more time...about 4 more hours per day please. Does any one know where I can find that? I'm having a massive scheduling issue in my life...mainly stemming from the fact that i am a)trying to do this ironman thingy at the moment b)have a job that this year likes to stress me out and make me travel a lot which = lots of work c)have another job that i love and want to pour my time into but it doesn't pay the bills d)friends/family/appointments I can't seem to keep up with. I feel like i'm falling off the back of a treadmill at the moment. One of my biggest faults? I have this ridiculous mindset that somewhere in my little brain I do believe I can do it all. It doesn't mean I *should* do everything...but as a friend of mine put it the other week: you love to be at your wits end tearing your hear out about to lose your mind. You love that space.

sigh

I'm trying to balance stuff...we will see how that turns out.

But today was a weird day. I just got back from TX for work last night and was EXHAUSTED. Pushed my AM swim to afterwork and had decided to leave work a little early to get the swim in but mid way through the day that just turned into: leave work early to power nap. I knew i'd sink like a rock if i attempted to swim so i went home and took a little nap.

FINALLY got my sorry state out of bed and headed to the pool. I was tired and kept telling myself: just be less tired please? Apparently you can't will yourself to be less tired...i tried real hard though. But I hopped in the pool and somehow found the concentration to focus on the drills at hand.

head down...arms wide...left hand entry....quick arm recovery...tight core...rotate...rotate...left hand (what the heck is that arm doing?)... arm recovery...arm recovery...arm recovery

It wasn't anything to write about...so why am i writing about it? I don't know. But at the end of the set i have a 4x100 cool down. K...just relax...cool down but keep it easy just focus on form with out the paddles and buoy.

TEN...TWELVE...FIFTEEN SECONDS!

That was the amount of time off of an 'easy' 100 from what I was swiming last year. FIFTEEN SECONDS! Last year an easy cool down hundred was typically 2:00/100yards. Today...1:45/100y

not.even.sprinting.

That's CRAZY in my book...but totally lovin in.

And NEXT week...we get to test and see if these little improvements pay off when it counts. Desert Tri....bring it on!

A lot of things running around up there

2010-02-17T20:40:00.000-08:00

I've got a lot on my mind these days...and not a lot of time. I do find that I am more and more using this blog as a place to just get stuff flushed out of my little pea brain...but it still keeps running around. sigh

One exciting endeavor appears that i have will have the term 'writer' involved in part of one of my job descriptions. I know i sorta blather on with this here blog with fragments and run on sentences...but partly due to my over thinking personality I need some place where I can just go ON...where if people don't like my blathering or disjointed writing style they will just use that little 'x' in the corner and move on. I think I need that right now.But i'm kinda excited about this other prospect and have been enjoying this recently.

What is strange is I think i've always wanted to 'be' a writer but didn't really know what that meant. I went to some writing camps as a kid...but that being said even though I was a pretty good student in high school and college, english writing class was typically the class would get B's in. Give me a chemistry equation and i'd be golden...but literary analysis...um...not so much. I think it is the fact that I'm not the type of writer that will ever write the great american novel, but I have come to realize I do have a few writing skills. I just usually need to get through at least 1 or 2 or 10 drafts first. Any writers out there (and i know there are a few)...any words of wisdom are appreciated. So I will soon get to flex those skills in a more focused environment and see what happens. I'm actually a little nervous, but also really excited.

I think i need a miracle right now. i mean...who doesn't...but either I need some extra hours in the day or something dramatic needs to happen on the job front. So i'm currently praying for a miracle.

Folic acid is good stuff...and if you don't have enough of it...you won't feel very good. Trust me on this.

oh...i had another six degrees of separation or chance encounter or whatever you want to call it. This is the FIFTH time in San Diego i have run into someone I know from my past and the THIRD time it is someone from my undergrad...i went to a TINY undergrad near Seattle...not here. This.is.so.weird.

Training...i'm SUPER excited about Desert tri in 2.5 weeks. I'm currently doing the 'number' crunch in my head of benchmarks, goals, reach goals...ect. So...i'm going to put them down right now just to put them down. These are 'reach' goals...none of them may happen, one of them might happen...i don't know right now. Swim: sub 32, Bike sub 1:18 (i actually don't have a true grasp on this one) and Run for 6 miles (it's not a 10k...it's only 6 miles)...sub 48mins. Things are coming together, but everything seems to be coming ALL together and I don't know what that really means...or if it is just in my head? Or it IS coming together? My coach did tell me that he has seen many improvements in my training...i just don't know how that translates into times. I'm not so tied up in my times...i'm actually really excited to see how it DOES come together. But anyway...it's all pretty awesome.

ohhhh and i think something i'm going to get that will help...a tiny bit...with time: race wheels and race tires. Yes...i'm going to not race on my big ol FATTY tires. I kinda find them funny but i SOOOOOOOOO don't want to change a tire in a race...but well...rolling resistance...i might as well have added glue to my tires their rolling resistance is so fantastic. As in...they suck for racing. I've had mechanics laugh at me when they find out that I race in them. Sure...train heavy...but race at least a *little* lighter. There still is part of me that goes: but if i have to change a tire...its not worth the possible time 'savings'...there is no savings in that. I can change a tire in less than 5 mins flat, but that's still a lot of time. So...advice on tires/wheels? I don't want rims any larger than zipp 404's but i am exploring other companies besides zip.

That's enough out of me for awhile. Ohhh totally disjointed and all of that, but i'm just trying to write more and practice writing even if it is possible jibberish mainly because then i can hone my skills where they need to be honed and worked on over in that other space.

until i have something else to blather on about...

oh...but i do...next up...trigger point therapy stuff...or as i have been calling it around these parts: the box of evil.

until next time...

Not too bad!

2010-02-14T22:19:00.000-08:00

San Diguito Half Marathon...unofficial time...2:02:30

Official response to the day...great training run.

Official feeling about the race...it went pretty well.

Ways to make it better next year?
1) Show up an hour and a half before the race starts. Even though it is a stand alone running race and you don't have to set anything up...being stuck in traffic for 40 minutes from the off ramp to the race is one sure fire way to miss the official start.

2) Don't take the Lomas Santa Fe exit....use a map and take the exit before. That alone would have gotten me to the the start line with enough time to spare to use the bathroom.

3)hill training...yes..those bumpy things that go up and down....they are good if you have plans to do a hilly half marathon.

4)mileage...mileage would be good. While I have been doing that ironman training thingy...my coach hasn't built my volume excessively in the running due to my hip. We have only begun a phase where I will start seeing more appreciative volume...so while I have the endurance to complete a half marathon... running further than 8 miles leading up to the race might have been helpful...but this was a training run and really it was more of a 'test' in my book. And in my book...i totally passed.

5)Shoes with less miles on them feel better in a race especially on a hilly course.

There were a few hiccups...missed the offical start...figured that since i wasn't trying to PR and i'm not in the market for any bling during this life time...stopping early on to use the bathroom that I didn't have a chance to do since I was STUCK IN TRAFFIC...i just decided to be comfortable and stop early. I'm glad i did. Sometimes you just gotta race your own race.

A few weeks ago I actually told my coach that maybe i should skip this race. He told me...no...just do the race and use it as a training run. I aint going to lie...there was a little grumbling on my side of things under my breath. But I decided just to see how things are going. Last week I discovered i'm in 10K PR shape...like possibly-beat- my-10K-PR-from-november-by-something-like-5-minute- kind of shape. I didn't know how that would translate into a hilly half marathon that I haven't been training volume or hills for. Much to my surprise...not too bad.

And then i did a super crazy thing...and went to Sea World for the rest of the day. Oye vey!! I think my legs offically hate me at the moment...but hey...that's how it goes.

ugh...

2010-02-08T19:33:00.000-08:00

Life is not hot or cold...black or white...on or off...but it does seem that I run that way with this here blog. Right now...i have too many thoughts running around in my little pea brain head so...to anyone listening...i'll just dump. We shall see how long that lasts.

Well...it's monday...and i wore compression socks to work (no...not as a fashion statement and yes they are black so they look like 'normal' socks under the trousers. I don't SPORT them like some wacky triathletes.) and one of my weekend activities involved taking an ice bath. Not usually a good sign. Blame the weights on friday...no i think blame the squats mainly.

But all this soreness made for an interesting weekend of training. And by interesting...i mean hard...mentally. Saturday the weather prescription was: 70% chance of rain. My original 4 hour bike was cancelled so I decided to deal with the rain during a run and push the ride to Sunday. Many accounts of Saturday's rain...and I think i made the right choice.

Saturday came and i felt like a complete rebel. I slept in...i drank some coffee...slowly...i soaked in the morning and puttered around the house enjoying a nice brekkie of coffee, french toast and fruit. The mornings exploits were seemingly scandalous compared to a normal Saturday early start. And then i realized: most people would do exactly this on a Saturday. I then realized: I wouldn't trade my Saturday morning rides, but occasionally it is nice to indulge in a 'normal' Saturday. Eventually i got out the door for an 8 mile run.

owch

slooooooooooooooooooooooooooowly i made my way along with some quads that hated me. But they didn't really hurt while running...they just made everything tired...slow...and tired.

Then sunday...lisa generously offered to ride with me on my long ride. Somehow google maps sucks...oh wait...somehow? yes...they just plain suck and told me it would be 15 miles from my house to point A...it was 7 miles...not 15. Which...now i was 16 miles short by the end of the ride since I was riding there and back to point A and then doing a loop off of point A. Double ugh...the ride itself was sorta a doozy. My body was achy, tired...but i pressed on. And near the end of it...what do I have to climb to get home? Torrey Pines. yowza. But before that I stopped to regroup with Lisa and looked at my watch: 2:58....nope I still needed some more time.

And then the negotiations set in: ugh..you're tired...do you really need to do 4 hours? We will get 3.5 i'm sure by the time I get home...legs hurt...body aches...really...what's 30 minutes??

I regrouped with Lisa and told her I needed some more time. She let me meander my way up the coast as she headed in. And then I was sent a small miracle mid-suffer fest. My friend mark.

I was stopped at a light when I hear someone say my name. I first think: who the heck would know me out here? And I look back...and my friend mark is there. Sigh...awesome. He distracted me for almost the whole distance I needed before I turned around. He truly was a Godsend when my little brain was just DONE and my body was screaming: ENOUGH.

Finally turned around and I swear the only reason I got home was part of it was down hill and there is that thing called gravity. The other portion...you know the part called Torrey Pines...well that was not fun...but I plowed up it and hung in there.

And then....more negotiations. I'm supposed to do 15x30 second pick ups with 30 sec recovery + 15 min cool down off the bike...so another total of 30 minutes of running...UGH...

just do 5...really...just do a few

then after 5...you can do 10 i know you can...

after 10...really...what's 5 more? You've come this far.

So i got all 15 done...but i wasn't finished at that point. Nope. Still had a weight workout to fit in later in the day.

Granted I got home, ice bathed, napped, ate, ate and ate some more...finally got to the gym with only 30 mins til close but i GOT to the gym. I seriously wanted to turn around half way TO the gym. AND i got a few lifts in to help with that anabolic response to help off set all that catabolic work i did this weekend. Maybe not the whole workout...but something is better than nothing.

you know what...i'm pretty proud of myself. I really was SO over the training pretty much all weekend...but i managed to get through. AND this morning...still feeling like lead and swimming like a rock...i got a good session of technique drills in (which are mentally challenging since they are so repetitive).

Major hurdles were jumped...yes max...there IS a steeple chase in ironman...i'm almost certain of it.

Just because I get it doesn't mean I like it

2010-02-06T17:52:00.000-08:00

I've been doing this swim-bike-run thing for awhile...this year makes my 7th season. I will admit the first few years i did not pay much attention to the finer details of endurance sports and digging into the academic aspects such as the physiological aspects of endurance sport. But since I am such a big nerd, it was only a matter of time before I started researching the biophysics, physiological, and many other esoteric topics involved in different parts of triathlon such as yaw angles, the physics of aerodynamics, and then there are the numerous nerdy papers I have read on nutrition. And before I move on...can i just say...please avoid fructose (not just high fructose corn syrup...but that is its own topic) if possible if you have a touchy stomach. Ok...that is its own blog post right there.

But anyway...the point of this post is even though I UNDERSTAND the why of something specific to training....that I GET it...it doesn't mean i like it. The topic at hand...weight lifting. And actually i should clarify...i like weight lifting. Actually i REALLY like weight lifting. But lifting weights and training when you mix them together especially when the weight lifting prescription is: LIFT HEAVY...hurts...a lot...

Endurance training is actually quite catabolic in nature...this means that with lots and lots and lots of long distance the body produces the stress hormone cortisol. This same hormone is what is produced when you are under stress so if you are under a lot of stress or aren't sleeping a lot or not recovering a lot your body goes into a catbolic state. When the body is in a catabolic state it starts to destroy the muscles...and makes you feel bad. If you let this go on for too long the symptoms of overtraining start to arise. Restlessness, can't sleep, depression, ect. You can experience these things if you are in general under a lot of stress. Ever get really stress out...suddenly you aren't sleeping...depressed...ect. I'm always suprised to see a list related to 'overtraining symptoms' and not see someone say: HEY!! don't you also feel like this when you are also mega stressed out?? Well...at least I do.

Crazy part...if i'm really stressed out...i can just watch my times get slower...and slower. Blame the cortisol and the fact i'm not sleeping. And if i'm really stressed out it is unlikely that I am eating well. So...a perfect storm that leads to some ugly training.

So how to balance this? Get the body to produce anabolic hormones...no i am not advocating steroids. But your body does produce anabolic hormones like growth hormone, testosterone, ect. to help balance out the catabolic ones. HOW? sprints and weight lifting will do this...lifting heavy amounts of weight are optimal.

I have two weight lifting sessions per week that just say: lift as heavy as you can on that day 2 x 10. um...i didn't lift last week and waltzed into the gym on friday and was pretty excited to be back lifting weights. In all honesty I like lifting weights. And weirdly...i like lifting really heavy weights. I find it sorta funny in a weird way. Don't ask me why i think it is funny (no disrespect to weight lifters) but maybe it is just ME wandering around the free weights trying to get the gossipy boys to stop hogging the squat rack that makes me sorta laugh under my breath.

So yesterday i did just what was prescribed...nice and HEAVY lifts. And got my 2x10 squats @ 95 pounds...so i'm excited i'm flirting with 100 pounds considering I started around 65 pounds. Yes...i know...i'm no power lifter. And yes I am a to-parallel or below parallel kind of girl...A2G. I know it makes some people freak out by a full squat like that...but i know there is literature on both sides of the debate and thus far no one can give me a good reason to not use my full range of motion. For me...i have found it has strengthened my glutes and fixed my psoas in so many ways i'm sold on the full squat for the moment. So that was pretty exciting.

And then i got to my deadlifts and i have little goals i make up they tend to be a little arbitraty and considering training sometimes makes me have to lighten them up, which my coach has warned me about it is supposed to be HEAVY for that day and not worry about how i had done previously, some days i'll lift more some days less. The point is to get the body to release anabolic hormones...and for these managed to pull 2x5 @ 150lbs....another PR for 5 reps. So i'm doing all kinds of good things to keep my keep my catabolic hormones in balance...but here's the issue....i.am.sore.

Today i had to push my long bike to Sunday. Biking on sore legs is much easier than running on sore legs. oye...i got some sore glutes that did not want to move for a long run. it was a sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow run today...but got it done.

So just because I UNDERSTAND why i am supposed to do these heavy lifting....and even though i even LIKE lifting heavy...doesn't mean i like it when i'm dragging my sorry legs around cuz they hurt. Oh well. I'll live.

Guess i can't floss

2010-02-04T08:40:00.000-08:00

Max said I should try to make blogging a habit...like flossing...well think the title of the post is inaccurate. I actually love to floss my teeth and i do it daily. But this regular blogging...nope. Lots is going on and i did write a post 2 weeks ago that is sitting in a word document on my work computer. But lots going on that is good and lots that is a juggle. I just moved to a new place and i'm digging it aside from the elephants that live upstairs. Training is going ok for the most part. I think the only thing I have to say in this post before I race off to work is my exciting run this morning.

I am currently training with a local coach and we have group workouts 2x a week. The way to really start to understand what it means to be FAST as in qualifyforkona FAST or winyouragegroup FAST is to train with people who do just that. I basically run in a different time zone than these people, but that's ok...i'm seeing improvements in MY training and that is SO COOL. But the wonderful thing about the group i train with is even though they come home with all kinds of bling from races they are super encouraging and really nice to train with.

We have a 500m loop that we run around and we were doing 2k efforts (4 loops) at what was to 'feel' like 10K pace. My pace: sub 50minute 10K! What's my 10K PR? 52:something that I did back in november...having *just* recovered from the swine flu. This morning I was on a 49:40 pace and absolutely felt like I could hold that for 6 miles. sweet!

So...the speed is coming. I actually threw down 6ish miles this weekend that i went for that aerobic feel (on top of actually feeling kinda blech about the run) and used my HRM to see what that 'felt' like and to see what my pace was. What was cool was that feeling of 'yea i could run this for a long, long, long time' was 9:45 @ 145bpm...no...not fast by anyone's imagination but it is encouraging for these loooooooong races ahead that loom in front of me.

This spring's racing schedule has pretty much been finalized too:
San Dieguito half marathon in two weeks: uh...yea this might be ugly.
Desert Tri March 7th (if you didn't sign up...it's already sold out! Crazy considering i signed up three days before the race last year...but there is some trash talking going on around this race. )
Super Seal (Oly) April.....11?
Wildflower Long Course May 1st. AKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK almost a little more nervous about this than IMCDA...that's kinda screwed up in my opinion.
And IMCDA on June 27

i miss blogging

2010-01-14T21:12:00.000-08:00

i miss blogging...

i miss reading people's blogs and then being able to take the time and leave a comment...

i miss finding new people's blogs and the fun adventures that they discover...

i never intended this blog to be anything...it was an outlet in grad school...it was a social experiment that at times i almost have deleted...but i have come to enjoy aspects of it. i enjoy the writing process...the creative process...but now...sigh...not so much time.

ironman training is going really well. i'm really enjoying it, but I think i have spawned two gremlins that live in my body. Their names are: Mr. Tired and Mr. Hungry

Now Mr. Tired has a lot to do with the necessity of going to bed at 9pm since i wake up every day...oh yes...every day at 5am. Problem is: i am not a morning person. And well...look at that...it's 9:16 and i'm being a rebel and writing this post. So my gremlin named Mr. Tired is really my own fault.

But Mr. Hungry? He's a bit of a pest at the moment and I don't think it's going to get any better as time goes on. They tell you to eat every 4 hours to keep your sugar levels stable...bla...bla...bla....But my day looks like: wake at 5am eat a snack...go do a workout...eat breakfast at 745 am...Hungry shows his head around 10am...and then again at 12...definately by 3pm, but if i'm having a bad day as early as 2...and then 4 and then if I have an evening workout...don't forget the pre-workout snack and there is dinner at 7...my conclusion: THERE ARE MONSTERS IN MY BELLY!! Either that or I have a tape worm...take your pick.

oh wait...back to the topic of this post...i miss blogging. I do...i'm not even sure if anyone is reading this much anymore...but if you are: hi!

There are realities in life...and i've made choices between choosing to do an ironman as well as some other choices that are sucking the time out of my life oh...yea and then there is that pesky thing called work that has decided to light itself on fire in good fashion. But in truth...while i do miss this blog and reading everyone's blogs...the mis-adventures i have begun embarking on between ironman training and the other things that take up the rest of my time I'm pretty happy with. I just wish I had another 2 hours every day.

So...my sad blog might be even sadder this spring and I even had some silly ideas of how to redesign my writing voice, but i don't know if that will happen or not. Takes a lot of brain cells to do that and recently my little head is only holding so much information apparently.

so...this space will be a little sparce this spring...but it's not because I don't miss it. Unfortunately there are only so many hours in a day!

10 years is a long time...a reivew

2009-12-31T09:25:00.000-08:00

I'm stealing my friend Max's idea to look back on the past 10 years and what they held. Next year...in a few days...hahaha...i will look at what 2010 holds. I don't write quite as eloquently as Mr. Max but i'll do my best. There have been a lot of mile stones in the past 10 years.

2000 I graduated from my tiny undergrad with a degree in Chemistry...not a bad way to start off a decade. I then moved to New Zealand that fall and began a two year adventure that sometimes makes me wonder why i ever left.

2001 was marked with lots of traveling around NZ in my green 1987 Mazda 626 i'd named Kermit and did a lot of growing up. I made a lot of mistakes...but who doesn't? I played a lot of ultimate frisbee around the country for a team in Auckland. Yes...not many people know there are competitive Ultimate Frisbee leagues.

2002 A co-worker planted the seed of triathlon in my little head as he was training for IMNZ. Both years I was in NZ i coincidentally in Taupo when IMNZ was going on. I thought those people were nuts. Especially the guy on the run without any shoes. And the guy who got 10 shades of excited when I started cheering for him. He was so happy it scared me.

I started training for an Olympic distance race but ended up moving in the middle of all the chaos back to the states and never did one. Good thing...i was not prepared for that distance and I probably would have had a horrible experience. I made the decision to move back to the states and out to MA and start grad school--five very long years.

2003 I still wasn't a triathlete and played a season of ultimate frisbee in a summer league. Realized, once again...i didn't like playing frisbee in the states. The culture here is different than overseas and stopped playing in the Fall. I walked at graduation...degree #1.

2004
Got tired of the gym and that seed of triathlon that had been planted 2 years before started to take hold. Convinced a friend of mine to do our first sprint distance race. Remember thinking: i am going to have to exercise for close to TWO whole hours straight!! Wondered if I might fall over and die in the middle of it. Never occurred to me that in a two day Frisbee tournament I probably played waaaaaaaaaaaaaay longer than that. Had no idea what I was doing...but enjoyed the challenge of it.

2005 My mom had a heart attack and survived. Made being healthier a priority for me. Tried to quit grad school. Was unsuccessful and somehow chalked it up to: it wasn't meant to be and stayed. Another year of sprint distant races. Still riding a 75 dollar pawn shop beauty that sometimes would stop shifting at important times...like in a race. Got a new bike at the end of the season. Ran my first half marathon in bucketing rain. Still remember a fellow gradschool/runner confused that my only goal was to finish and that I had no time goals. I didn't know what to expect...so i just went. Despite the downpour and squeaky shoes i had a good first experience.

2006 Got to do a little of what i love....teach. Did my first olympic distance-ish race (x2), actually TRAINED for a half marathon and broke 2 hours (thanks Joe!). This was my first taste at true athletic training and what it meant to do 400m track fun and hill repeats. I enjoyed it...but very quickly my athletics was put on a the back burner.

2007 Grad school was at a tipping point. It was not pretty. I somehow managed to secure a job...convince my adviser to let me graduate...defend and then move to San Diego. Triathlon? what's that? I did actually do one or two triathlons that season.

We also had a 'triathlon' at my going away party that entailed a slip-n-slide, a scooter war and a three legged race. My team won!

Fell while trail running a few days before my 30th birthday. The muscle psoas became an unfortunate part of my vocabulary...and still is.

2008 I was in the mecca of triathlons...but almost quit. Loved the sunshine. Bought my first wetsuit. Walked for graduation....degree #2. Dealt with hip injury. Signed up for my first half ironman but knew the hip wouldn't hold so backed out. Hired a coach in the fall. Something I never thought I would do. Discovered the velodrome and bought a fixie. Yes me...miss scaredy-pants on a bike that has no brakes and can't stop pedaling. Loved it.

2009
Was a big year for me with training. I actually started...training...you know hill repeats, time trial efforts, swim blocks, ect...mainly because my coach made me. :-) Was signed up...again...for my first half ironman, Vineman 70.3.

Was a year of PR's...like breaking my previous half marathon PR by almost 5 minutes on a very difficult course, La Jolla. Ummmm Torrey pines is soooooo fun to run up. Fastest sprint distant race time to date. Even broke my 10K PR twice now this year and the second time i was still recovering from the swine flu.

But the biggest athletic accomplishment was my first half ironman...Vineman 70.3. I hit a reach goal of sub six hours on a VERY hot day and had an amazing experience. Started to understand myself as an athlete better. And am now signed up for my first ironman!

2010 Holds ironman and some other crazy things to juggle. More on that in a future post.

The past decade has held its highs and lows....lots of learning and lots of growing. It will be interesting to see what the next 10 years hold.

So...raise your glasses and cheers! To the next decade!

There's a catch to it

2009-12-09T21:30:00.000-08:00

Technique is currently being HAMMERED into my head. Swim technique is a major focus...and then there is some run technique too. But swim technique has been hammered with endless 25y's. The focus of 25ys...perfect technique and repeat. I mentioned this awhile back and i have been swimming not huge volume but frequently...4 days a week...my hair and skin are starting to protest a little even with anti-chlorine shampoo and lotion. But I am seeing some dumbfounding improvements where I shake myself and say: but isn't that supposed to be my ALL OUT time? And really these improvements were just from one swim clinic about six weeks ago where my take home message was: hug a bear. Sure that was a motto i came up with, but after this last weekend's clinic...my six weeks of bear hugging has paid off. My coach gave me the thumbs up to move on to focusing on my stroke. One thing I like is my 'homework' usually is only 2 or 3 things to think about and focus on.

Ah yes...the catch of the stroke. I have discovered that if upon entering the water I subtly drop my wrist which causes the catch of the stroke to start later...and hence I am not pulling as much water through the stroke. But I have also discovered that i think i am destined to have massive deltoids because just when I thought i finally had some strength to them...this catch/pulling focus now tires the delts pretty quickly. But it is coming...and for whatever reason I really am digging the ability to focus on technique and it is paying off! That probably helps the motivation when I'm in the middle of a set of 72x25y and want to poke my eyes out from the repetition. But somehow I come back to center in the middle of it and embrace it again. It somehow works for me.

So in the meantime i will be working on my catch...and maybe I will start growing some fins and gills too.

10k...Thanksgiving...and all the dressings

2009-11-27T13:51:00.000-08:00

i've been in the category of 'endurance' athlete for about 6 years now. 2003 being my first sprint distance triathlon. Since then I have had a lot of firsts at many distances: some 5k's, a few10k's, a handful of half mary's, lots of sprint triathlons, multiple olympic distance triathlons, and my first half ironman. What I have discovered (moreso after moving to San Diego) is that I have developed a case of 'endurance arrogance' and many people around here also seem to have this.

I didn't want to do a 5K because...well...they hurt...a lot. My friend didn't want to do the 5K because: why would you want to get up that early to just run 3.1 miles?

Yep...give me 6 miles of hurting, but a different kind of hurt... i'll take that any day. I find it much easier to race at my LT than the constant edge between my LT/AT range required for a 5K. Maybe i'm just a wuss.

That thought process made me realize...that is kinda nuts compared to the standard population. Yes...i'd much rather race for 6 miles than 3? And back in Aug when I was bemoaning the fact I had signed up for AFC half marathon and a friend of mine said: oh it's just a 2 hour workout. We endurance athletes really need to get our heads checked!

The race went well...i achieved the three goals I had set out for myself: negative the two loop course, focus on footfalls/min >90 (weirdly leg turn over was more sluggish than normal) and swing my arms. I even managed to PR at the race with a time of 52:22! My previous 10K PR was off the end of Malibu Oly tri in Sept around 54:11. Not bad considering while i'm MUCH improved from the flu...i can tell i'm not 100% yet.

This is what got me to thinking more about endurance arrogance....i came home and pondered WHY i was tired. I thought it strange that I NEEDED a nap i mean...it was ONLY 6.2 miles...and then this morning was almost confused as to why my hamstrings were tight. This morning, I pretty much had forgotten that I had raced 6.2 miles yesterday....ahem...endurance arrogance.

So...to pull it back to reality...for thanksgiving I am thankful for being ABLE to wake up and run around like a turkey with her head cut off for 6.2 miles. That's pretty cool in itself and sometimes I need to remind myself of that.

Thanksgiving also reminded me of the fact: i don't like to cook. I had also re-realized this earlier in the week when I attempted some other cooking. I usually 'assemble' my dinner. Minimal 'real' cooking involved and NOTHING that requires a recipe. I may have been in 4-H as a kid and even won a gold ribbon a time or two for my cooking at the State fair (don't laugh too hard)...but as an adult...not a fan.

What a mess...and I was just making ONE side dish for dinner. Oh well. Thanksgiving was a chaotic assembly of a lot of random people but a good time...even punctuated with a big dance party at the end. No better way to burn off that pumpkin pie than with a dance party.

Thanksgiving is a day to be thankful...and i am of many, many things.

Technique

2009-11-24T19:56:00.000-08:00

<--ummm...a little holiday cheer to help with the writing...maybe a lot of 'cheer' in there too. ;-)

Things around these parts could be better but alas...that is how life is sometimes. Sometimes it is mountain tops that you feel on top of and other times there are valleys. I'm in a bit of a valley and trying to figure out the next best step...but alas it is what it is and i am trying to make the best of it in the meantime.

For my friend Max!! I know he's got to be on a mountain top He just finished IMAZ, his first IM and did amazing. Watching his training and race unfold makes me all the more excited for mine next year. Awesome job Max!

But...oh...yes...training...training has been interesting. Post swine flu episode I have been just trying to get back into the groove. The cough is almost gone and my energy is falling back into place. I only started back on the 'training' bandwagon a little over a week ago and it was a bit like this: do 20 minutes and if i had more energy do some more...if I didn't have enough energy 20 minutes was good enough. The goal: get back into consistency. Get back in the groove.

I had some good days and would finish the whole workout and other days where i'd rather sleep and call it good after 20mins. But I haven't pushed...and have just waited. All in all its coming along.

The big thing I have been focused on the past month or so is...technique. Swimming technique and running technique. About a month ago my coach had a group swim meeting where he taped our strokes and gave us just a couple of things to work on. I had three things to focus on: head position, arms WIDE (hence my hug a bear motto) and hand entry. I swim 4x a week and 2 of those workouts are what we call: endless 25y's. The other two are lots of 50y's so plenty of time still to focus on technique.

Grab a pull bouy...a set of XXS paddles and swim very focused for 25y. Rest for a very long time (20 seconds) and repeat...over...and over...and over. Throw in an all out sprint every 4th 25y...but you get the picture. Rep-i-tition. My violin teacher in undergrad would be proud of the montra. I have found I actually do very well with such a singular focus. Sure in the middle of a 72x25y...i get a little distracted and i'll admit a little bored, but over all i'm soaking it up.

So I constantly focus on perfect form. Over-and-over-and-over. When we were doing the group swim session a month ago my coach had said: just trust me with the endless 25y's this winter.

so...i am..

But...being the curious person i am i decided this week to 'see' if all of this insanity was making any difference. So I timed my warmup. You know...the slow 50y's. The one's where it is supposed to be easy peasy? And then...I timed the cooldown 100s...and focused on making them...easy peasy. And I was SHOCKED with the result.

over and over...my 50y's turned up 55sec.

my 100y's...mind you at an EASY PEASY pace...1:50

again...and again...and again...

no this is not terribly fast...but for me these times meant: i just took 5 seconds off of my 50 and 10 seconds off of my 100y. TEN SECONDS.

How long can i hold that? not sure yet...but i am very encouraged. Very very encouraged. I might just be a fish by the end of this crazy endeavor!

And as for running technique i currently hold a cadence of about 90-92 footfalls/min...goal: 96ff/min. Which i can get to if i'm focused...but the idea being that if i can make 96 'natural'...then in the middle of a long race i'll probably be more like 90. Few other tidbits working on with running technique mainly around the fact i apparently don't swing my arms. Weird. And a few other things...but it is all coming along.

Interesting bits coming together for sure, but technique can make a huge difference. It is amazing.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY...you have the swine flu!

2009-11-10T17:13:00.000-08:00

yes...it is my birthday today. Kinda a cool year too...11/10/09. I like it. But what I DON'T like is that I came down with the ohhhhhhhhh so lovely flu yesterday evening. Fever, chills, headache, muscle aches, skin creepy crawly, lethargic. This morning i thought i was superwoman in that my fever had broken and I thought: yea...take that stupid flu...until an hour later i was over 100 again and got worse as the day wore on. I've had some amazing wacky dreams. (Fevers do that to me) and came up with the BEST idea ever. (keep in mind....i AM little delirious at the moment) but I think that creating 'Fever' Pajamas would be the best thing EVER. Maybe call them HOT pajamas? (where is that little circle for copy right? ;-))

My thought is to take what would be winter running/biking material. It is supposed to wick the sweat away but keep you warm too. When i have a fever at night i get all sweaty but chilled (i have never understood the chilling part to a fever...why am i so dang cold?) but waking up to damp cotton pj's is not nice. So what about something that could wick the sweat away? So that's my invention for the day. Pretty prodcutive day considering i've been sleeping all day.

Yes part of me really wants to throw a little bit of a pity party today, but the reality is that aside from feeling yucky i have no complaints on my birthday. I am very blessed. I got to talk to my sister and her crazy little kids. My parents. I've received texts wishing me well...and emails of happy birthday: get better. Sure i would rather be going out for sushi with some friends as orginally planned but when I know I can (and did) call them and say: can you bring me some nyquil and cough drops that they were over in a flash. Knowing I have true friends is really the best present there is. Maybe it did take me getting the swine flu to truly appreciate that.

testing...tap...tap...tap...is this thing on?

2009-11-06T22:11:00.000-08:00

This week has been interesting on the training front. I had a great swim stroke analysis from my coach last saturday which has lead to: endless 25y's and me tucking my head down and saying to myself: hug a bear.

yes...hug a bear

WHY hug a bear? Well...i do what many swimmers do...the dreaded crossing of the arms at the beginning of the stroke. So my coach wanted me to swim as WIDE as i could as he said: you won't ever swim too wide...trust me. So my motto all week has been: hug a bear.

On a fun training front i had a fantastic meet up with a fellow blogger this week...LG...somehow convinced her some hot yoga would be fun. And it was as well as hanging out with her and discovering that while we do very different things in life we have much training outlooks that are similar. That is always a fun find because sometimes that is hard TO find.

But overall...
i know i have been a little awol on the bloggy front. I've been reading many of your blogs out there, but my comments have been few and my writing over here has been...well...sparse. I'll create only about a 1/10 of a post and that will be all i can muster mainly because i am...exhausted...bone tired. And not the good kind either...the good kind is the kind where you are tired because the training is hard and things may take a ton of energy and time but it's positive and feels good to dump all the energy into those tasks. No...it's that draining kind...the kind where you just wonder: am i at the bottom of this yet?

And the answer is always: no

and to make matters worse: i over think.

and THAT...is an understatement

so when we all go through transition or points of change or just junk it gets all that much more emotionally exhausting for me because i MULL...i THINK...i think and i think. But weirdly...i will get in this mental churn and because i'll get tired of my internal churn i will make a decision just to DO something. Just to stop the churn and I sometimes tend to disregard some of the realities.

that is me...churn and then act but weirdly act slightly impulsively just to get the mental churning to stop. because acting gets me 'unstuck'. But patience is sometimes a better plan, unfortunately...i'm not so patient...mainly how can you be patient when you can't get the churn to stop without acting?

But stuff is in motion therefor so am i

And then there is some job stuff...my job...that job...that other job...that potential job...that dream job...no you can't do THAT in your job...but you MUST do THIS in your job...you want the ability to DO your job?...here?...really?...no...i just want you to deliver anyway on the impossible project...take all the time out of your actual job and do it now....really...sooooo not kidding

this makes me...frustrated

and slightly impulsive

there is a laundry list i could go on and on about to...but i don't want to encourage the churn. So i will leave it here. i'm alive...i wish things would settle down a little bit...i wish i knew the best answer for the question(s) in front of me...oh and...sleeping would also be nice.

So that's what it is like to be near the front of a race!

2009-10-27T21:34:00.000-07:00

This weekend was SOMA half ironman. I had signed up to do the race with some people through TNS training. When we signed up...they didn't know me...i didn't know them, but since the sign up and Malibu and this weekend i've gotten to know my happy little team and I was pretty excited to be doing the relay with them.

And then i was off the bike for literally 3 weeks...

And then i was poked and prodded with needles and beaten up with a foam roller...

i didn't know what to expect from my ability to spin the cranks and move those wheels. The original plan for this race was to see HOW much faster on a flat course and no swim or run I could go than Vineman. I wanted to break 3 hours since I was close to the 3 hour mark at vineman.

There was much about the weekend that was fun insanity and much about the weekend that was just unfun...predominately around the fact I almost got myself stranded in Tempe by no fault of my own as well as the fact my happy little relay had to break up due to our swimmer crashing her beautiful new bike on Saturday and making friends with the ground at 30mph. Bike crashes make me inhearantly sick to my stomach and my heart went out to her. But then to find out that due to how her handle bars crunched into her top tube on top ...she totaled her bike: double sick to my stomach.

So this was Saturday: me potentially stuck in Tempe longer than I anticipated, my relay's swimmer sporting some nice road rash, a (right) decision not to race, a totaled less than 100 mile bike and a friend wondering if a whopper of a migraine was about to strike before his race on Sunday. It wasn't boding well for well...any of us.

Saturday afternoon was packet pickup and our swimmer inquired if there was a way to do the relay without the swim...to then have the directors say: hey...ask this INSANELY fast guy to swim for you. oooookkkkkkkkkkaaaaaaaay

Race morning:
Still no ride home
Meet Mr. wicked fast swimmer...he's 10 shades of excited just to swim.

The relay's are in the second wave and he ends up swimming somewhere around 27/28 minutes and is within the top 10 out of the water.

My thought: well this is kinda cool that i'm now near the FRONT of the race...but also weird and a little concerned that i'm going to get passed like i'm standing still for the rest of the day. But really nice to be near the front because there was no one out there to jocky around and worry about staying back or passing or whathaveyou. Lap 1...not as many guys passed me as I thought...Lap 2 a few more zipping past and Lap 3...now we are in the thick of everyone on the course.

I didn't like the course really because there were a lot of random U-turns on the course. I ended up hammering it a little too hard in the beginning and suffered a bit the last 5 miles. But i was pleased with my effort.

And then i saw my time...

and had to laugh...

original goal: go sub 3hours (which i totally let go of with the lack of training the past month)

Time: 3:00:29

Not quite sub 3 but sooo close!Not bad for a girl who hadn't been riding her bike!

Funnily afterwards a random girl at the relay rack decided to ask me how I did. I'll admit my little brain wasn't working 100%, but something that definately bothers me about some triathletes (and i've seen it much more so here in s.cali) is that someone's reason for asking your time is to see if they bested you. I remember blankly staring at this girl thinking: WHO ARE YOU? AND WHY DO YOU CARE???? Fortunately Brian came to my rescue and said: don't mind her...she can barely talk after races. And gave my general update. But really...why was this person asking? So weird to me.

in the end...I fortunately found a ride home on Sunday...but the process of finding one was a clusterf...and i was not a happy camper.

Sometimes I think that if i have a patch of crappiness that patch will be it for awhile and i will soon spring out of it. The weekend was fun to see friends but definitely shadowed a bit by some of the not so fun things. unfortunately...i came home to difficult and distressing topics to which I am reminded: i really am bone tired and I wish i could figure out a respite.

life does not stop

to be clear...

2009-10-19T21:15:00.000-07:00

There have been a lot of learnings going on in this corner of the woods recently. Mainly revolving around...WHAT is going on in my hip. It spasms...it does crazy stuff...it's weird...net result...i get frusterated.

So...am in injured? Not really but i'm not 100% healthy either...ok...i'm not 100% of where I WANT to be to start something like IM training. If I were training for a half? Oh...i'd say I was totally FINE. But IM training...that's a different monster that i am sure would prey upon any imbalance that is latent in my body.

When I fell in June my acupuncturist discovered that i'm internally rotatated on my right side. In Aug I saw another guy about this and i'm rotated about 4 mm past where I should be. The best way to describe it...I have lower crossed syndrome. And in reality...i probably also have upper crossed syndrome too. For the life of me, i can't figure out how a person could have one and NOT have the other. But that's not the point.

So my conclusions to my anterior-ly rotated hip....

this didn't start in June (it was just discovered)...

and it didn't start in Nov 2007 when I fell....

nor back when I had runner's knee

Or piriformis pain

or IT band issues

But aside from the injuries caused by falling...this rotation probably CAUSED the other ones and aggressively aggravated the ones that were induced by falling and hence were so hard to overcome.

And the reality...this probably only was actually OBSERVED because i am an endurance athlete. Maybe there is something to be said for being a couch potato?

Here is my slightly wackadoodle theory (although I think i'm right)...the fact that my hip has too much of a tilt to the forward is most likely related to the fact I have played the violin since I was five....

and have TMJ...

and have back issues...

but first to understand how my wacky jaw is related to my HIP... you have to believe in fascia

and then you have to believe that the fascia are all connected together in interesting patterns and an dysfunction in a shoulder can influence the opposite hip

And once that understanding is embraced then it starts to make sense that all of the gnarly issues in my fascia from TMJ and years of playing the violin might actually be the root cause of inducing the anterior tilt in my hip. How you say? By tightening some of the back muscles, my QL got too short, which probably weakened my glutes, my hip flexors got tight (aided by cycling and running i'm sure) and it leaves me with an imbalanced weird situation.

So how does one FIX this?

Me and my foam roller are friends...ok...we are much MORE than friends.

My acupuncturist continues to work on releasing many muscles and balance them out

i stretch

i strengthen the glutes

i strengthen the core....the guy working to balance me out has me pretty convinced i'm going to have abs of steel at the end of this. I'm starting to see the separation between my obliques and rectus abdominis muscles (ie those six pack muscles) on the sides of my stomach and oh yea and the separation between the ab muscles is starting at the top. Hopefully i'm not just imagining this. ;-)

But much of this (the foam roller and acupuncture)...leaves me a little worse for wear as well as doing the things that continue to shorten the wrong muscles, like cycling and running, makes it tough to strengthen and release the right ones.

So...i took some time off over the past 2 weeks. I have barely been on my bike in the past 3 weeks...running has been minimal. But hey i think i grew gills and i'm a fish now. Never mind the fact that i'm getting defined deltoids because me and the pull bouy and paddles are becoming fast friends. Hmmm...good thing i always thought deltoids were the coolest muscle group anyway. (and probably one of the most attractive on a guy...yes I do have a thing for guys with defined delts. ) But i think this means that i need to say 'bye-bye' to cap sleeved shirts that button on the arm. I have one shirt that is like that and now it is tight in the arms and too lose in the waist. I think pretty soon i won't be able to button the sleeves. Sigh...

Its a good kind of pain, i think?

2009-10-02T21:09:00.000-07:00

Nagging injuries, well...suck. I'm soooooooooooooooooooooooo tired of my hip injury that I have just up and decided, i'm over it. It doesn't matter that I can feel the spasm. Nope...i'm just over it. Ok...maybe i'm not over it physically...but i'm sooooooooooo over it mentally that mentally chose to deal with it as little as i can get away with.

That being said i have been 'prehabing' my hips for ironman next year. I had a lot of acupuncture after falling in May prior to Vineman which got me through vineman with the promise that post vineman i would focus on 'fixing it'. I"m in 'fixing it' mode, but the problem: it would get worse, it would get better nothing really was happening. i was secretly frustrated.

If I did X it was irritated...but only sometimes. I'd do Y on one day and nothing would be bad and then i would do Y again and i would have a massive trigger point. I wasn't getting any worse but i know i'm only at 90% and heavy loads of training would surly expose this and quickly.

For a few weeks i have been doing the strength hip thing with a person who is working to balance all of my muscles in my body prior to ironman training. I didn't have a full opinion of what he has been doing with me I was basically pondering the questions: was it working? Was this worth it?

While i didn't feel like i was making much progress, I had decided to just give it a shot and see what would happen and then last week I sent him an email: oh by the way whatever you did to me...i have a big 'ol unhappy trigger point in the psoas. not in pain...but definitely irritated.

So this week his response: that shouldn't have happen if it is psaos originated.

Me in my head:ok buddy then what do you suggest. most people won't suggest anything so here i am with the bitter knowledge that we might be treating something that isn't the right thing.

Him: Let's try something else...let's see if something ELSE is what the problem is. Maybe it is a quad strain?

And miracle of miracle...we found it. I get a referred trigger point that is typical of psoas pain and what i had when i fell the first time, but this time...i have a different irritated/strained muscle. Lots of poking and prodding of the muscle and it now...HURTS.

But i'm encouraged. Finding the root cause means we can fix it. Before it just seemed like guess work and i wondered if i was every going to get 100% better.

i'm in for some acupuncture tomorrow and i'm sure she will electrocute me in the process...literally. Not a fun thing when someone hooks electrodes up to needles that are IN your body...but it stopped the other spasm before.

in the meantime...ice and heat and oh what was that? Oh yea rest a little bit? that's a hard one.

a slippery sliding slope

2009-09-25T22:59:00.000-07:00

many times in life we just climb, climb, climb and climb. wondering where the top is. Wondering what is on the other side. Wondering...when the stupid mountain will stop towering in front of us. And then there are other times when we don't realize we are on a precipitous slope that is about to give way underneath us and send us crashing down the hill. And while the tumultuous fall down the side of the slope is unnerving...it is important to get down the hill to see what is in store next. The disconcerting thing is: we don't know when we will stop sliding.

i am in a little bit of a free fall right now. i'm trying to kick my hands up in the air like it is a roller coaster ride and just enjoy the free fall, but i still have a little bit of that 'sick to my stomach feeling' you get when in free fall and desperately want to cling to a tree on the side of the mountain.

So here are some learnings of this free fall just this week:

I hate the word: opportunity... especially when it is used to depict crap. Crap is crap. it is not opportunity and it SURE does not smell like it either. Please just call a spade a spade.
being a home owner isn't the end all and be all in life. I will not be buying this condo...and i will not be purchasing anything in the near future. Many things pointed to the reality that: It was not the right time for me. I am at peace with that.
winning 'fake points' during a velodrome class...is still really fun. Even if you suspect the other person let you win. (ok this isn't really a 'free fall' type of learning...but a general learning from the week.)
When real opportunity does knock on the door and speaks sweetly...it is scary and you start to wonder: is it really on the other side? And it may or may not be...but the belief that it might is very exciting. Even if the level of sacrifice is high...
when in freefall...relax...it could take you where you've never dared to dream. And while those dreams are just dreams...you start to realize how valuable they are when you say: i would give up XYZ for it. And you never realized you WOULD give up XYZ.
what happens to a dream deferred? you fight harder if the chance comes round again. you fight like you have nothing to lose because you realize you may only get one chance this time around.

just trying to relax as i slide down and hope of new things that might be in store.

bike shopping

2009-09-21T21:16:00.000-07:00

ahhhh...yes...i am shopping for a tri bike. Me being me...i started out over analyzing the situation and almost feeling like I needed to know EVERYTHING about the bike and what i may or may not want before jumping into the process. I finally told myself to : chill out...have fun riding some bikes.

So...i've started having some fun riding some bikes. So I'm sure you will see a lot of MY opinions on various bikes...but they are just that MY opinion. We all ride differently and like different things so these are just what I have observed and what I like. What i learned from my track bike buying experience is that if I ride some bikes...the bike will 'speak' to me so to say...and i'm sure i will be able to figure out what I want from there.

I only managed to squeeze in two bike this weekend...but I decided to start with the standard bike you see EVERYWHERE at a tri...the Cervelo. I know a few people who swear by the Cervelo...and a few who HATE the cervelo...i just wanted to know what the fuss was all about, so I gave one a go.

i'm not a super duper short woman...5'4" AND i have a long torso...so i thought I would be set with tribikes and not have to have the tiny size with the tiny wheels. (i have a somewhat irrational/rational disdain for 650 wheels at the moment...it's boarderline funny) so I was rather surprised when the 51cm bike did not fit me. I had to go down to the tiny 49...with the tiny wheels.

I got to ride it around for a solid 20minutes and the words that came to mind when i road it were: squirrelly, playful, puppy, and yes...giggle. I don't know where the word giggle came from, but I found the bike very puppy-like. I read roadbike reviews and the commentator has some eloquent speech about the bike's handling and this or that...that's not me. I also didn't like the geometry all that much at first...i felt like i had my knees in my belly the whole time (even though they weren't touching and I basically got a bike fit before they sent me out to test ride it. So i know i was set up...props to the Trek store). I chalked it up to never having been on a true tribike and only been on my roadbike with aerobars. I anticpated the difference, but I guess my take away was while the bike is supposed to be fast...it just didn't 'feel' fast to me. (it doesn't mean that's not a fast bike...don't get me wrong...again...my opinion...and i don't get to wind tunnel or time trial these bikes so this is from a 20minute test ride...what do I know? Not a whole lot from this).

Then onto...a very 'gucci' bike as i will now refer to it. A friend of mine works at a bike shop and had told me that they had just gotten some Specalized in my size. I somehow interpreted that to mean: we have these specalized built up. I'm a little dense sometimes. I must have not heard him...so I asked if i could come and try one out to check my size in a Specalized time trial bike. I thought that they had the Specalized Comps built up. I show up...um...no...the only one built up in my size is the fancy high end gucci bike. The gucci bike...the Specalized S-Works transition...it's pretty hawt and the fit is pretty much perfect. Oh my...me wants it. I didn't get to ride it much, but it was a better fit than the P2...and no silly small wheels either...it also just felt right. But that much for a bike...you'd HOPE so.

But the takeaway at the moment is that the Specalized size/geometry could work for me. But i've just started the shopping...and it's FUN. On the list of bikes to try out:
Kestral
Cannondale Slice
Orbea
Felt
Giant
Jamis (if i can find my size)
Guru

Any others i'm missing? I think i can find all of these in my size somewhere in this town.

this is fun ...:-)

Will race for cookies!

2009-09-13T21:36:00.000-07:00

This weekend was the Malibu triathlon...where on Saturday there was an olympic distance race and on Sunday was the Star studded sprint distance race that raised money for Children's Hospital of LA. I picked up this little gem of a t-shirt at the race. I do embrace this M.O. In gradschool someone asked me why I did triathlons and I turned to them and said: so i can eat ice cream. I dont' think he believed me but I was being honest. That is one thing I am looking forward to with Ironman training...being able to keep icecream in the freezer. The little perks of training...right?

Since Vineman i have been somewhat 'offseasoned' and mainly have had a training regime of 'do something' for 5-6 days a week. I've been riding my bike some, running a little, swimming occasionally (so as not to forget how) and lifting weights frequently with an attempt to strengthen the hips as well as completely undo all the weirdness I did to my hip when I injuried it. Interesting stuff how the body compensates for an injury. I think i may have developed my amazing heel striker ability partly due to this injury...but that is a topic for another time.

Coming into the race I had little expectation. I may have only done one 'proper' olympic distance of 1500m/40K/10k. I've done a few that area 'around' that length, but really only OC tri last year is one of the same distance. Comparing the two...i PR'd on Saturday for an OLY distance. My favorite was to see a 6 minute improvement in my bike split...granted my bike split at Malibu includes stopping and get off my bike to pee.

Not having a lot of focus on the race both training or expectations is sorta a weird spot to race. My legs felt weird, not really springy...so I just went with it. My swim pace was a little slow...but there was a lot of swells out there. My bike pace included a pit stop...so who knows how fast I was going. And my run pace was pretty solid around an 8:40 avg...which I was surprised by since i really just distracted myself by following my foot turnover the whole time. (90-96 footfalls/min)

Sunday I hung around and cheered other TNSers on and watched all the celebrities race alongside everyone. Saturday is a smaller field and you don't have to deal with all the poparazzi. I liked the size of the field much better than how big Sunday was.

The weekend was pretty awesome all around. I had a solid race (which I have sense discoverd I in the top 25% of my age group), got to reconnect with some friends and make some new friends.

And yes...i did have a cookie. :-)

ebb and flow

2009-09-09T22:43:00.000-07:00

ebb
1. to flow back or away, as the water of tide (opposed to flow)
2. to decline or decay; fade away

flow:
1. to rise and advance, as the tide (opposed to ebb).
2. to abound in something: The tavern flowed with wine.

Life is give and take and ebb and flow. What has become abundantly clear to me in the past few weeks is that life can be both....at one time...all at once and not at all. It can ebb and flow in different directions and take me with it in all areas and at the same time leave me somewhat torn on how to even think about it. And it seems that this process leaves me holding my hands open, trying to catch water flowing through my fingers....which is something I cannot....and I must just let it flow and almost helplessly watch the water slip through.

Part of the process is breathing in...and breathing out...and learning to exhale. Breathe in the scents of new mornings with warm sunshine and breathe out all that is weighty and stale. And then accept the grace that is needed to begin again.

and so begin...again...

1 bike ride, 35 miles, a headwind in EVERY direction, and 176.99 dollars later

2009-08-23T21:34:00.000-07:00

Warning...this is a dysfunctional post...total ramble. Read at one's own risk.

i might actually have my legs back. maybe? possibly? almost. Blew off an offer to ride 50 miles yesterday cuz it looked yucky out...ok that was what i said but i'll be honest here...i didn't feel great. Tired. Tired...oh...and tired. not the crazy malaise I had two weeks ago where I would fall asleep at the drop of a hat, but just...meeh. I'm having a hard time accepting that 4 very stressful weeks in the office full of travel, a week of heavy duty experiments, people actively stressing me out at work, a checkpoint, a condo i'm trying to buy and that thing called 'life' that doesn't seem to stop either. It's those 'other' things that seems to be draining me and impacting me more than I would like to admit are starting to take its toll on me. I don't think racing a half marathon a week ago really helped either... So...this week i've just sucked it up and accepted that I need to be 'nicer' to my body. (mostly) I spent half of a yoga class on Wednesday in child's pose because my body just didn't want to do much back bending and it seemed every pose had a back bend involved. seriously? ugh.

So I rescheduled with Kimmy....and we headed out this afternoon after I got out of church. It was supposed to be a chilled out 30ish ride...you know...2ish hours...enjoy the beautiful day sort of deal. And it started out as much granted there was a killer headwind as we went north...but we chatted about how GREAT the tailwind would be on the way back. But then I noticed the holder that holds my super ghetto bike computer decided to swing itself around my aerobars. Ohhh the dangle...looked like a disaster waiting to happen. So halfway through we stopped to fix it at a LBS. 5 minutes later, easy peasy fix...all ready to gooooooooooooo...hmmm...im hungry...shot blocks? 1.99...k....let's rock and roll.

But kimmy is admiring the beautiful bikes. ohhhh and the bike lust set in with all the beautiful bikes. And then bikeshopguy who is a friend of kimmy's starts talking fitting, bikes, gearing, bikes, and more bikes. oh...thinking of buying a tri-bike??....and then successfully SUCKED into the bike store vortex. Current debate I am now chewing on...IF i were to buy a tri bike here soon...what gearing?? Standard crank set vs. Compact when i'm used to a triple at 30/42/52 with a 12-25?...and did you know...they now sell 11-28s? In fact I learned all kinds of crazy rear cog set-ups are available. keep in mind it is only in the past year I even barely started to understand what the gearing was all about and for the record...i never use to CARE.ugh...i think the gearing debate is a post in itself.

so...bikeshopguy asks kimmy about the health of her chain...she brings in her bike and...ut-oh...chain is waaaaaaaaaaay stretched and has impacted her rear cog set in the process. So one new chain, a rear cogset, 175.00 dollars later...we are now ready to head out...ugh 176.99 just dropped on what was supposed to be an easy peasy fix for me.

The rest of the ride seemed somehow to be a constant headwind no matter what direction we went. North...east...south...west. ugh. But I did hammer it a bit down one of my favorite stretches (aside from the crappy pavement part...it's just no stoplight zone for about 4-5 miles)...and the legs are almost back to where I'd like so i'm pleased.

And while a wickedly long 35 mile bike ride due to our little side excursion...still an awesome fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon...on two wheels and with a good friend.

Running in the moment

2009-08-16T19:27:00.000-07:00

Today was AFC half marathon...which was an interesting endeavor on many fronts. But the quick and the dirty: 1:56...My 2nd fastest half marathon to date and only 2 mins off my PR at La Jolla. Not too bad for a girl who a week ago thought that her body was being inhabited by an very unfit alien.

Up until Tuesday of this week I was WORRIED about what might happen at AFC since I was a month out from having raced Vineman 70.3. I had spent the previous weekend sleeping, sleeping, attempting to learn to surf, and sleeping some more. Come monday I still had a bad case of malaise, but by tuesday my running didn't look too bad and by thursday I knew it wasn't going to be horrible...it just might hurt a bit.

Since I was showing signs of anxiety about the race, I equally attempted to mitigate some of my fears and tried to figure out ways to just let the race unfold and be in each moment. Since Vineman I've been reading a lot of articles on heart rate monitors and are they useful or not useful? How much information really am I getting from them? What IS it really telling me since HR can vary by as much as 10-20bpm from day to day and then...the impact of weather? And.... don't I know my body well enough to know when it's super easy(walking), easy (aerobic zone), harder (LT zone) and very hard (AT zone) and very very very hard (VO2max)? Actually from all the time trials I did this season and all the times I tracked my HR...i know precisely what these zone are without really needing to look at a watch to tell me this...so it got me thinking...

And then...i've been re-looking at my vineman data and well...what I find curious is the second half of the bike...my HR dropped and my speed went from 18.4 mph to 18.3mph. Not really much of a change in speed for my HR drop. And as it was, i was operating 10bpm lower than that infamous 'zone' that I knew I could be in. The reason why i backed off? I got nervous about the half marathon. So as it was the HR was not telling me anything except I could go faster...but my body was saying: i'm not sure if you push us harder i will support that half mary the way you want. Are you sure you want to go harder?

So I listened to my body and i backed off...and I made the right choice. And...As it was for the half marathon...i had no HR data since when my the HR strap has too much water on it, it doesn't read correctly...and since I kept putting ice down my jersey and dumping water on me...my HR kept reading 98bpm. Hahahaha. So really...off my Garmin the pace was helpful, but I didn't actually use that HR portion of the Garmin for much of anything at Vineman.

Back to AFC...i decided to do an experiment, let's strip it down further...no continual pace and distance...no Garmin/HRM, only my little watch with splits. Just breathe in, breathe out...feel the body...feel where it can push faster...feel when I need to pull back...relax, focus on the foot falls, body position, the breathing the relaxing.

And know what...it was a very relaxing and enjoyable race. It actually went by quite quickly mentally and turned into a great race by just being able to be in the moment.

Breathe in...breathe out

Lost and found?

2009-08-07T22:19:00.000-07:00

Dear Vineman 70.3 race directors:

I am writing to inquire about if you have a lost and found from the race? I had a fantastic time racing three weeks ago, but it seems that I am missing a few things post race. Maybe some of your wonderful volunteers have come across any of these items? You see, I came into the race ready and excited and the results of the day were that I had a fantastic day, but it now seems that I may have lost a few things along the way.

Many people say: ‘when racing, to leave ‘it’ all on the course’…and while I believe that the results of some focused training and well planned taper and good nutrition allowed me to leave ‘it’ all on the course…three weeks later I was wondering if anyone happened to come across ‘it’ out there on the course and if a wonderful volunteer might be willing to mail ‘it’ back to me?

You see…I didn’t expect to see ‘it’ for awhile, I understand that the demands of a five hour and fifty five minute race or any race of 70.3 miles may take awhile for ‘it’ to come back, but I had no idea what life was like without ‘it’ so…if you see the following, could you please mail them back to me?

One fish…

Growing up…my parents considered me a ‘fish’ where they had to pull me out of the water…seems these days it is hard to get me near the water. Although one fish was seen last night under the light of the full moon with a glow stick attached to her cap…so maybe the fish will be back soon.

One pair of cycling legs…

Preferably ones that like to push a ‘big girl gear’ (heck, I’ll just take any gear at this moment!!)at the velodrome and can actually keep up with the warmup paceline until they actually start to burn out.
They can also be described as legs that enjoy going fast and spinning at a high rate of speed.
They can also be described at ones that don’t typically get dropped of the motor until later in workouts, not on the first time on the motor at what would be considered a ‘notsofast’ speed for the track.

One runner…

This is an important one, if you could keep an eye out for her I REALLY would appreciate it. I have a race in a week and oye vey…it’s a half marathon. It would be nice if she would show up for this…or at least for part of it. But part of this is dependent upon the next item that is ‘missing’…

One cardiovascular system…

I would think that 6 months of training would result in the ability to go out for easy bike rides with friends and not turn into a suffer fest when speeds are quite leisurely.
While the HR seems ok…the body keeps telling the brain that it can’t breathe and most efforts, even short bursts…are seemingly taxing on the body. I’m starting to wonder if I’ve ever exercised a day in my life…at least that is what it is starting to feel like in my body.
Even small high efforts have induced a wheezing effect which has started to cause consternation.
Short 5 mile ‘easy’ runs have been anything but ‘easy’ with one turned into walking the last 2 miles of it.

Yes…I do seem to think that ‘it’ is coming back…verrrrrrry slowly…but I would kind of like to know a full arrival date? Do you have a tracking number on ‘it’? The lack of ‘it’ has pushed out the date of when I will start actually racing at the velodrome mainly because…I can barely ride a bike at the moment without the wheezing effect combined with a feeling like I suddenly have a fever. Oh and the malaise that has decided to inhibit my body instead of ‘it’…I’m not so pleased with. You can have that back. I didn’t mean to pick that up at the post-race expo.

I do want to say…the race was wonderful and well put on! Thanks for a great course and such an amazing experience. I really did have a fantastic time!! If you happen to see any of these items please send them to:

Rocketpants

5015 iwishicouldridemybike lane

Runningusedtobefun, CA 55519

oh and ps...if you find the 3 pounds I lost since the race, please keep them. My jeans are much happier with out them.

just one day...

2009-08-04T20:42:00.000-07:00

One day is all it took to undo being out of the office most of the past 2.5 weeks. just.one.day.

I headed to get a massage yesterday after work (which i've been in desperate need of since my HIM) and got into my car and was crushed by a wave of how stressed out I was after just.one.day.

Findings from the massage were punctuated by the puzzlement of my massage therapist when he said: It's pretty amazing you can even lift your arms above your head when you have such large knots in your lats that I can't get to release.

sigh...

I have decided that it should be illegal to let a massage therapist use their elbows. That should be classified as a lethal weapon, not part of a massage.

And when the question is posed: so...when am I going to see you again?
ummmm....that's not actually a GOOD sign...I'm prrrretty sure that's only a good sign when its asked at the end of a good date with a guy I like.

And stress level...oh yes...the insomnia is back! Everything was punctuated by the fact that last night I was not able to keep myself asleep.

all from...just.one.day. in the office

New Beginnings

2009-08-02T21:02:00.000-07:00

(quick note...for those who inquire...my sister is on the mend. It was something slightly odd, but fortunately they were able to figure it out...even after the un-necessary surgery she had to endure.)

Part of what was great about Vineman was that I turned it into also some vacationing. Got some wine tasting in on both Monday and Tuesday and discovered some amazing wineries and labels. My two favorites from those days were at VJB and Keating. Tried some amazing wines there and dropped a chunk of change...but I think I need to now come up with some good reasons to drink wine. ummmmm....i can think of a few. That will be on my lists of things to do over the next few months before IM training starts in Jan.

I even got to meet a fellow blogger, Sarah, who showed up at the race and we were able to catch up in person a few days later. Meeting fellow bloggers is always a fun adventure. She showed me a great spot in Santa Rosa for some good grub and...of course good wine. (a bit of a theme post Vineman)

Upon returning to SD some friends took me out to celebrate with yummy sushi. Can't go too wrong with sushi and friends? My friend Kim topped it off with
a really fun gift. She gave me this box:

(HEY are you trying to say something about my riding??)

Inside the box was this GREAT bell!!! I DO heart my bike!!!!Sadly it won't actually fit on my handle bars...i may have to figure out how to keep it on there at least for paceline warmups and RING the bell each lap. :-)

Although after 3 short days back in SD I headed to Canada for some work and while I did have a lot to reflect post Vineman it's not terribly coherent. While I discovered a lot during training for Vineman the race itself was in many ways something unexpected as far as the lessons learned. But I think the biggest lesson I learned is...this is just the beginning. Beginning of what? I'm not sure... but it is a beginning.

And beginnings are wonderful things. Like the first real snow (not here of course! ;-))of winter when everything is fresh and new and quiet. A new calendar planner with all the days that hold new possibilities. I think part of it is that I feel like for the past year and a half I have been living in an 'interm' period post-grad school. Where it has been a season of beginnings, but I haven't been ready for the beginnings mainly because I just wanted my life to stop spinning so fast. But I've learned: life does not stop...even if you beg.

So maybe i'm finally ready for new beginnings? I'm still not sure about all of them...but i'm jumping in and hoping I learn to swim real quick.

so...with wine glass raised: to new beginnings!

all together perfectly

2009-07-22T23:16:00.001-07:00

pre-race

I headed up to Napa valley a few days early since me and some friends had rented a cabin for the whole week...I was excited...a little nervous...but mostly excited. By Friday night everyone in our little crazy, slanty cabin was there and some nervous excitement bounced around. Saturday consisted of a little workout where I was pleasantly surprised by my bike with a low HR and a high speed and a nice pace off into my run. I was feeling comfortable and confident.

We headed down to packet pickup and then drove the bike course backwards. T1 and T2 are not in the same place so it is a point to point bike. As we were driving we totally talked up the course: its rough roads, its pretty hilly, yea don't get too high expectations for your bike split...ect.

Being my first HIM my coach and i had sketched out possible ranges of times I might have, but I didn't know what to make of all of the times. Were they too fast? Could I do them? I just didn't know. And after talking to my coach we had discussed that I'd probably do around 3:15 on the course because of the hilliness. I was fine with this reality...but secretly sad too. I somewhere deep down thought I might be able to do 3 hours and the hilly bike course was taking the fun out of this possibility. But i let this desire go and realized there are other flatter courses that I might be able to achieve a 3 hour bike and let go of the thought. At the end of the day it didn't really matter the time...i had trained hard and I was going to give it my all and have fun. Time didn't really concern me...racing well and racing smart were more important.

swim like a fish

Amazingly I slept 6 full hours without waking up before the race. I even dreamed (i rarely remember my dreams)...it was pretty funny too since my dream was about going to the velodrome the night before the race and setting up my gears to ride and thinking: hmmm...i don't think my coach would like it if i did this...so I packed up my bike headed home. I started the day with a smile from that. Too random and funny.

The swim is upstream/down stream in the Russian river. It actually was pretty uneventful. I tend to swim at a stupid speed that no one else swims so I'm generally between the fast fishies and the really slow fishies in no man's land. I do remember thinking at one point: how fast do i have to go before i'm not stuck around people who will resort to the back stroke? I cannot tell you HOW many races I have been in where I have had to deal with a back stroker...and while I don't have a problem with people needing to do the back stroke, I know that if I were a little faster I wouldn't witness this.

Swim time...? There was no swim time, but I had an awfully long T1: 45:xx :-) Granted, I did actually have a ridiculously long T1. I was really struggling getting everything I needed on and at one point I just thought: screw it...this is MY day and if I need to order a pizza, do the laundry and have a picnic in T1...well...so be it. So that being said, I probably swam around 38-42ish. Which was great right where a solid swim time for me should be. I was pleased.

ride like you stole it

The bike course was rolling hills and so in some respects a little difficult to figure out what front chainring to be in most of the time. That got a little annoying, and I tried to be smart so as not to drop my chain. I tend to be quite talented at that...and managed to get through the bike without this reality.

At about mile 30 I realized my avg speed was in the mid 18mph and my HR seemed to be on the lower end of things....like 10 beats lower. So for a minute I got a little excited and sorta wanted to put the hammer down, go a little harder and see how fast I could have a bike split...but equally I got a little nervous about the fact that I was going to have to run a half marathon afterwards and since i was MORE than happy with my time and pretty stoked to see a low HR...i just let the idea of going faster fade and saved more for the run.

I kept playing leap frog with this one guy from the 29 and younger age group. Keep in mind...he was really 4-8 minutes AHEAD of me...but anyway...i'd drop him for awhile and then he'd catch back up...and then pass me for a minute or two, but I swear he'd then just slow down and I would have to re-pass him. I think me 'chicking' him multiple times frustrated him to a degree because after we had to dismount our bikes and run the timing mat ...he RAN around me to hit the mat first. Really? really REALLY? Did he just do that?Sigh...that is so lame.

I loved the bike course...i kept thinking: this is MY bike course. As I pulled into the T2 area I looked down and saw: 2:58....WOW. All I kept thinking was: 3 hours bike split from the girl who could barely hold an avg speed of 16.5mph in a sprint distance a year ago?? I was all smiles...

how many picnics in one day?
OK...T2...ridiculously long...almost SIX minutes, but that was due to needing the bathroom and almost forgetting all of my gels before I left the transition so I had to head back to my rack. Whatever...it was my day.

running on the surface of the sun
It was hot...no...IT.WAS.HOT! People have reported that the temps were somewhere in the range of 90-100 degrees.The course is rolling and...well...did I mention it was hot? I had worried about this and over heating a lot and talked a lot to different people. I had a strategy...water and ice...water and ice. I took ice at every aid station I could and shoved it down the jersey and in the hat and would pour a cup of water on me and drink a cup. There tended to be a little fiddling at times with the ice from the volunteers and when I saw my time of: 2:01 I thought:Could i have gone sub two without the ice?? And then I realized, if i had skipped the ice I probably would have overheated and gone much slower. So really?...what's two minutes if it keeps you running?

When I ran down the finishers shoot I saw the total time on the clock and knew I had gone sub 6 hours. 5:55! I was elated and ecstatic. I knew it was a possibility if I had the perfect day but to realize that I actually had the perfect day was amazing. All that hard work came together perfectly...it was really...REALLY... awesome....I don't actually have the words for it.

post race thoughts
I actually have too many post race thoughts to mull over and emote...but I guess the biggest thing is how much I surprised myself in my training and the fact that I am discovering my athletic nature. Sunday was awesome and I can't stop smiling. I was telling my friend Matt today about it and he just looked at me and said:you're glowing! I guess I am. :-)

I did...

2009-07-22T22:30:00.000-07:00

Just returned from a week in Sonoma county for Vineman 70.3 and it.was.awesome. Here is a very brief overview of the loooooooong race report to come, but I need to go to bed right now.

In my last post I mad a few goals for my race and I DEFINITELY achieved them all.

I did...

have fun...on more than one occasion had spectators comment on the big smile plastered on my face.
thank the volunteers...they were awesome
smile on occasion ...actually...most of the time I couldn't get the smile off of my face
try to encourage others on the course
leave it all on the course...I did this so 'well' that I ended up being ridiculously goofy after the race because I couldn't think straight... it was almost embarrassing.
keep my ego in check on the bike...mission accomplished
drink, eat, drink, eat, throw water on me, use ice to cool me during and after the race...did it to such a degree that I actually raced the whole race.
Finish...with a big smile on my face
And the amazing part of the day? Accomplishing my 'reach' time goal of sub 6 hours and finished it in 5:55!!! It.was.awesome

more later...

I will...

2009-07-13T22:07:00.000-07:00

Tapering for vineman has made me ansty, but life does not stop for us as we move towards goals either. I'm in the middle of condo buying, big equipment buying at work, big project at work, team chaos with crazy people, some other odds and ends yet the real one that most likely has me the most ansty is the reality that my sister went into the hospital this weekend, had surgery yesterday and now...they still don't know what's wrong. Life does not stop.

She made me laugh today when I was on the phone with her because she was so bummed that she had to miss her first 5K because of needing to...you know...go to the hospital and all that. She joked: I sure have bad excuses for missing my first race. All I really wanted was the t-shirt.

The thing is, i'm bummed for her too. I've been helping her all spring...psudo coaching her by giving her more interesting workouts at the gym so she doesn't go completely crazy and she's gotten so much stronger, fitter and leaner. I'm so proud of her. Especially when she got all excited about signing up for this 5K that she wanted to run/walk. She even thought about doing a super sprint this summer. But many times our plans are really just that...ours. They aren't the plans that life has laid out. Too often I think I actually have a 'say' in what those plans are...but many times I do not. And...life does not stop.

But...life... sometimes in weird ways does put things into perspective. While some of this endurance stuff really is crazy I think I find some beauty in that. When it hurts it's because I can push my limits because my body is healthy enough to let me. That is something that the past year I have come to truly recognize is a privilege not a right. So in light of many learnings from this year and people I have bumped into I have come up with various goals for my race.

I will...

have fun...i don't get paid to do this, it better be fun
thank the volunteers
smile on occasion (even if it hurts)
encourage someone else
leave it all on the course
be smart about my pacing and try to keep my ego in check on the bike
drink, eat, drink, eat, throw water on me, use ice to cool me during and after the race
Finish
make some time goals, but not let them dictate whether or not I had a 'good' day
remember that I GET to do this

I am really excited, but i'm also really wound up right now due to much of the aforementioned chaos so i'm glad I'm leaving a few days early to unwind before the race.

misplaced nerves and Tour trash talk

2009-07-09T21:02:00.000-07:00

I'm 10 days out from Vineman 70.3 and the other day when i stopped for a second I discovered....

i'm nervous about...RACING the velodrome in a month.

what?

Yep...the other day I had this HUGE wave of nervousness about what is NOT in front of me for awhile. Um...need to check in with current state of real life.

And because i'm rather excitable, full of too much energy I have also discovered I will randomly talk to strangers. At work today two guys (i have NEVER seen in my life)...were in front of me in line to get coffee...and they are doing what I call: The Tour Trash Talk.

Tour Trash Talk is the invested discussion about the riders in the tour...what they may or may not do on the next stage...what team is doing what...what politics are going on...and generally acting like those of us who are having the conversation are actually involved in the comings and goings of the Tour. I do it...those of us who follow it do it...and you know what....its really FUN.

I love the Tour and it is the ONLY time during the year I wish I A)had a TV that I could do more than watch DVDs on and B)had DVR. I don't watch TV, don't have cable so generally just have to watch small clips about the Tour online. I somehow survive, but am considering that next year this will not be the case. (gasp...i've not actually had a TV I could watch proper television since 2002)

Back to the guys in line...due to my current apparent lack of internal filter that tells me: NO...we do NOT BUTT into the conversation of TWO random strangers who are merrily having a nice conversation with out YOU. I suddenly discover that I have to join their conversation about what they think Astana is going to do on this next stage.

They let me join the conversation (because what other choice did they have?)...but definitely look at me sideways. And I even got the: Do you ride? Question. I should have gone for the fringe sport in my reply...yea...track bikes. (hahahahah)

You see...i have no one who will PLAY Tour Trash talk with me at work. My cube mate thinks i'm nuts...my group mates equally so. Lately i've been dying to talk the Tour with someone. Even though I really only know enough about all the riders to actually sound like I know who's who...its just so much FUN to hash out the previous stage or what might happen in the next stages. Mix in all the excitement about the Tour with my current phase of taper and well...i might as well be an excitable 5 year old waiting for Christmas.

I wonder what people would think of me just skipping up and down the hallways. :-)

Things that make me happy...

2009-07-03T19:58:00.000-07:00

Different things make each of us happy and I don't think one thing or one person can really ever make a person happy...as in a permanent disposition of happiness. But there are times when happy things do happen and I think it is good to drink those in and enjoy them because this world can be harsh so much of the time that it is good to reflect on the good things and be thankful for those.

I've had a very "Things that make me happy..."kind of week even though it has been rather stressful on MANY fronts and too many times I have raised my voice at people when trying to make a point, rolled my eyes at interactions(ok maybe not DURING, but surely after), and wanted to throttle too many people. Given THAT disclaimer...i still found some happy things to be happy about.

Things that make me happy...

Riding my 'real' racing gear at the track, 50x15, and lovin it (even if it hurts a little more).
Not getting dropped in a paceline as frequently and mainly getting dropped when I would screw up and gap myself off the paceline
Seeing my actual Garmin watch (which is known to LIE ), register its highest number to date at the velodrome: 30.2mph (which was probably more like 33mph)
Riding the velodrome and seeing constant improvement
Seeming like I have boundless energy and I haven't even started taper
Discovering that the condo I am in the process of buying is within 2 blocks of the coolest coffee house. I knew I was in heaven when they had TURKEY ruben sandwiches as well as doubling as a psudo-wine bar in the evenings.
Having said condo inspected only to discover the ONE minor repair that is needed on the place may cost me less than 100 dollars and it is as cute as I remember it.
Going for a 'gossip' bike ride that is focused on...chatting...chatting...ooops there's a big hill...and chatting and generally enjoying the ride and catching up with a good friend.
Gearing up to run my longest run i have ever done, 16miles, and looking forward to the final 3 mile because my good friend is going to join me
Having good friends who enjoy similar activities
After making my announcement about IMCDA to family and friends and discovering that many seem inclined to be my ironspectating section. (ppppsst...it's still open...any takers?)

It is good...

367 days...

2009-06-25T17:19:00.000-07:00

It was a normal Tuesday. Nothing special about it. I was checking my email and reading some blogs and happened to find myself blog stocking someone's blog who had just finished IMCDA. I looked at my watch and realized that it was more than 24 hours since the Ironman Coeur d' Alene 2010 slots had opened. And for whatever reason I found myself on the website looking through the finishers and eventually looked at the sign up page for the event because I thought: There would be NO way it would still be open? hahaha...NOT that I would sign up for it...errr

I thought that m-dot races usually sold out in MINUTES...so i thought that it was very odd that at 9pm on a Tuesday 36 hours after registration was opened up that it should still be open. (FYI, I’m writing this on Thursday and they are STILL open) I thought it might be a glitch with Active. But.... it's not. After an hour or so of thinking about it...i realized i have actually thought about doing IMCDA for years because if I were to do an Ironman, Idaho is my home. So somehow that makes more ‘sense’ IF I was going to do an ironman...this would be the one. Granted NOTHING...nothing...about an Ironman is logical…so I’m kidding myself trying imply i had a 'logical' reason for chosing this event.

Right then I wanted to just go to bed and just not sign up...but after an hour of deliberation i knew i would be disappointed if I let it go. A few months ago in the middle of my current training for Vineman 70.3, I had a conversation with someone who said: you have to at least do one ironman for the experience. And i got to thinking….And thinking. And back in April i had very seriously toyed with making sure that I had my finger on the computer when registration opened on June 22nd...but then I got overtrained...and then I thought triathlons were silly...

My plan was to start racing at the velodrome after July. Actually…its still IS my plan and something I WILL do. Although, I think there was a point I even contemplated stopping a lot of this endurance silliness. And even considered never being a triathlete again. really. ever. (granted I like to be a drama queen in my head, so I don’t think I would have actually ever done that) I had plans to be a roadie and velodrome girl and life would be good. So somehow i sorta thought that maybe it was 'meant to be' if it was still open 36 hours after registration opened. We MUST be in a recession.

WTF did I just do?

yes...2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of biking and 26.2 miles of running...all in one day...all in less than 17 hours...oye it's pretty crazy and pretty silly. But as I put it to someone else..."people climb mountains solely because they are there and well...Everest is much further away, more expensive and I don't think I would like sleeping in the snow or climbing over dead bodies. "

So...yes...I will embark upon 140.6 miles of insanity in 367 days.

In the meantime…I’ve got half of that silliness to focus on. Just under 4 weeks til Vineman 70.3! And I am….EXCITED.

just how many needles?

2009-06-22T20:10:00.000-07:00

Back in May I fell again on my right knee, which began to aggravate my (least) favorite injury my psoas. But for weeks it was just sorta aggravated and then a week chalk full of cycling REALLY aggravated it...as in: i'm trying to not throw up while releasing this trigger point...type of aggravation.

So...i decided to try acupuncture. It's easy to be skeptical about acupuncture, but if you find a good sports acupuncture person they really can help. Especially if there are muscle imbalances and you need muscles to fire correctly as well as muscle spasms. My friend had recommended a sports acupuncturist in the area so I decided to give it a try. I've had it before but wasn't really that impressed with the previous person. This time...i walk in: it's your right hip right? Yep...it is.

She poked and prodded me, noting that my right hip is actually correctly slightly tilted anterior-ly while my left hip is tilted posterior-ly. She found all sorts of interesting things going on in my body, not necessarily related directly to the psoas injury, but not unimportant either. The body tells a story even if you don't want it to. It will give away all of your secrets if you have the right person who can actually read all of them. From some of the comments she made I think she can.

She then proceeded to poke me with a zillion needles as one would expect in an acupuncture session, but she also did a modality called "cupping"

I have laugh this guy in the video and his comments related to this modality that is it soooo relaxing... oh no...it doesn't HURT...um...yea...LIAR. I have one spot that is a bright purple circle and then a region that is very purple and it was very uncomfortable. (still is a bit) The purpose of this is to help move stagnant blood that is in the interstitial regions that stagnates which can happen due to training, ect. The practitioner is also an iron distance triathlete so she understands the demands of training as well as not making me feel like i'm 'too hard on my body' (as one massage therapist told me a year ago).

The interesting part was her trying to get my glutes to activate...at the beginning...not so much and by the end were firing. Now that they actually are being activated while exercising...lets just say after my 9 mile run on Sunday my butt is very sore. But glute activation is actually what I need long term to happen to counter this silly hip issues.

So i think i'm on a good path to both holding off this injury from becoming full blown before Vineman half...as well as figuring out what my body needs to be strengthened equally to be better functioning with less injury in the future.

please...just take my money...

2009-06-16T22:33:00.001-07:00

So...awhile back I mentioned the whole "trying to buy a condo" thing...well that didn't work out so well previously...but I found a cute new place that does need some updating, but great price, love the location. Little itty bity glitch...sorta. LITERALLY half a block away from what is my default bike shop. Please...here is my pay check...just cash it. It will be less painful.

This is the shop where i bought my track bike...it's a fixie focused bike shop and the club I will race for when I start racing at the velodrome. (did I just say...when?)

Yes...actually...i did say when. And that when is not too far away actually. August = when. A second night of racing has started on Friday nights and they have added a women's category. And know what...if we could get all the women to show up at the same time...there might be a field of 10-20 women out there. How cool is that?

Funny thing about it...i SWORE up and down and to anyone who would listen that I would NEVER actually get out there and race...ever....ever...ever. (granted I don't think anyone believed me) I bought my track bike with the one intention of being able to ride the velodrome when I wanted to all winter and that was my only intention.Really...it was... Ride all winter take classes til...forever, but race? no way... So I bought just a basic entry level track bike...nothin fancy...just standard entry level beauty. And that is true...he is a beauty. sigh :-)

And my beauty just got an upgrade i CANNOT wait to try out. NEW CHAINRING!!!!! I just bought him a 50...I have a 48x15 geared up right now and typically ride with that...but I do have a flip flop hub and can run a 48x16 if I want to. So...going to gear up another 4 gear inches to a 50x15! YEA for leg strength. Only concern i have pushing a bigger gear is that reality that I have no 'jump' when we start. I'm pathetic on a smaller gearing until I can get up to speed so a bigger gear is just harder with getting a 'jump' at the beginning. Will have to see how it goes. More plyometrics?

I took the train to Disneyland! (and then...rode my bike home)

2009-06-15T22:10:00.001-07:00

This weekend was the end of two pretty heavy training weeks with a culmination of me taking the train to Disneyland/Anaheim and then riding my bike back with Chris and another guy from the tri club. 81miles...longest bike ride ever for me and it.was.awesome. The day was perfect, overcast and not too windy. We all just kept saying: itsn't this such a great ride! Ok...at mile 70 i was hurting a bit, but it didn't matter and Chris somehow convinced me that I really should do that 2 mile brick that I really didn't want to do. But just 'something' to get the legs movin, nothing special.

If anything those two miles gave me huge confidence about Vineman 70.3...ran off those 80miles even with things hurting, into 9 and sub 9pace which is where i'm hoping to hit for my race. Very happy.

Told my family about my adventures only to hear: you are nuts. I'm used to hearing that now.

Unfortuantely since late last week the ol hip/psoas issues have been back. Not inducing actual hip pain or knee pain as it has in the past, but lots of tenderness and LOTS of massive trigger points on my belly and into my hip. Not fun especially when it is contracting and aching and it feels literally like I ate a rock.

Been trying to use some massage therapy to help it out...and today my massage therapist and I further continued to try to find the root cause of some of this. While the spasm was profoundly noticed after I fell in Nov 2007 I actually have believed for a long time I have some sort of functional leg length discrepency. My massage therapist noticed today that while standing, my injured side is shorter than the other even though my hips are aligned and in the same plane. PT's have noticed this as well as chiropractors, even though my legs hip joint to heel are the same length...MY question is: WHERE IS THE ROOT CAUSE OF THIS LENGTH DISCREPANCY??!!

So far...no one knows. It doesn't make sense (at least to me) and really my massage therapist just keeps giving me 'homework' every time I see him to try to help with the psoas. (like I don't have enough things to do?) Last time it was just to stretch out my QL region where you make the number 4 with your legs and reach for your toes. Ok...easy enough...this time? 1)I need to work on exhaling...um...what? 2)And I need to go to yoga. Of course a yoga teacher would tell me that, but I think he does have a point. ug...back to yoga...i do try to love it...but if I'm honest about it, I don't.

the track....sigh...

2009-06-12T21:55:00.000-07:00

I do want to clarify from the last post...and in general...while riding at the velodrome for whatever physics related reason it is quite easy to go over 20mph. 30mph does start to get up there speedwise, but it still isn't *that* fast compared to other crazy speedsters out there...i've seen many a speedy sport hit well into the high 30s motorpaced and i'm sure some were going faster. It does feel pretty fast, but it's not like trying to go that speed on the road. It's not the same for whatever reason.

Sometimes I forget that riding the velodrome is a little on the 'fringe' side even for bike sports. Today I walked into a local bike shop here, that is more tri focused. But since I won that awesome 100 dollars the other week, i've got some money to burn there and I was trying to figure out what to spend it on.

I walk in the door and warned the guy that I had a bunch of questions and start with: Do you guys have chain rings? I'm looking for a 50...my track bike is set up with a 48x15 and I'd really like a bigger chain ring.

blink, blink, blink

Him: um...i'm not sure we carry just chain rings...we have crankset. In the end we found out that they do...but I did get stared out blankly for a bit...no 50 sadly. The conversation turned into Bla, bla, bla..how often do you ride the track??? This seemed to be quite the curiosity. Once again...i realized i tend to do weird things, apparently the velodrome is one of those weird things.

The point...oh yes...the point of the post (if there is one)...they have started another day of racing at the track that is for beginner racers/juniors/spinters and women. OYE...i want in! Yes please! No...i'm not actually going to start racing til after Vineman HIM...but i went tonight to help out and got to be the lap girl and the bell ringer girl (you ring a bell to notify racers of the last lap). Let's just say, i will be CHOMPING at the bit in Aug to race. Very excited and I know i'm going to get my butt kicked, but i'm still super excited.

FINALLY

2009-06-11T22:03:00.000-07:00

Mr. Garmin FINALLY decided to register 30.0mph at the velodrome tonight. Granted, i was actually going 32mph off the back of a motorcycle...details, details. Chris pointed out that Mr. Garmin has issues at the velodrome because of the small circle situation. Mr. Garmin doesn't like going round and round. He gets confused with all the circle action. Suck it up Mr. Garmin. PUUUULEZE.

Did a 'preview' of the Vineman 70.3 bike course on a computrainer on Tuesday. OWCH. Lots of sitting on the trainer and it's kinda like riding a fixie for hours on end since you can't stop pedaling...but gave me a good idea of what the course would be like. Rolling-ish hills with two hills in at 25 and 45...but not too big of a deal. Overall the evening went well. I did practice my nutrition, but neglected to practice my actual pacing...um...HR a little on the higher side of things. Not sure I could have then run a full 13.1 miles after almost 3 hours in my Z4...details, details. Now I know better.

Gnarly week going well. I discovered that spending 5 bucks on what I call 'grandma' compression socks at CVS do actually work after a hard workout. Or at least my legs were much spring-ier than they would be for a tempo run after such a hard trainer session the day before.

And saturday...i'm riding my bike back from DISNEYLAND!! That's just fun to say :-) ohhhh yea, and 80 mile train ride. Take the train to Anaheim and then ride the bike back. Crazy...crazy.

It's gonna be a little gnarly

2009-06-02T21:08:00.000-07:00

Basically 5 weeks until I start taper for Vineman 70.3 and 6.5 weeks til the race so the rest of my training looks a little like this: two weeks of gnarly training (for me), one week of less gnarly training, two more weeks of gnarly training, two week of taper. So I am focused on the following things:

Getting enough sleep (already botched this one up last night when I couldn't stay alseep...arg!!)
Getting enough food. (I have trouble eating enough calories once done with a heavy workout. )
Replenishing my glycogen stores within 30mins of training
Drinking enough fluids during the day and during workouts
Dialing in my nutrition (Pretty close to this, but trying few new things)
Stretching and taking proper care of muscles with ice baths, massages, ect.
oh...and having fun

Few cool things going on...I am previewing the bike course on a computrainer next week. I'm pretty excited for that one. It will calm any anxiety about the bike I have (which remarkably is little).

Also what is nuts is there are a lot of firsts for me over the next 5 weeks before the actual race. First time riding 80 miles, First time running 16 miles, First time sitting on my trainer for 3ish hours (while I want to preview the bike course i'm not so sure how I really feel about being on the trainer that long).

So I doubt i'll be around much on the blogsphere here soon...mainly because of that whole: get enough sleep thing. But I'll do my best.

Happy training

YES!!!!

2009-05-28T20:30:00.000-07:00

I typically never win anything. Raffles...races...whatever. It's really not that big deal, but it would be nice if I had my name drawn in a raffle for something....Tonight at the club meeting, i WON 100 dollar gift certificate to one of the local bike shops. Talk about making my DAY...or WEEK...or COUPLE OF WEEKS. I'm already plotting what to buy. (Probably a new saddle for my track bike)

I've been having a particularly rough go of it lately. Maybe a little over trained, maybe not enough sleep, way too much stress which has turned me into a cranky, crabby girl who is notsopleased with training and UTTERLY exhausted. I'm told it will pass. I'm still waiting for it to pass. Waiting...

I will say winning the gift certificate definitely lifted me and my crabby mood. AND my friend BG even won a 50 dollar gift certificate. YEA!

While in many ways this week has sorta been down in the dumps, one of the highlights this week was the best-est trigger point massage...ever. And if you follow any of my yammerings you might know...i hate massages. They are uncomfortable. They usually hurt...a LOT. There isn't a lot of relaxing involved for me. And while this massage wasn't exactly pain free, my massage therapist somehow knew my edge and was able to keep the massage not too painful but work out a lot of my trigger points.

Granted by the end of an hour we were nowhere near done...and my neck even spazed out the next day as it does. I kinda knew I needed more work so I'll be going back next week and we will focus on the neck a little more.

I think I need my head checked

2009-05-23T22:10:00.000-07:00

Today my training was: 'ride 50 miles hard' ...zone 3/4 hard. I'm not so good at pushing myself by myself at times...i definitely lolligag way too much on my own...so I recruited (or suckered) my two fast rodie friends Elaine and Mark into being my rabbits. They are faster than me...so it was good to just try to keep up as best as I could...but I also realized at mile 10 when I saw my HR reading 171...i might need to chill it out a little bit. So I dropped back a bit but tried to keep them in my sights as much as possible.

The other part of this was: do a big hill at mile 40...considering the route we decided on,mile 40 turned into: Torrey Pines. Torrey Pines is what people like to do hill repeats around here because well its a steep and reasonably long hill. Since it was a little steeper than necessary we decided on the outside of Torrey and not the gnarly inside of Torrey that I RAN up during La Jolla half...but it still is a big grade for 1+ miles. In truth, I've never done hill repeats on Torrey...i've only heard fabled tales of them. But as far as the outside hill is concerned, I realized today I really need my head checked. My little secret...I fell in love with that hill...i did. In fact I am now wondering when I can next do some actual hill repeats on that hill. Who likes doing hill repeats??!

Something is seriously wrong with my head.

My turn

2009-05-15T00:09:00.000-07:00

Trying to buy a condo again...we are up to counter offer number 3...the ball is in my court right now. I don't like this very much. More will be known i think in the next few days. Yep...i really thought that closing escrow RIGHT around the time that I would also be tapering for Vineman 70.3 would be super good timing. How about throwing in a big work trip the week after Vineman too with lots of insane planning that has to go into that? All or nothing for me I guess. Just mash it all together...right?

Realized that I have triathlons on the calendar for a total of eight months this year...March-Oct. I also realized...that's a REALLY long time for me...i think things are going to be shaken up after Vineman. Been having a lot of funny conversations in the past week that have all ended with me saying: Sure, I'd love to...but not until after Vineman in August. I like all my training and am TOTALLY enjoying it...but anytime I have to say that to other people or even to myself i do feel a little bit like a little kid and my mom won't let me come out and play. Sigh...i do have some serious athletic ADD. And no...i can't start them now...not enough hours in the day or in the week. Too many fun things to do!

My schedule said: Have fun

2009-05-09T11:22:00.000-07:00

I loved him...i did...my first road bike that is. He was totally ghetto. I found him for 75 bucks at a pawn shop in Puallup, WA when I was an undergrad. Took a BUS 45 minutes to try the bike out, and eventually bought the bike . Why? Some days I still am not sure. I had a vague notion in undergrad that I wanted to learn how to 'ride' a road bike or something. I think I even bought a 'Bicycling' magazine and took a PE class...but that class didn't last too long. Extenuating circumstances sorta killed that idea.

He wasn't ridden much our first 8 years together. And then...triathlon came into my life and he was dusted off. I was told that I somehow wound up with an entry level racing bike from the early 80s. The down-tube friction shifters were the sexiest part of the bike.

But sometimes things just don't work out. It may have been the fact that we weren't the right fit for each other. Also...he was a little bit of a pest at times too and I think he tried to make my life difficult on purpose, typically during a race. I once wound up in the middle of a race with only my front two chain rings for gears. I think it was around that time that I knew we wouldn't last much longer.

Why am I reminiscing about my old bike? I don't know, I think it is because every time I get my stuff together for a race I think about that very FIRST race I did. Six seasons ago...sprint distance. No clue what I was doing, but had pulled together a 10 week beginner sprint distance training plan from trinewbies.com and somehow trusted it would get me across the finish line. I was so nervous...and the awe and wonder of that first race was a little scary to me. I finished in something like 1:45...and you would have thought I won the race by how excited I was by that accomplishment. I'm a goofball like that.

I like to think about that first experience because it helps me remind me of how far I have come and how it IS a big deal for someone doing their first race even though it has become a little hum drum when the race isn't an A race for me. Last night I didn't even start packing my transition bag until 10pm...i knew I should have been in bed, but meeh...it didn't happen.

Today was the TCSD club race and it was great. Two weeks ago when i ran La Jolla, i prepped, i focused... i thought about PRing...i WANTED to PR...i tapered...i fussed about the weather a hundred times a day...i was nervous...i was excited...and in the end got what i was after. I PR'd. La Jolla was not quite an A race...but maybe an A- race or B+ race on my list. Vineman 70.3 is my A race. I still brought my A-game though...and it was a sweet accomplishment. Today's race was about a C or D race. I had barely thought about it this week.

Today I went to the club race with the one intention my coach had put on my schedule: Have Fun. Granted waking up at 445 AM is not fun to me...but as my alarm went off I reminded myself: have fun.

The race wasn't that eventful...few kicks to the head in the swim (normal)...the bike was pretty decent from what I can tell my avg speed was somewhere between 19.5-20mph(really flat course on Coronoado)...we didn't have too much wind, but on the way back what little wind there was, was to our backs.

I had fun playing the game I call: Can we go???(yes...we...me, myself and I ;-)) It goes like this: Can we go...23mph?...Can we go...24mph?...Can we go?... 25 mph...25.5mph...26? In the end I believe my max speed was 25.7mph. Sprint distance races are fun because I know I can push as hard as I want and while it might impact my run a little bit...it kinda doesn't matter.

I played a similar game with the run of: Can we go? I ended up with an average pace of 7:59mpm which was totally awesome in my book! First race I have ever had a sub 8mpm pace...for a tri or even a running race!

So total time...1:17:32...I know I PR'd the run and I may have PR'd the bike for a sprint distance too (i don't have the official results yet and me and Mr. Garmin were having a disagreement during the race). The total time is the fastest sprint race I have ever done...but those are tricky to compare against since distances always vary a little bit. My last PR on a sprint was last October...I was 5 minutes faster this time. Nice.

This PR just sorta snuck up on me...out of nowhere...but you know what? It's still a great feeling.

I know all of the huge improvements I have ALREADY seen this season wouldn't have been possible without the help and encouragement of my coach. Finding the right person who works with the way you think, the way you process information, and the way you train is completely worth it. I never thought I would see such huge improvements so quickly. I'm excited to see what the rest of the season holds.

CASUALTY ON THE TRACK!

2009-05-06T22:43:00.000-07:00

FORTUNATELY...the casualty on the track was no rider....but a suicidal squirrel. You would think that they know better since they live on the infield of the velodrome. We were doing a paceline burn-out where the speed of the paceline gets faster and faster until you can't keep up and you 'pop' off the paceline...leaving the fastest people at the end. I think we were still warming up at that point, I was near the front of the group when I saw the squirrel starting to try to dart up the track. We were probably going about 25mph...he had no chance.

I was just glad it wasn't my tire that took him down. One of the bigger guys had the misfortune of being the squirrel killer for the evening but it was probably a good thing that HE hit it and not someone smaller like me...the rider to squirrel ratio was better and more favorable for not causing a crash. The next time around I was pulling the paceline and was a little concerned that the squirrel might be squished into the track or something, but fortunately he had slide down the track and onto the apron. The guys in charge managed to move him and give him a proper burial. Stupid squirrel.

The rest of class was pretty awesome. I'm getting a LOT...A LOT better at holding the tire in front of me, drafting, and getting stronger class by class. It's really awesome to watch my progress. My favorite part of tonight's class was a 5lap motorpaced sprint where the first 4 laps are a motorpaced paceline and then the last lap is a sprint. We had to do this 3x. I hung on the wheel ahead of me really tight, no gaps...after each sprint was able to hop back into the paceline behind the motorcycle and even came in 3rd on one sprint!

I even got a nice compliment tonight...we were discussing speed and one guy said: yea but you are getting stronger. It does kinda hurt whenever you are in the front the paceline.

Awww...I never thought I'd be proud to know that I can put a little hurt into the group when I am pulling the paceline. Funny things to be excited about.

As per usual...i love the track. Nothing more to say here.

What an awesome day!

2009-04-26T21:23:00.000-07:00

The quick and dirty: La Jolla Half marathon was today...According to my garmin= 1:54:32 (granted I also ran 13.2 miles but that is expected...can't run all the tangents and there is always some zig-zagging). Previous half marathon PR in 2006: 1:58:14. A PR by roughly 3:15 on a very hilly course (1800 ft of elevation gain/loss)!!! It.was.awesome!!

The long report:
My running has been improving a lot this season and it has been a lot of fun to watch and challenge myself with it. It's been exciting, but I recently have realized that as my running has been coming along well...I didn't know if it was coming along well enough to PR on such a hilly course. I really wanted the PR and knew I could PR on a flat course, but this one? I had a suspicion that if I had good weather (check), I felt good (check) and it all came together (double check) that I could PR. But races are sorta exciting in a way because....you never know what is going to happen. It is a big surprise in a way.

Being obsessive as any other racer leading into a race...I probably checked the weather report at least a few (hundred) times every day to see how saturday's race would be. Last year it was HOT and in the high 80s...this year...perfect 60ish and at one point was supposed to be overcast...but some winds. (which in my opinion is prefect running weather...not too hot and not too sunny). In the end sunny/coolish/and a slight ocean breeze....pretty much perfection.

I am my own sherpa
Last year the race ran out of water, having run the race last year KatieB told me to carry my own water. I didn't really want to in all honesty, but I also knew that if I got myself dehydrated...even if the race went fine...i'd be mad at myself...so I carried my water...my nutrition...my cell phone (for after)...my key to my car...you know....whatever else I could cram in there. ;-) It wasn't an ideal situation, but it was what it was.

In the end there was enough water for where I was running in the race, but it was questionable to me if people at the back would have enough.

Amazingly there really isn't a lot to tell about the race. It all kinda blurred together and went by pretty fast too! There is a gnarly hill in the middle that is a 420 ft climb over a mile...that was...gnarly...but ok. The beginning of the race and the end flew by. This is only my 4th half marathon ever, but what I find the most interesting I felt the strongest for it during all parts of the race as well as it was mentally one of the easiest for me too.

My friend Sam is a runner and we were chatting yesterday before the race. She is a fearless downhill runner and during our conversation I told her I would just channel her for every downhill. So on every downhill I thought: RUN LIKE SAM! I think that in part is why I did have some fantastic downhill times.

My coach came down for the race and even ran with me for few bits of the race...which was completely appreciated.

Overall an awesome day. I had some friends come out to the race to cheer me on and go out for breakfast. It was great to share a great day with good friends.

Offically taper

2009-04-24T22:19:00.000-07:00

My friends and i in grad school called it 'taper madness' because you do go a little crazy during taper. I've tapered some for Sunday's race, but it hasn't really been that bad. I've been more tired randomly than usual...fell asleep in my car for 10 minutes yesterday as I tried to talk myself into my swim workout...which I did...and it did go well in the end.

But the part of taper I forgot: the shopping

My friends and I joked about this during grad school. I don't think i ever really succumbed to this phenomenon at the time, but one friend when she was tapering for a marathon...bought a bike. Another friend during marathon taper bought a bunch random things. I sorta could reign it in just purely from the fact that I had not money to spend or even pretend to spend so 'splurging' on a candy bar really wasn't going crazy shopping. That was just a normal stressful day.

But today it happened, and it didn't occur to me until I came home with the most random things:skirt, jeans, ear phones, new wallet...a PASTA STRAINER...a small mirror, no two of those, a tank top.

ooooookkkkaaaaaaaaaay.

None of them actually can be considered a 'splurge' purchase (ok...maybe the skirt, but it was on sale and justifiable seeing that very little of my wardrobe fits me very well anymore...everything is getting too big) as I had been meaning to get all of them at some point I just had been too busy and in all truth...i hate shopping.

Still have a few odds and ends I still need to hunt down...in time.

Should I be nervous?

2009-04-20T21:51:00.001-07:00

Sunday: Scattered showers and a high of 62...winds West 12mph.

I'm not so worried about the possibility of rain...i did go to undergrad near Seattle. I know I won't melt if I get rained on, but the wind...hmmmmm...not so sure about that one. Everything else is pretty awesome running weather. Overcast, 60ish...very nice. Not like this last weekend where I spent Sunday in August like conditions at an Earth Day festival trying to convince people that science is good and by learning about it they can help the environment. It was pretty hot though.

This Sunday is La Jolla Half Marathon. I can't decide if I should be nervous or not. I'm tapering for it...so I am sure some of the antsy-ness will settle in come later in the week.La Jolla is a hilly half marathon with a pretty gnarly hill at mile 6...420 ft of climbing in a mile and a lot of other hills along the way. It doesn't sound like that much, but it is a pretty nasty hill. I did preview it a few weeks ago on my long run, it'll be interesting.

I think what has come up the most with me about this race is the FACT it is hilly and the reality that this is the first time post psoas injury/post grad school/and into a new life that I have actually trained for a season.

In 2006 I trained for and went sub 2 for a half mary at Hartford, but between 2006 and now I: fell down the stairs (and subsequently stopped running for a month or so), gradschool went down hill pretty fast over the next 8 months Jan 2007-Aug2007, I finally graduated Aug 2007, I moved to SD Sept 2007, I injured my psoas Nov 2007, I thought about quitting triathlons April 2008, My training philosopy from April 2008-Dec2008 was pretty much summed up in one word: whatever.

I did some crossfit, i rode my bike when I felt like it, I met up with KatieB. on Friday's to ocean swim (but rarely actually swam in a pool otherwise), I fell in love with the velodrome and BOUGHT a track bike. And in someways looking back on where I was personally and emotionally post-gradschool...it was probably the best thing for me to do: whatever.

Things started to shift in the fall...I signed up for Vineman 70.3, (granted...I should say I signed up again because in 2008 my hip was not getting better fast and it just wasn't the right time for me to tackle the HIM distance yet) I became part of Team Barney Butter (and part sponsored), I hired a coach (which I never in a million years thought I would every do) and now I am actually training.

But the funny thing about actually training is i'm actually getting faster. Imagine that...funny how that works sometimes. I'm running really well right now and I realized the other day I'm kinda pissed La Jolla isn't flatter because I know I would PR on it if it were a flat course. I almost PR'd 13.1 miles the other week when I was just doing my long run...just one minute off and I wasn't really trying.

Granted with the monster downhill after the gnarly uphill...anything can happen. I don't actually think it is completely out of reach, but I do need to have a good day to make it happen. So i'm hoping for a good day.

Am I nervous...ask me in a few days.

Awwww yea!

2009-04-16T20:16:00.000-07:00

I've talked about it...repeatedly...but I have a drafting problem when i ride the velodrome, and i'm sure in general. And by problem, i mean I don't draft well. So...one of the guys in charge of my class offered to meet up with me before class and practice 'bike wrestling'...as I like to call it. Bumping side to side, and then try to get me to bump his rear tire. This is best practiced on grass with tennis shoes on. Stick your arms out and occasionally your knees if someone gets too close and push into them with your arms. Go on...you won't push them over as long as you both have some speed in the forward direction. He even said cyclists have been known to even head butt during races.Check this out at about 18 seconds into the video and also around 30seconds. He was apparently DQ'd because of this.

awww...how ya doing Stuey???

I found the whole 'pushing' thing to be hilarious...as i do with just about everything. Granted I was told that if I fell over because I was laughing too hard that would not be cool. Spoil Sport. The rear bumping of my instructor's rear tire was the trickiest for me. I'd get really close and then chicken out...i did hit his tire a few times but he'd just ride around in front of me saying: I don't feel you bumping into my tire. The reality...you can hit tires and not fall over.

I'm not sure if the practice helped my confidence level or what...but i HELD to people's tires SO WELL last night. Didn't get yelled at once to draft closer. We did have a guy who was joining in on the class for fun who was quite an experienced racer. He road around with my group all evening and gave out pointers.

After awhile he seemed to pick on me a lot over the evening as he'd sit on my wheel and tell me what to do a lot and point out where I was working too hard or riding too high or whatever. It was helpful. And on many races where he was riding my tail...he'd totally push me to out sprint whomever was next to me...even if we were deep into the field and not about to come close to winning anything. It was good practice.

But the best part of the night was we had a set of sprint races. We were told we would have 3 sets of 4 lap sprints. I can't remember if we were racing for points or not, but the first two sprint sets were pretty hard. After each set we would have to regroup and then they would send us off again. So the third (and what we all thought) was the last set...we made it through the first lap and I just got possessed to see if I could take it...I have no idea why I just WENT..i knew it was chancy since i had THREE laps to go..but I knew everyone was pretty tired too...so I decided 'why not'? I didn't know how good the endurance of the fast guys in my group were(keep in mind this is not the super fast group...but still)...so I put the hammer down and went for it.

I did manage to hold them off for the next 2.5 laps and it was only with half a lap to go that three guys had to work together to chase me down. One of the guys on the sidelines told me after wards that I had a quarter lap gain on the rest of the field and those 3 guys that did reel me in had to work pretty hard together to pull me in. Totally satisfying.

It didn't 'work'...but man it was FUN. :-)

I learned a bunch of things:
1)Three laps is WAAAAAAAAAY too long to go all out on...2-2.25 is about all I can probably manage.
2)If you time it well you can take people by surprise.
3) Don't suddenly think that, that guy over there is suddenly going to be really fast if he hasn't been all evening in any sprint. Same for yourself.
4)It's not all about speed...learning more tactics can help the game.
5)Making people work hard to chase you down...even if it doesn't work is totally satisfying.

You would have thought I actually WON the race yesterday because of how giddy I was. I didn't even place well...but it was just awesome that I didn't hesitate and just left it all out there. I learned a lot by mucking it up.

One guy afterward complimented me on pulling away from everyone...even if i didn't win...it still was fun.

I'm SOOOOO SORRY!!

2009-04-08T22:15:00.000-07:00

I really didn't mean to...but I don't know how I 'forgot' how to get off my track bike...not once but TWICE...with the second time yielding the big gash in my front fork paint. The first time I just ran into the bench with my tire. It's only slightly challenging to get off a fixed gear...actually...it's NOT challenging, it just take some thought and preparation before getting off the bike.

How can I go from knowing how to stop my fixie and never having an issue to: uhhhh i've clipped out one foot and then suddenly forgetting that I have to PUSH backwards on the clipped in pedal to get the whole bike to stop? I kinda do this hoppy clipped out dance where i've slowed down a lot and i'm hopping on the foot that is clipped out and pushing backwards with my clipped in foot. (it's probably pretty funny to watch)

I clipped out and it was like my brain stopped functioning. Completely. Suddenly I just didn't know what to do and my mind went completely blank. I even remember thinking: "um, how do I stop now? I'm going to hit that bench." Very weird...especially since it happened 2x.

These kinds of things happen to me all the time. I'm not-so-graceful in life. At least I have a good enough sense of humor that I can just laugh at myself. But sometimes I also have to just shake my head.

The funniest part of track class tonight for me? The 'handicapped race'...where my group got a 1/2 lap head start on the other group. To do this we had to go to the other side of the track and hang on to the wall over there. APPARENTLY....ahem...they said: RIDERS READY!! (and if you ready you shout yes...and put one hand in the drops which is the international sign for READY). I did NOT put my hands in the drops because I was not clipped in...i was CLIPPED OUT with one foot. But they whistle blew anyway, so the other4 people took off and I had to tell them to go ahead...and I then had to clip into my other pedal AT SPEED. Keep in mind, clipping into a fixie has its own set of challenges mainly the fact that you can't coast while clipping in. So here my team-mates (sorta) have taken off, i'm trying to pedal as fast as I can as well as clip in with the pedals spinning pretty fast AND not get caught by the other group. I did manage to clip in and catch my group, but our lead really didn't help us much sadly.

oye...me and my pedals tonight!

Crazy busy weekend

2009-04-06T20:30:00.000-07:00

The science festival
My weekend started early on Friday at noon...driving a UHaul around...getting lost...four wheeling it on dirt roads all to pick up lots of stuff all for the San Diego Science Festival on Saturday. This is where I had the opportunity to organize 30+ volunteers over the course of the day and deal with the chaos that having 3000+ people come through the booth brings with them.

The day was filled with its share of insanity and varied other crazy bits and pieces.The day was a test of patience at times, but rewarding and something I completely love even if it means that afterward my legs are so tired it feels like i've run 15miles and then been run over by a big truck. Not two days before this shin-dig I already signed up to help organize a booth to teach about science for earth day. It's how I roll.

An 'official' Time Trial
This week has been a bit of re-testing for LT with some timed efforts. It gives an idea of where I am speed wise in the various disciplines. My run TT on tuesday went really well aside from the massive side stitch I got. I did a swim TT on Friday and I sorta expected my times not to change that much from last time (between 1:39/100 and 1:47/100), but my pacing was pretty spot on with a nice negative split over the course of all 10 x100s so I was pretty happy with it. So that left the bike TT.

Rather than do a TT all by myself...i (stupidly) decided to sign up for an 'official' one....official as in I paid people money to time me. Note to self, the day after LONG day on my feet is not the time to RACE against all kinds of people kitted out with race wheels, aero helmets, skin suits and TT bikes. When the alarm went off at 445 I really contemplated my warm bed and how being out 30 bucks really wasn't that big of a deal. But I sucked it up and went anyway.

It did help that I knew a few other people who would be there. I hate going to races and not knowing anyone. I have learned some of the cycling world rituals of pre-racing...bring the trainer and your fight face. Wear your fight face as you are warming up on the trainer and scare everyone else. Granted I am not sure if I have learned the cyclists 'fight face' yet and doubt I could scare anyone if I could muster a fight face. In reality, I felt rather self conscience and ridiculous...like I didn't belong there and that someone was going to tell me to leave or something.

There is also a 'cyclist' way to pin the stupid number on the jersey. I noticed this at my first bike race at Bulldog in Feb, but didn't really worry about it since i didn't think it was that critical. But here I knew that a flapping number could pose more of a time problem. After 4 attempts I managed to get it where I wanted to...only to be told right before I took off...I had put it on upside down. I'm so smooth. Then there was the: holy crap moment when I knew I had 3 minutes before I had to take off, couldn't go back to my car...when I realized that I STILL had on my cycling long pants as well as my knee warmers and had to strip those off of which I had to put them in the ditch to retrieve later. Again...i am so smooth.

And then there is the fear of the unknown...THE STANDING START (or whatever you call it). This is where someone will HOLD your bike as you sit on it and the other guy says: in 15seconds...10seconds...3...2...1...GO! And the guy then sorta pushes you away. I've never done this so I'm debating whether or not to do it...sorta wigged out...but after realizing he doesn't just LET GO of you...he does sorta push you...so I realized I probably would be ok (i hoped). As he pushed me away I realize the stupid fear was...well...stupid. It was super easy.

My goal for this race was to break 20mph avg speed. The course was a 20K...3 large loops of Fiesta island. The morning was pretty calm...few spots of a slight headwind but pretty good all around. I at least had two other reference points on Fiesta island to compare against. While the other two TT were not a full 3 laps just 30 minutes...it was still a good comparison. Dec speed for 30mins: 18.5mph, Feb speed for 30mins 19.5mph...Sunday's TT for 20K: 20.6mph for 36:11! Very very happy! Goal achieved!!

It was a crazy busy weekend all around, but good. Things are settled a little bit...granted now I have an earth day booth to make some posters for and recruit volunteers and a huge checkpoint at work coming up...oh La Jolla half...err...easter is this weekend...my training this week is pretty heavy...nope things don't slow down much around here...but that's the way I roll.

29.9

2009-04-02T22:16:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr. Garmin:
What is your insistence on being so mean to me? I clearly see from that pretty graph I get to read each time I upload my data into your system that 29.9mph was NOT my max speed from track class. In FACT...when I look at that pretty little graph it says: 32mph. And while I should not complain as over the past 4 weeks when I started my track class you told me my max speed was 28.1mph. And if I dug back into January I saw that my sessions at the velodrome only showed max speeds of only 24.5mph...quite clearly you are now jesting me. To show me such a pretty little graph that doesn't show a sharp point at 32mph but in fact the graph implies that some actual time was spent over 30mph. I understand that you don't think 8 seconds warrants registering that it was over 30mph, but 8 seconds is a pretty long time too. World record holders for the flying 200 would almost be done with their sprint (10.831 seconds).

No 32mph is not fast compared to those world record holders, but Mr. Garmin...i'm just saying 8 seconds is a lot of time and hence i do not understand how you think that my max speed was only 29.9mph. I mean 8 seconds of time over 30mph...could you just pretend and give me the 30mph? I mean how hard is that? I even got a shiny new cog and managed to get the right chain for it last weekend and now you just tease me with the idea that I might have actually gone faster than 30mph. sigh.... You are so mean.

And to top it off...what in the world did you do to yourself? You have managed to clear all of your information from the past in my data file off my computer and you have become resistant to your power switch. As well as refusing to store very many of your previous pretty graphs. I do not understand, but I worry about your health. Have you seen a doctor recently? You should really get that checked out.

But in the future would you kindly just give me the true max speed...the one that your graph implies...and if that is truly NOT the max speed...don't put it on there. That is just mean.

Sincerely
'pants

Re-tests and race week

2009-03-31T20:35:00.000-07:00

Its Oceanside 70.3 on Saturday and a big shout out to all those I know who are racing! Chris, Charisa, Max and my Coach are the few that I do know who are racing.I'm kinda disappointed that I can't be there to cheer everyone on. Last year I worked at one of the aid stations, handed out food, lost my voice from all the yelling and generally had a great time. This year...I get to organize 30+ volunteers, herd 100s of kids and generally try to explain why science really IS so cool at the San Diego Science Festival instead of being at Oceanside. I'm in charge of volunteers for a booth...so it will be 8AM-6PM of non-stop fun or non-stop chaos...take your pick.

Granted this week did not started smoothly and yesterday I really wanted to hide in my bed until next Monday. I was skimming my last few posts and I realized that I have perpetually been in a bad mood and extremely stressed out for quite awhile...and this week my mood is pretty horrid. I can get to points where I'm so sick of it that I just wish I could get away from me and my bad mood. Something has to change...it can't continue like this.

So as far as training for me...this week is filled with time trials...re-tests of my swim-bike-run. We do this every 4-6 weeks or so. Today was a run TT. Basically 30minutes as hard as can be sustained. Continued improvement from the last one...granted I only accomplished 25mins of a 30minute test because I had a can't-see-straight kind of side stitch that stopped me in my tracks.

First 10 minutes 8:00mpm HR 170bpm
Second 10 minutes 8:00mpm, HR 172bpm
Next 5 minutes 8:13mpm, HR 170

As a comparison from my last TT(2/20/09):
1) First 10 minutes 8:17mpm 168bpm
2)5minutes 8:17mpm 166bpm
3)5 minutes 8:26mpm 168bpm
4)5 minutes 8:26mpm 166bpm
5)5minutes 7:53mpm 172bpm

I had a fantastic tempo type of run last week where I found myself sustaining a 745mpm pace for a mile at one point in the workout. I don't really know where all this speed is coming from, but I'm pretty excited about it.

I read an interesting article yesterday by a local tri-coach who was talking about using tools like HRMs and powermeters and whatnot. He made the comment that I've heard from other people about how some athletes need to cover their info or they sometimes 'freakout' when they see how fast they are going. I'm facinated by this comment as I have heard it before.

I don't really have an idea of how fast or slow I really 'should' be able to swim/bike/run. Is there even a 'should'? I don't know. I find training tools as sources of entertainment: oh look my HR went higher...my pace is XYZ...interesting...i wonder if I could go faster...even just a little bit?Could I hold that pace longer? What might happen if I just go flat out? Will I blow up? What happens if I were to completely blow up?Let's go really fast on this last mile and see what we hit...how much is still in the tank?

Maybe i"m too much of a scientist who is constantly looking for patterns. Patterns in how my body responds...patterns in how my HR responds...patterns in how I feel. I think one aspect of training I do find frustrating is when I wake up...i don't know generally how that workout is going to go until I get into it. And while some things can be tweaked during a workout...not to the degree I'd like it to be able to be tweaked. I realized this bothered me the other day because it is not like playing an instrument.

As a violinist if i'm struggling with a section I know I can just repeat...repeat...repeat...repeat...and generally by the end of it I've got it. But training isn't like that. Some days are GOOD days...some days are OK days and some days are not as great days. I feel so out of control. I realized that bothered me more than I'd like to admit at times. But i'm learning how to stay in the now...and just try to enjoy it...even if it isn't going perfectly.

Ugh....

2009-03-27T20:36:00.000-07:00

Paceline burnouts...paceline burnouts and more paceline
nice picture of a paceline taken from Wikipedia.

burnouts...ugh...Track class on Wed proved to be some good paceline work. Problem is by the end of it, i was SICK of hearing my name yelled at by one of the teachers to: CLOSE THE GAP! I am not such a fan of sitting close enough on someone else's wheel. I mean the whole lack of brakes thing really gets me sometimes. Granted I am one of the first ones off the paceline which I was told because I end up working too hard because I am not drafting and if I did...i would be strong enough to stay on there much longer. sigh

Also the SD velodrome is sorta 'square-ish' and has 4 corners and inevitably in corner 1 (where typically you switch who is pulling the pace line) the next person jumps and the paceline stretches out (or more typically this is where I lose the paceline) and then in corner 3 people aren't powering through it for some reason and we all end up squished up on one another. Never makes me very comfortable. So it is this weird accordion and I just don't like being that close to the rider ahead of me.

So...here is the advice that I was given...go practice what I call: "bike wrestling". (No he did not call it that...but that is what I call it). Put on tennis shoes, find a buddy, find some grass and practice bumping into one another...front wheel to back wheel, side to side. Now here is the thing... i've done the whole side to side bumping thing, but not with anyone who was really all that intent on actually bumping me like I would be bumped in real life so it kinda doesn't count.

I haven't tried the tire bumping thing, but I think what I actually need to do this properly is a "roadie mentor" who is used to racing in tight groups and is actually intent on actually hitting my tires or bumping into a shoulder. Whenever I go to a bike clinic and practice this it is always: ooops...bump....ooh sorry...i barely hit you or a VERY light tap on the shoulder done by other people who are not used to the claustrophobic nature of pack riding. While useful in a clinic to understand you won't fall on your butt if someone does tap you on the shoulder, generally I don't get the feeling of if someone were to actually bump me while we both were going at speed. I'm going to work on paceline work with a road bike this weekend and see how it goes.

Nuances of trackbikes

And I was TOTALLY bummed on Wed too. My new pretty cog...the one I was soooooooo excited about putting on...my new 15 where I would have graduated to an 86 gear inch because I would then have a 48x15...sadly...sadly sadly...I could not ride on it on Wed. The thing that sucks about learning a new sport is there are all these little nuances that you are unaware of until you screw up. So...got the new gear put it on. Put my chain on...and hmmm...my chain won't STAY on the gear! What? Apparently I have what is called: a road chain. On cheaper track bikes/fixies (like mine...just entry level)...they are sold with road chains and road cogs. NOW here is the crazy thing. ROAD cogs will take a TRACK chain, but a TRACK cog will not take a ROAD CHAIN!! I bought a 15 track cog so the reason the chain won't stay on is because it is a road chain on my bike. But if I go and buy a track chain, it will go with my 15 track cog AND it will still go with my 16 road cog. Confused yet? I am. Only thing I understand is if I want to use my shiny new cog I need a new chain. Lame. So that is the plan for the weekend...get a new track chain so I can try out the new gear and see if I can keep up with those silly boys on Wed.

Update: New chain put on!! Can't wait to try out the new cog on the TRACK!

It is what you make it...

2009-03-23T22:26:00.000-07:00

Over the past week or so I have spent quite a lot of time visiting the hospital. One of my closest friends had surgery a week and a half ago that went from "it will be a minor operation and you will go home tomorrow" to "oh it was 9x worse than expected and in the hospital 5 days on heavy pain meds"...and even after 5 days I wondered if it was a good idea to be sending her home. She's on the mend now and is recovering at home, but I still try to see her every other day or so.

I have spent a good deal of time with her over the past 2 weeks from the hospital to home. She is one of my closest friends so it is not difficult for me to spend lots of time with her in general, but it is so hard to watch someone I care about struggle so much and be in so much pain and not be able to do anything about it. It feels so helpless.

While she was in the hospital she made the comment of "thanks for coming, not many people like to come to the hospital". Hospitals don't really bother me that much aside from the heeby-jeebies I get from thinking about MSRA resistent bacteria. Especially when the soap free hands dispensers say: not effective against c.difficile. Curious name for a difficult to get rid of bacteria. Granted I did want to go to medical school in undergrad up until I discovered a love for organic chemistry (yes i am weird). I mean I struggled in my bio classes cuz i was so bored and did my organic chemistry home work to procrastinate. I finally switched majors and decided not to be pre-med.

But I still have always been fascinated with medicine and highly respect what we even are able to do with modern medicine. I mean people can go in for SURGERY where they cut a person open, sew them back up...and then many times will get better. That is pretty amazing. No...it's not perfect. Trust me...i'm quite aware of how imperfect surgery can be. And when it isn't perfect, it is devastating. But that still doesn't take away how incredible the fact that as a society we have figured out how to operate on people at all.

I thought a lot about why people are not keen on hospitals while I was there. I do think part of it is having to watch those close to us suffer so much and feel so helpless, but hospitals also fundamentally remind us of how fragile our lives are and I think many people are uncomfortable with their mortality. But the truth of the matter is that we really aren't as in control of our lives or health as we like to pretend.

Last summer I had a weird test result that dragged into a month of different doctors and tests to chase down the possibility of cancer. The chances were small and the doctors reassured me that it was most likely 'nothing'...but most likely also isn't 100%. Fortunately nothing was amiss. Literally the day after I was given a clean bill of health, I found out my cousin had a massive tumor on his leg for which he went through 6 rounds of chemo, radiation treatment, surgery last week and finally it looks like all is well. Yet it was discovered 3 weeks before his surgery.... after all the treatment he just went through...that his wife has breast cancer. Life is so much more fragile than it seems.

Many a day I know I take for granted how healthy I am, how active I am, how blessed I am with all the activity I can do and actually get out there and DO. Last week i logged 8 or so hours of activity and my training only holds more. This is such a contrast to another friend of mine who has Lupus has to be so careful about not over-doing anything. And while quite an active person, she also has learned how she needs to slow down and not push so hard. It's not easy on her.

A few weeks ago I was having a miserable run. I was over heated, dehydrated, had a side stitch, my legs didn't want to run, and I felt like throwing up. The negative thoughts started to creep in. I wanted to quit. I literally started counting all of the things that were blessings in my life...and my perspective changed as well as the run. The run became easy.

Thank you all for the well wishes on my last whinging post. Sometimes it is easy to complain and much harder to be thankful. But the truth of the matter is: there is so much to be thankful for and much to be grateful for. It is what you make it...

It's kinda not fair

2009-03-20T03:13:00.000-07:00

I complain in my head at times, but I actually try to keep it under wraps in daily life because I am a firm believer in trying to focus on positive thoughts, even when it is hard because it helps to pull me through times that are harder...but I can't right now. Lately I've encountered two things with training: 1) I'm hungry ALL the freakin time 2) I need more sleep, but I'm not getting it.

The food thing...its weird and annoying. I actually don't like thinking about planning food. It is the 4th discipline I know...and have actually been seeing a sports nutritionist for over the past year. I've learned to clean up my eating habits and have seen many positive results because of that, but I have also discovered I hate going to the grocery story and planning food and don't really enjoy cooking either. I can cook when I need to...but I don't enjoy it like many friends I have. One of my closest friend is a professional foodie, free lance food writer and used to be a personal chef. She invents new recipes and tests many for others too and to read what she has to say, I love the passion she has towards this topic, unfortunately I just don't get it. (and I kinda wish I did).

But the weird part lately about being hungry are all the odd cravings. (no... i'm not pregnant). My nutritionist and I had a discussion about it awhile ago. She just said: the body knows what it needs and will tell you. She encouraged me to keep a closer diary of the types of training I am doing and then when I get food cravings after I can see better what I might be lacking post-workout. I admit...since I find the food thing a little bit of a hassle anyway, i haven't done this...but i need to...and soon.

Past few days it's been salt craving. I am not much for potato chips but I had a few the other day and all I wanted to do was lick the salt off of the chips. The next day I had some pulled pork...again salty...yummy...could not stop myself from eating it if I had tried. Few weeks ago it was INTENSE carb cravings. Granted... I have a little bit of a sweet tooth, but over the past year that has been put at bay a little bit and I don't actually want candy all that much, but candy...potatoes...pasta. It actually was a little weird.

And then there is the meat craving...especially after weight lifting. Even in Nov-Dec when i was only moderately lifting the next day all I craved was protein and meat. Granted, I gained two pounds of lean body mass then too...and lost two pounds of body fat.

So the food thing, i'm not so impressed by it to be honest. I wake up hungry in the morning a lot and am finding that if I miss my mid morning snack all hell breaks lose. I even ate a half a bagel the other day when I was in a morning meeting because I was hungry. I hate bagels.

But the sleep thing...this is the unfair part that I'm sorta whinging about right now. It is 3:38AM. I am awake. And I have been since oh...midnight. Lately work has been hectic to a degree and two days a week I have 730 am conference calls. Many days i'll just get into work around 7 and then leave earlier to get whatever workout that needs to be done in. But the thing is if i'm getting to work around 7, I am getting up between 5 and 530. I should be going to bed around 9 at least. I haven't been. And I've been tired.

BUT yesterday i was excited...8 pm rolled around and i knew I could get to bed BEFORE 9pm. 845 I was IN bed and quickly fell asleep actually. Midnight rolled around...and I am WIDE awake. I tried to convince myself to fall back asleep for an hour and a half before I gave up. I've since been stalking people's blogs and drinking herbal tea in the hopes that my body and mind will quiet and I can slip back into bed.

I know the problem...i think too much. If you are one to subscribe to the 'Meyers-Briggs' personality type...it falls in line with my 'personality' description that I basically think too much. (INTP or here...but I'm not really as cold and uncaring a person as all those profiles try to make me out to be!) The sucky part is I think too much even when I am SLEEPING. Since moving to CA, I have had this brand of insomnia where I just WAKE myself up because my mind is running.

Lately work has been too stressful and I have worn that over-thinking part of my brain out so sleeping hasn't been a problem. But things have backed off, almost a little too much and now I can't shut it off. There is a sweet spot of busy-ness that I need with work and life lest I get really bored with what i'm doing and then my brain wanders. This week...my brain has been wandering a lot. This means a lot of random internet searches on whatever types of strange 'questions' that pop into my brain.

This week I did further investigation on my personality type...which I find rather ironic because it is within my personality type to actually DO that. Granted it shed a lot of light on my perspectives on training and where I was mentally limiting myself in some areas.

I also investigated aerodynamics on the bike. Specifically the physics of aerodynamics and the impact of clothing, aerobars, helmets, wheels, position and even shaved legs (no there is no advantage boys...but admittedly it is pretty hot). This is the only time I ever lament not still being in grad school. There are all these scientific journal articles that I want to read on the subject but have no access. Bummer.

And if you made it to the end of this post...wow. impressive. Crazy rants from the middle of the night :-) It's 4:30 am...i'm going to try to see if I can sleep...maybe just a little bit.

What LANGUAGE are you speaking?

2009-03-18T21:53:00.000-07:00

yea yea...I've got an 81 gear inch because I have a fourty-eight x sixteen, but I'm thinking of getting a fiveteen so I'd have a bigger gear inch...what is that? oh yea, 86 gear inch or so...

bla...bla...bla..yea i've got a 11-23 for my rear cogs...with a 53 on the front...

Sound familiar...or not familiar or make ya think...what ARE they talking about?? This is my sixth season of doing triathlons and when people have talked bikes inevitably gears will come up. And then gibberish ensues...at least in my little brain. I used to think: what are they talking about? Why do they care so much? who really, REALLY cares? I did not think I would ever become one of them. Just 10 months ago someone mentioned their rear gearing on their bike and my reaction was: blink...blink...blink.

It made no difference to me...and I had no interest in understanding it. AND THEN....(insert scary music)...i learned to ride a track bike. And that is one HUGE topic that that gets talked talk about on the track...well because there is one...maybe two (if you have a flip flop hub) gears on your bike at any given time. Granted if you want to 'change' gears you have to take your tire off and flip it around. But this is pretty typical to see on a track bike that a rider will have two different gears in the back.

Serious track riders carry around a serious gear bag( as in full of different cogs and chain rings). It is quite impressive. And I am happy to say...i'm starting my collection! I have a 48 chain ring on the front and currently a 16 on the back...but I just got a 15 for the back. (Wasn't able to try it out tonight though sadly). So a 48x16 = 80ish gear inch. And a 48x15 = 86ish gear inch.

Gear inch? Again, I hadn't even heard that term, let alone cared to understand it until I discovered the velodrome. Here is a pretty cool explanation of gear ratios from How Stuff Works if that whole big gear little cog thing never made much sense. The animations are cool.

Gear ratios are related to 'gear inch' and it is possible to calculate how fast one can go with a specific gear inch at a specific cadence...ect. I like this site to calculate gear inch. Bigger gear inch = harder to push. But the tricky thing when on a track bike is...there is no switching a gear mid ride like on a freewheel with lots of gears. Want to go faster...spin faster...that is the only choice given. So i'm going to try a heavier gear next week...maybe I'll keep up a little better...or...maybe not...

got a talkin' to

I still hear a lot of random screaming from one of the guys in charge about me needing to 'CLOSE THE GAP'...yea, i lost the pace line a few (ok a lot...like normal) tonight. That being said...we did work on paceline technique mainly 'getting back ONTO' the paceline after taking a pull at the front. I get dropped a lot off the back of a paceline after I have pulled because I don't do this correctly. On a track it is important to GO up to the board and then when the end of the pace line comes to shoot down to the end of the pace line so that you have enough momentum to catch the pace line AND the draft as you get in. I typically will come into the end of the pace line too 'cold' and then have to waste a lot of energy trying to catch the back fo the pace line. Coming in a little too 'hot' means that you come in closer to that last rider and then slide back behind that person.

But...the 'talkin' to...i've sorta known is an 'issue' i deal with. It went a little like this: You are strong enough to hang in there...you leave TOO much of a gap in your paceline and then catch the wind. Get over your fear.

Gee...thanks...that's the advice? Get over your fear of being too close to that person in front of me: WHO HAS NO BRAKES?? NOR DO I?

Here is part of the reason I have issues with holding close to the person ahead of me: I will get the proper distance and then I swear then i'm ON the person ahead of me, and now have to slow down (which means lightening the pressure on the pedals) and then SUDDENLY a gap gathers and now I have to close it...and then I catch too close...and again...repeat. I know it takes time. And I am getting better at it...but sheesh.

Enough random talk of gearing out of me tonight.

I have a talent...

2009-03-16T22:00:00.000-07:00

I don't know what it's 'usefulness' is...but it does create some bizarr-o situations and funny stories. Like tonight...I get a txt from Chris: Did you go to XYZ high school?

me: um...yea?

Chris: Do you know RD???

me: um...yea?!

By this point its too weird so I just call him because WHY would he be asking me if I went to my high school and KNEW this person? Apparently...RD showed up at the tri club masters swim tonight for the first time...works where i WORK...and I had no idea. I haven't seen her since I was 15. Very weird. Chris remembers from the first time that he met me that i have this 'talent'. I don't think he believed me until now. ;-)

This is where I have to point out: I am NOT from California. I have only lived in CA for a little over a year and a half. So far...just since i've lived in San Diego...I have run into my roomate from my tiny undergrad, run into another classmate from my tiny undergrad, run into a girl that I lived down the street from growing up, and THEN there are a few other randomly small connections...those are the most outstanding...but this one...I know her from high school...she works at my WORK BUT it was NOT through work that we find ourselves connected? oooooookkkkkkkkkaaaaaaaaaay

This happens a LOT to me and not just since I moved to San Diego...but it is seemingly freakishly honed in since I moved out here. Quite the talent I might say.