Fun morning

This morning was fun. I rode 27 miles on the bike trail at a good clip (~18 mph on the trail, but my overall mph was less because of traffic lights and cars and stuff like that). My plan was to do more, but the trail was closed off, so I turned around and went back home. Once I got home, I had lots of energy, so I did P90X Shoulders and arms and Ab Ripper X. That Ab Ripper X is a killer! First time I've done it in months.

I feel great today. Lots of energy. Good sleep last night. Hungry. Exercise is the best thing ever!

Week 9 begins

This morning was perfect run weather. You know what I mean...sunny but cool and crisp. Shorts and a long-sleeved T time. I ran 6 miles with the boys this morning. It was the first run I've done in a long time that felt effortless and fun and I didn't want to stop. I could have run all day if I didn't have to go to work. Totally motivating. Also completely pain-free...probably, in large part, a result of yesterday's massage.

For years I've had trouble with my right IT band. Tightness, pain. Total drag. I had PT for 4-6 months a few years ago. It really affects my running. Now I stretch a lot and use a foam roller. Because the pain is on the right side, I've always focused on that side. I stretch both but spend way more time on the right. The masseuse, who used to be an athletic trainer, said my right side was super flexible but my left was tight. It's possible that imbalance was resulting in the pain on the opposite side. He stretched out my left side and today it was like I've never had IT issues. Now, I'm going to stretch the hell out of both sides and keep feeling good. Also interesting, I had knots in my biceps from doing pull-ups. That's hardcore.

I feel great and I'm ready to conquer this week. No more pain. No more excuses. Time to hit the ground running.

Sunday strength

Today I did P90X chest and back. Good workout. My fave P90X dvd. This was a bad week, training wise. My IT bands are sore and I've just felt tired and dehydrated all week. Getting a massage today to loosen up the sore areas. Should help.

The pool is still closed. Stupid West Sac Rec Center!

I'm ready to hit the ground running tomorrow and have a great week. Lots of biking, running, and strength training (and hopefully some swimming).

My first tri in almost 4 years is 3 weeks from today. I'm excited!

Rest day pork out time

Although yesterday's run was disappointing, I still stayed on schedule with my rest day today. Instead, we went to the Eat Real festival in Oakland and ate A LOT. It was awesome. Also stayed in bed until 8 am. Pretty awesome.

baby run

Quick 1.5 miler with the pups this morning. Sore left hamstring. Not sure what happened. Lots of stretching today.

Bike commute and the funniest thing I've ever seen

I rode my bike to and from work today. I had an early day so I could focus on dissertation writing this afternoon. 31 miles total. When I was about two miles from home, I went over some railroad tracks and Psssssssss...two flats. F! And, it's over 100 degrees out. Luckily for me, Luke was home and he came and picked me up. Tri Sherpa extraordinaire! Thanks, Lukey!

Someone on my online training group just posted this link and it is the funniest thing I have ever heard. Seriously, I have had this conversation so many times:

http://danglethecarrot.blogspot.com/2010/08/how-long-is-marathon-for-jon.html

so sleepy

My plan was to ride this morning, but I could not get out of bed. I figure if I'm that tired (and not just procrastinating), I need the sleep. No time for a ride, but I did P90X shoulders and arms. I really love P90X and definitely think there's a place for it in tri training.

I would like to do a trainer ride when I get home tonight, but I'm not a good inside afternoon exerciser. The trainer is useful, but absolute torture. I've only used it about 4 times since I bought it several years ago. The trainer allows me to turn my road bike or tri bike into a stationary bike. Cool concept. High boredom factor. Maybe really good tv will distract me. Hopefully. One of my favorite cooking shows is on tonight, so maybe that will do the trick.

another Monday, another pool issue

Once again, I awoke way too early to go to my masters' swim practice. Lo and behold, the f-ing pool is closed again! After being closed all last week. Once again, I received no notice and arrived, expecting to swim, only to be told it's not gonna happen. Kinda pissed. This afternoon, I received an email, stating that the pool would be closed for the rest of the week. Okay, 2 weeks of missed swim workouts (yes, I know I could go to a different pool, but there isn't one nearby and the one near the lab makes me uncomfortable because it's super crowded and there are lots of professors and some of my former students there and I don't want to see them in swimsuits, nor do I want them to see me in mine, as it's quite ill-fitting) is bad enough, but on top of that, I paid $40 this month to swim with the team...thus, I paid for 4 weeks of swims and I'm receiving 2. Blah. The worst part is that I really enjoy swimming and miss it and need it :(

Instead, I took the pig ninjas for a 3 mile run. It was fun. A cool crisp morning that showed no sign of the almost 100 degree weather I saw this afternoon. The hot weather this week (100+ every day) has me rethinking some of my workouts. No afternoon bike rides this week. Instead, I've shifted all of my rides to the morning and will do p90x strength training 3 days this week. I've also decided to run and swim on the same days, so I can get more biking in. Good plan.

Sunday workout and week 7 totals

Started the day off with a 3 mile run with the dogs. We encountered a parade of bikers (vroom vroom type, leather vests, lots of facial hair, etc.), which was pretty fun to watch. I decided not to wear my watch today, as I just wanted to enjoy the run, not worry about time or pace or anything. It was pretty awesome. After running out 3 miles, we walked 3 miles back home and just enjoyed the scenery. The dogs waded in the canal and we saw lots of jack rabbits (they remind me so much of Hanky Panky, it's crazy).

I considered going for a short bike ride this afternoon with Luke, but I'm still kinda scared of the heat. No more heatstroke! Decided to start up P90X again, instead. I did one cycle of P90X starting February 14, 2010. Yes, that's how Luke and I decided to celebrate Valentine's Day. We're very romantic ;) Anyway, I did chest and back and it felt so great! I'm going to try incorporate more strength training because it just makes me feel good. My only concern is potential soreness tomorrow during my swim, but I'll deal with it.

Week 7 totals:

Swim: Uh, none. The pool was closed. That sucks.

Bike: 80 miles, all super hilly. Lots of climbing. 6 hr, 20 min.

Run: 5.36 miles. 50 min. Might be overdoing this whole keeping mileage low thing.

Not so impressive. Next week will be better!

Luke is still in bed, so I may have made a wise decision in doing P90X instead of biking :)

Blah ride, barf ride

So, I guess I'm a bit behind in my blogging. Bad! Yesterday, Luke and I rode a super tough, hilly course from Folsom to Auburn, down through Cool and back to Folsom. It was a rough ride for me. In fact, it was the worst ride I've ever had. I got heat stroke about 20 miles in and came close to blacking out. Headache. Dizziness. Shaking. Vomited several times. Made it 43 miles and then had to send Luke ahead to pick up the car. I was pretty disappointed in the ride, but I'm ready to conquer it next time...in cooler weather. The worst part is that I'm totally capable of all the climbing (4000-5000 feet), but the weather just got me. I made it through all the climbing but decided (wisely, I think) to stop about 7 miles before the finish so I wouldn't die...or be really sick...or wind up in the hospital.

Luke was a warrior. He killed the hills and is developing some pretty nice calves :)

Needless to say, I took today off. Run time tomorrow. Time to get back on track. The past two weeks have been rough: insomnia, lab insanity, heatstroke, etc.

morning warriors

This morning I rode 37 super tough hilly miles before work with Luke. I felt off for the first half of the ride--almost like my legs weren't warmed up. Started to feel better after the halfway point. Super long climbs and steep descents. Practicing for Tahoe :)

Week 7 begins

After several days of no training, which was terrible, I woke up super early (so hard) to hit my masters workout at the pool. Unfortunately, when I arrived at the gym (in the dark), I was informed that the pool would be closed the entire week for maintenance. Thanks for the notice! Grrr...made me grumpy.

The morning was salvaged by a 2.36 mile run with the pig ninjas. They were excited and it was super nice and crisp this morning.

I'm rearranging my training schedule for this week, now that I know the pool is closed.

lab insanity --> no training

I've been stuck in the lab nonstop for the past several days. While this sucks all around (with the exception of the data I've been collecting), it has been especially bad for my training. I haven't worked out at all in the past few days. Feel super weird. Not sleeping well. Must. Train. Soon.

Tomorrow, back to the pool!

swim + Dexter-induced nightmares

Swam 1550 yards today. For the first time, I really felt the rotation of the body thing click. Finally! Now I can make some real progress :)

Pretty slow and tired today. I didn't sleep well last night. Watched the last couple episodes of season 4 of Dexter (BEST SHOW EVER!) and actually had weird nightmares/dreams. Strange for me. I'm not a great sleeper (chronic insomnia for about 20 years...no joke), but usually it's because science crap is stressing me out, not because I have dreams where the Trinity Killer is following me around. I even kept the dogs up; they're sleepy today, too.

Tomorrow I start the worst experiment in the world, which involves feeding mosquitoes blood + virus and then dissecting midguts every few hours for the next 48 hours. Training will suffer. That's okay...back on track this weekend.

killer headache=no training

I awoke this morning with a killer headache, so I skipped my planned run. Probably just because I didn't eat enough yesterday. It can be tough to take in enough calories and fluids when you're training a lot. The headache finally went away in the early afternoon after I ate a bunch of carbs and drank about 70 ounces of water.

Back to the pool tomorrow.

RIP squirrel #2

Good news: I rode to Davis for my lab meeting: 33 miles round-trip

Bad news: I ran over another ground squirrel. The second one in two days. Both accidents. My 5 year old self would be devastated. My 28 year old jaded self thinks it's just survival of the fittest and that the tard squirrels should be removed from the gene pool :)

Week 6 begins

Swam 1650 yards today. My coach asked me what races I had coming up. When I told him IM CDA, I think he nearly choked. I have 10 months, plenty of time to build endurance in swimming!

I'm going to bike to Davis for my lab meeting today (32 miles round trip). Nice way to sneak a bike ride into a day of dissertation writing :)

Weird dream

I forgot to describe my super weird tri-related dream last night. It was a Perpetuem (sports drink with protein. Tastes like watered down soy milk but is easy on the GI system and seems to prevent bonking pretty well) commercial starring Lance Armstrong. He said that Perpetuem now contains corn. Like actual corn kernels. He reminded viewers to remember to eat the corn after they finished the drink because they were the most important part.

Yeah, crazy and weird. Ha! Corn kernels at the bottom of sports drink.

Long ride and week 5 update

I rode 63 miles today on the American River Bike Trail. Super fun ride. Here are some of the highlights (good and bad):

1. A man wearing see-through white cycling gear (gross) and no helmet (stupid) riding quickly on a road bike.

2. a rattlesnake slithered by me (scary!)

3. I hit a ground squirrel. It was an accident; the stupid thing ran right into my front tire. I felt a bump but then it ran on. No blood. Hope it made it. Not likely. Removal from the gene pool necessary for survival of the fittest.

4. Passed a lot of macho dudes today. Total Type A testosterone freaks who didn't like being passed by a small chick. They tried to catch up. Ha ha! Eat my dust, boys!

5. Averaged over 18 mph on the way out. Slowed down on the way back due to some sports-drink-gulping-induced nausea. 18 mph is my IM goal pace.

Fun, fun, fun ride!

Week 5 totals:

Swim: 3400 yards

Bike: 109 miles

Run: 4.41 miles. Keeping the run mileage super low to avoid injury.

Planned rest day

Today is my planned rest day. I am very tempted to run or bike anyway, because of yesterday's failed ride. However, it's important to respect planned rest days, so I'm going to refrain today. It's so hard! Instead, I'm going to go to the lab. Boo!

To make it up to myself, I'm going to ride long tomorrow :)

Unplanned rest day

Today was supposed to be a bike riding day, but we only rode 13 miles. Luke had some brake issues and we decided to cut our ride short in the interest of safety.

Will ride tomorrow instead.

And, to keep things interesting, here are some pics of the pig ninjas eating ice cream:

Hank Horton

RuDog

Seriously, is there anything better than dogs and ice cream? I think not.

Quick 2 mile run with RuDog and Hank Horton (the pig ninjas). Right IT band is slightly sore. Going to keep the run mileage super low.

Wednesday double

I started this morning with a swim with the Masters' team. I swam 1850 yards in just over an hour, which is seriously crazy. We started with a warm up, then I worked on my butterfly and breast strokes. Very difficult. It's been over twenty years, literally, since I've done either stroke. There was a lot of weird and not very skillful flailing going on. The butterfly is SO hard! In fact, coach said the reason he made me do the fly was so that freestyle would seem easy in comparison. Very true! Good news: Coach said my freestyle looks good. So now it's just building endurance. I love, love, love the team.

Today is a dissertation writing day, so I thought I should squeeze in a quick bike ride before doing cell culture and then returning home to write all day. I rode 33.02 miles in 2 hours. Rode to Davis, checked some cells, then returned home. Feel good. Strong.

I will definitely sleep well tonight. Ha ha. I'm in bed by 9 every night and I'm up before the sun rises. I've become a 70 year old.

2.4 mile run today with the pig ninjas. Felt good.

Toying with the idea of a bike ride after work today. We'll see...

My first Masters' Swim

This morning was my first swim with the Masters' team. In this case, master just means old...not good. At least not in my case. I've been dreading this day for a long time, but I know my swimming just won't improve much on its own.

I got up this morning around 5:30, dreading what was to come. I arrived at the gym before it opened and was in the pool by 6:02. There were only 3 of us there. Two guys and me. By 7:00, there were around 8 swimmers. The coach asked me how far I could swim without dying. I said, "About 500 yards." Then he told me to do a 400 yard warm up. What? A 400 yard warm up? That's normally my entire swim! After I completed that, he had me start doing drills to work on rotating my body as I swim. I'm not an efficient swimmer because I tend to swim "flat," meaning I don't rotate my body as I stroke, thus, my arms are working really hard without much strength from the rest of my body. This makes me slow and will kill my times and my arms down the road. He also had me spend some time working on my turns on the end of the lane. I used to be able to do this, though it's always been ugly.

Then, after the warm up and the drills, he decided it was time to try to figure out my pace. I was so tired at this point! I swam a 200, a 100 and a 50 at a comfortable pace while he timed me. It seemed like I was going super slowly! When I finished, he told me I swam at a 2:05/100 yard pace and finished with, "that's interesting." What's interesting? I don't know anything about swim paces. Was that so slow as to be interesting?

I got out of the pool after swimming for ONE HOUR! I've never gone that long before, with the exception of the Half-Ironman I did where I doggie paddled for part of it :) The coach told me I did a good job and that I was going to be fine. Pretty damn proud of myself!

When all was said and done, I swam 1550 yards today. I'm awesome!

Once I got home, I was determined to figure out what was interesting about my pace. Turns out, 2:05 min/100 yards isn't too bad. I think he was surprised I wasn't slower. Go me!

Here are the things I learned today:

1) I haven't been pushing myself in the pool.

2)Joining the Masters' team is the best athletic decision I've made.

3) It's not that scary.

4) I will improve. A lot!

5) I am capable of a lot more than I thought I was.

I was so tired this morning when I got home that I took a short nap before work. Nice!

Running should be fun

Lots of people tell me they hate running. I think these pictures demonstrate that running is fun. My goal is always to have a good time.

These two pictures are of my best friend from high school (Rachel), my best friend from college (Brenda) and I running a half-marathon in Nashville in April 2010. We stopped and took a funny picture with every band along the course. We had a blast!

This picture is from the Seattle Rock'n'Roll marathon last summer. Each year, Rachel and I choose a run (a marathon or half) to do together. We've run two marathons and a half together. The tutus made their debut last summer and we added the tiaras last spring. We also wear tanks with rainbows on them. What will we come up with next? Not sure but promise it will be obnoxious!

Sunday run and week 4 totals

Just finished a 5 mile run with the pig ninjas. I'm still really slow, but that's all right...especially since I rode hard yesterday. It's good to get the legs used to running while extremely fatigued. The doggies had fun, too, but they were definitely ready to be done.

First swim with the masters' team tomorrow. Definitely excited but apprehensive.

Week 4 totals:

swim: 500 yards

Run: 9 miles, 1 hr, 28 min

Bike: 108 miles, 7 hr 50 min

A big biking week. Overall good. Not enough swimming. Keeping the running miles low. Feeling better and better.