A good one!!!

I had a swim test today.

10x100's with 10 secs rest in between.

Originally Coach had put it on the schedule for tomorrow, but since I knew today would be a tough day at work (and potentially the only day I could actually fit it a pool workout)  I decided to take advantage of my last "morning workout time" and head out.

I got to the pool and warmed up just as Liz suggested. Looked at the water, concentrated, turned on my watch and off I went.

I pushed hard on this test. My lungs hurt, my stomach churned; but I kept going. It was me against the clock. I wanted to improve since last time.

You know me and the water.. Not exactly best friends. But I think we are getting acquainted pretty well. Why? Because I was able to chop off... 8 seconds of my 100's pace! 

The day at work was super busy, exhausting. But I felt good about what I had accomplished this morning.

As I told Coach... I guess I CAN improve my swimming; now I just have to learn to not freak out in the open water.

Curve balls

Wow, it has been almost a week since I blogged. Can't believe how fast this week went by. There was so much stuff going on at this household that it was hard to keep up with all of it.

On tuesday night Todd got a call from his boss and was informed that starting monday he would need to travel Mon-Thu to Miami to work on this new assignment. When he was looking to switch jobs (before he got this one) and interviewed for this position there was a good chance he would have to travel. And we were ok with that. He then got assigned to a project were he didn't have the need to travel, and that lasted for about 4 months. We got spoiled. 

He was home in the morning and I was able to get out of the house for my early workouts at the pool and my runs. We had a nice schedule worked out. Mornings were for me, evenings were for him. And it worked wonderfully. We both got to do what we enjoyed and we also had plenty of family time. As I said, we were lucky his assignment was somewhat local. 

Now, as with any type of change, I am hesitant and even a bit scared. Things will be so much different. Megan and I will be by ourselves for most of the week. My morning workouts won't be able to happen anymore, unless I ride my trainer inside the house. I am used to the morning schedule, it gives me energy for the workday, it keeps me going. I guess you could say I am a morning person. Once this new assignment starts on monday I will have to do most of my workouts during lunch hour.. which means I will only be able to workout for an hour... No more 1:15 runs.... Because after running, I still need to shower and go back to work within a reasonable amount of time. My boss is pretty open though and I am sure we will be able to work something out.

Work is a whole other dilemma/issue. On monday is the fiscal year end for the company I work for, and even though it is a day like no other one for everybody else; it will be an extremely busy one for me. Not just because it is the year end, but because my company is also merging with another one and the task list keeps getting bigger and bigger by the minute. To top it all off I will probably have to work late to get everything that needs to get done on monday done; and Oh, yeah... Todd is out of town starting monday. Can you start seeing the big picture here?

To top it all off, once we merge with this other company... the tasks I perform at work, won't be there anymore. It's called centralization.. the headquarters do it all. There will be no more books to keep. There will be no more bank accounts to reconcile. No more checks to write. All my accounting duties will be taken away from me; and most likely I will remain a paper pusher. Now, don't get me wrong. There is nothing against paper pushers here; but that is not what I want to do with my career. The way I see it, my job will be gone in the short term and I will be left wondering what to do next.

Life has thrown me a couple of curve balls this week, and some of them hit me and got the best of me. For the first time since I started training with coach, I felt like crying during a workout. And not because I was in pain, but because I just could not focus on the task at hand and all the other things in my life kept getting in my way. So I stopped. For the first time I cracked, and you know what? I needed it. 

It was a humbling experience. I am not made of steel (even though I like to pretend I am really tough) and it is ok to break down every once in a while. It makes you appreciate things in a different way. It changes your perspective.

It will be hard at first, but things will get better. I am ready for the new challenge,  ready to take a good swing at those curve balls and send them back to where they came from.

Rock on.

Weekend wrap up

Yesterday I got up early and went on my saturday morning ride. Coach had scheduled me a group ride, with some harder efforts; so I went to my local tri store to join in the "women" only ride. The other ride they have on saturday mornings is way too fast for me to keep up.

When I get there I find out that the regular ride leader broker her ankle during the week on a trail run, so we will have a "sub". As the sub is pumping her tires, she gets a flat... on her back wheel! Now, put a whole bunch of ladies; with absolutely no tire changing experience in a situation like this and what do you get? A ride leader who is panic mode because she can't change her tire; and the rest of us on a panic mode because, what if we get a flat? I am proud to report that even though I had no tire changing experience myself, I was able to help put the back wheel in place. I guess all the watching other people do it paid of. 

As we are getting ready leave to the parking lot, I notice a new girl (who I shall call A). A is not sure she can go the entire 26 miles we have planned going (which turned out to be more like 23); as the most she has ridden was 9 miles. I assure her she will be fine, she will be sore but will do just fine. People start pedaling away and as A is trying to get going, she can't clip her second foot and falls off the bike. At this point, you could see the tears start welling in her eyes and she says to me " I am really scared of this ride". I tell her she shouldn't be and that we have all fallen of our bikes... Hey, I did last weekend! I show her some tricks on how to clip in and out (like being able to push your pedal even though you are not clipped, so that you have more momentum) and I vow to stay back with her for the duration of the ride. 

I remember my first group ride and how my heart was literally jumping off my chest. I wish someone had taken the time to show me things. I had no such luck. What I learned about biking I learned alone on trial and error. I fell of my bike numerous times and each time I got up and kept riding.

So anyhow, off we go. I stay back with A and tell her about cadence and being effective on your pedal strokes and how not to be scared of shifting. She is riding her granny ring and I make her change to the small ring. Once there I tell her we will work on getting comfortable with shifting around the gears in her cassette. She asks me questions, and I answer them to the best of my knowledge. I share experiences and keep assuring her she will be fine. I finally convince her she will be able to go the entire distance and we keep riding past her much shorter turn around point. Every now and then the group leader comes to find us and I take this time to push out of my comfort zone. I ride the big ring, feel the burn in my legs and and eat it up. I am loving this ride. 

We get to the turnaround point and A is looking awesome. We all tell her "it's all downhill from here" (in a figurative way). The group stays much closer now, I guess people are starting to get tired; and I just want to GO. I ask A if she is feeling good, and tell her my intentions, she says to go for it. So I take off. For the first time I am leading the group and feeling good about going fast. I practice my eating strategies, drinking (tried Heed and loved it! Thanks Katie!) and staying Aero.

We get back to the shop and I have this overall good feeling. My ride went awesome and I am also super glad I was able to help someone out. I tell A she needs to keep coming to the group rides. That she will get better and faster each time. She is looking a lot more confident now. Mission accomplished.

After the ride I went home and showered quickly to get ready for my dress shopping morning. I went out and hit a bunch of stores and could not come up with anything I liked. I had done some online shopping and saw a bunch of dresses I liked but the always look so much better in pictures. I came back home empty handed. 

I did, however, go to the hair salon and got my hair colored. I think I look much better with dark color hair. I will try to take a picture and post it later. 

Oh yes! I have some Megan news. She is turning into such a big girl! Friday night was her first night sleeping without a pull up and she did awesome! She did not wet her bed. She repeated that saturday night. We leave the bathroom light on, so she can go if she needs to during the night. And she has used it! Yesterday we took her to the pool and she has embraced swimming! This is a total shocker for us since last summer she did not want to have ANYTHING to do with the water. Granted, she is still not going under, but now she wants to swim without us holding her (don't worry we are still in the pool next to her, and she wears those arm floating thingies).

Today we are going to my sister in law's house to celebrate her birthday and help out with some home projects. She and her husband have just moved into town and since she is pregnant her hubby has been enlisting family help to do fix the little things the house needs. We have given them all of our baby stuff... furniture, toys.. you name it. Our old "nursery" will become our home gym and we are pretty excited about it.

Today is IMcda. I send big waves of good luck and positive thoughts to all those racing. Also a big Congrats to Bree who came in 2nd in IM Japan on her first IM as a pro. Go Bree!!!!

I've been tagged

By Leah... I thought this might be fun... here are the instructions on what  I needed to do.

1. Find the book closest to you and turn to page 123
2. Locate the 5th sentence
3. Post in your blog the following three sentences
4. Then challenge five others to do the same

The closest book I have at the moment is "Becoming americana" by Lara Rios. Here is the excerpt:

"Today I volunteered for something even more uncomfortable than dating. I agreed to go with Carmen to a family planning clinic for birth control pills.

Carmen is fifteen, and I know better than most that she should not be having sex"

I am not sure about this tagging thing, I think it's fun; but other folks might not. So I am just going to say if you feel like doing this go ahead and post it on your blog. Leave me a comment so I can go check it out, would you?

Random bits

Well, it’s official. As of this week the company I work for is merging with another one. What does this mean? I am not quite sure. My job is still here, for now at least; but who knows? I am not necessarily worried about it right now. I will continue to do my job, at the same level I am doing it now. I guess time will tell what happens.

Lately I have been considering becoming a stay at home mom or working part time. Why? Because I’d love to have more time to dedicate to this sport. I have Ironman plans for 2010 and I will need more “free” time to get in the 20 hrs per week of training. On the down side, this is an expensive sport and it is always nice to know that you can afford it. Know what I mean? Yes, yes, my mind is a mess. Oh well, I’ve learned to live with it.

Training has been going good. I had a nice talk with Coach the other day about my training and the feedback she is getting from me after my workouts. I always think that it is not enough and that I am not giving her enough tools to fine tune my training. One of the things that had me the most concerned was my level of tiredness. I remember previous seasons being extremely tired; even though my workouts were not as consistent as now; so I was expecting to be as tired this year too. But I am not; and that made me question my performance. Coach assured me that I am doing the right thing and that not being as tired is actually a sign that we are going about this training thing the correct way. It means I am getting more efficient. And it made sense. In case you have not noticed, Coach rocks!

Today I had a nice run set. I had to warm up for 15 minutes and then do 30 minutes of short 1 minute intervals. Since I needed to change my pace ever so many seconds I decided to do this on the treadmill to avoind having to look at my watch the entire run. The clock on the ‘mill is much more easy to read. I developed a love/hate feeling for this workout. I loved going fast, but I hated having to watch the clock as much as I did. It made the time crawl. And even though I love running, when you are on the ‘mill pushing a hard pace you just want the time to go by as fast as possible. Don’t you agree?? I finished the set just fine, my legs felt tired as they should and my HR was all the way to zone 3. I was please with the result.

Tomorrow I have a 1:30 hr group ride, with some hard efforts on the schedule. Looking forward to it. It will probably feel like nothing after the 2:30 hrs I did last weekend. I just hope I don’t fall this time.

I also have a nice morning of dress shopping ahead. I am going to a wedding the following weekend, and since I am actually feeling awesome about my body (first time in a while I like looking at myself in a bikini) I want a new dress to sort of “show off”. Why not, right? “If you got it, flaunt it” I am looking for a nice red one (my favorite color and it does look good on me), and I have a very specific shape in mind. We will see if I can find something that resembles the image I see when I close my eyes. I will let you know if I am successful

Last, but not least I just want to wish good look to all the tri-blogger racing IMCda. Go get’em guys!!!

Volunteering and the ride from hell.

After the tri last weekend, my body was pretty trashed during the first part of the week. Getting up to do my workouts required a lot of mental strength. But I got through them and by friday I was feeling pretty good.

Until I went on my 1:20 run. I had not run that long in forever, so it was actually nice. Even though it was humid and very sticky, I managed to keep a nice pace while keeping my HR in Z2 as Coach wanted me to do. There were some times where I'd have to walk to keep HR down, and that made me a bit mad.  This HR training is definitely not easy for me, because I like going fast; but I have already noticed improvement in my running ability so I will suck it up and keep doing it.

Yesterday I volunteered at a local tri. My duties included body marking and then being in the run course, at a turn (more as a one person cheering squad than a course "marker").

Body marking was interesting, I got to see up close a whole bunch of different people: men, women, young, old, first timers, elites. I managed to make some of them laugh, was scared of some others. There was one particular gal that I remember quite vividly. I marked her number and then asked what race category she was racing in, she replied Athena. I had to do a double take... "Athena? you don't look like an Athena"-- "Thank you, I had gastric Bypass surgery and the skin is what makes me be over 150 lbs"--- "Well, you look great"-- "Thank you". Talk about turning your life around 180 degrees. Impressed, to say the least. I was also pleasantly surprised at people thanking me for volunteering and for being there. Always nice and something that i will definitely do when I race.. Now that I have been on the other side, I know how good it feels to be recognized for the good things you do. What goes around comes around, right?

After body marking for about an hour, they took us out on the run course. They put me in a spot where the road split in 2, to make sure that people took the correct path... even though there was a sign with an arrow. I saw the elites go by, riding their disc wheels... (love the sound). This was a sprint, so within the hour those first runners where going past me. I did not cheer for the elite people... I found that they do not like it very much... as if it breaks their concentration or something. A short while after the elites came by, everybody else started showing up as well. Let me say, I need a new set of hands and a brad new set of vocal cords. Towards the end, when the runners were coming every few minutes, I would run out to them; and join them for a few yards giving them words of encouragement, or simply talking if they wanted to. I am embarrassed to say that this felt good for 2 reasons: being able to help them keep going; and moving my legs!!!! After standing up for so long it felt great to actually run/jog some.

The last guy came by, and it turns out that with about 7 miles to go on the bike; his bike broke. So he got off it and ran with it, barefoot, to transition (7 mi) put on his running shoes and did the 5k. And finished, last but he crossed the finish line. Human willpower at its best.

After the race was over I went to do my 2:30 ride that coach had put on my schedule. I loaded my water bottles with accelerade, got my food on the bento box and off I went. It was 11 am.

I was too keep HR in Z2 for most of the ride and then let it go to zone 3 when climbing or riding into the wind. Well, as I have said before, Charlotte is like a constant hill. Needless to say, I had a tough time keeping my HR low. I also struggled with going slow. I do not like it. 

About 1:30 hours into the ride; I was ready to get off my bike. My lady parts hurt quite a bit, my legs were complaining (I would too if I had been forced to sustain the body weight for 5.5 hrs straight) and I had miserably failed the task at hand of keeping my HR in check. Oh, yeah... I had also fallen of the bike in the most stupid way possible, so my left leg and but cheek have some nice bruises that make me tough. With about 45 mins to go I finally talked myself into letting go of the speed. Get aero, keep cadence and just HTFU. The last part of the ride was better. I kept my effort constant, and made my legs shut up. 

I did pretty well with my nutrition, or so I thought until I got off the bike... That's when my stomach dropped. Coach thinks it's because maybe my stomach can't handle the whey protein in accelerade, and suggested I tried other sports drinks. 

I wanted to ask you guys, what has worked for you?

Priceless...

On friday night when I was putting Megan to bed, I told her that I would not be home in the morning because I was going to be doing a race. She asked if I was going to be running, and I told her that I was going to be doing a bit of everything; swim, bike, run.

To which she replied: "You will win the trophy mommy and I am going to be so PROUD of you"

I teared up. I make my daughter proud. :)

That moment right there is what makes parenthood totally worth it. 

Historic Badin Triathlon RR

Well, finally my first race report! Here it goes :)

I woke up saturday before my alarm went off.  Jumped in the shower to get refreshed since it had been hot since friday and I wanted to get the feeling of stickyness off. Got dressed and went downstairs to have breakfast. The food of choice was toast with peanut butter... I am not a fan of peanut butter (I really don't like it) but it seems to work good for me, since I had tried it before. I got my drinks ready and headed out the door.

On the way to the venue I drank almost an entire bottle of Accelerade. The forecast was hot and humid, so I wanted to get started on hydration early.

I got there and set up transition. The area they selected was horrible. It was about 100 yards from the water and then when you got off your bike, you had to run about 75 yards, on grass, with your bike... Not exactly fast. I got lucky and my rack was right in the middle, and my number was right next to the aisle... very easy to spot. 

After setting up, I got body marked, applied sunscreen, used the porta potties and headed to the start line. Once there I warmed up in the water like Coach had suggested I do and I felt great. A little nervous but great.

Swim:

I was on the 3rd and last wave. All females and novice. I positioned myself at the back of the pack and when the horn went off I started swimming. It was a disappointing swim to say the least. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone, and every time I did, my chicken "clucked" (like coach would say) and I listened to it... EVERY SINGLE TIME. I do not know what the problem is with me in the open water... but I know I can swim better than a 2:55 x 100 meters... I was so slow it wasn't even funny!

Getting out of the water proved to be another challenge. The huge rocks at the bottom of the lake, made it impossible to stand up without hurting your feet! I could not believe they had not researched this. I ran to very LONG way to transition.

T1

I could NOT get my body to respond as fast as I wanted it too. I lost my balance, could not put my sock and shoes on, and then I could not clip on to my bike... The slowest t1 I have ever had. Period.

Bike:

The course was described as a with gently rolling hills.... My A$$. After getting out of T1, and being on the bike for about 3 minutes, you took a right turn and the first climb started. People were getting off their bikes and pushing them uphill. I struggled with it, set a small goal of NOT getting off the bike for the climb, and went to work. Let me say it HURT. The sucker was like trying to climb a wall on your bike. You basically had to keep pedaling or your bike would go backwards... It was that tough. Reached the top of the hill, spun my legs and took the only gel of the day. I think I did work hard on the bike, but I could have probably worked harder. Again, mistake that I a mat at myself about, and will make a conscious effort to not repeat. I finished the bike with a good split... 10 amongst the 47 females. 

T2

After I dismounted my bike, there was a 75 yard run to the "timing mat". I got into the area, racked my bike, and then again body did NOT want to move fast. i think the heat was starting to affect me. T2 longer than T1... WTF???

Run

I started conservatively... Took water right away out of t2 and run slowly so my running legs could catch up with me. The course was supposed to be be flat according to the description.... let me say, they need to do a better job at describing... Of course, it was not flat. I struggled during the run... A LOT. I think that while on the bike, I went the opposite way of not drinking enough, and filled my tummy with too much accelerade. It felt sloshy and heavy and it was making me super uncomfortable. Coach wanted me to take 1/2 a gel at the start of the run; but I could tell it would not be a good idea. So I took it along for later maybe. 

There was very little shade on this course, and I do not know what was up with it, but I was having chills while being hot (anyone experienced this before?). I was doing just fine until I saw the mile markers and realized I wasn't as far into the run as I had thought; and that is when I fell apart. My confidence left me, my chicken clucked again, and I walked. Convinced myself to keep running, so I ran a bit longer... telling myself, you can run 1 1/2 miles any day, pick it up now. So I would, for a while and then walk for a while. I had not gotten passed by women at all in this race, until on the run. Two ladies passed me. And I never caught them. After I crossed the mile 2 marker I decided that even if my lungs exploded and I was going to run to the finish. I picked up the pace and then about 1/4 of a mile into it, there was a beautiful downhill. It was just what my body needed. It was fast and effortless, and it helped me feel confident about finishing strong. I passed a couple of guys, and when I got into the final stretch I saw a guy and I wanted to pass him. I started sprinting an I almost had him until he turned around and saw me, so he picked it up too. I think he finished a couple of seconds  ahead of me. 

I crossed the finish line in 1:35:22. I was hoping for 1:30 or under, but the hills on the bike were  tough. I managed to get 3rd AG, but then again there were only 3 ladies racing my category :) it doesn't mean as much as I'd like it to mean, but at least I got a gift card to the local tri store that of course  will come in handy...

All in all, I think this was a good race; that taught me some lessons and let me realize how mad I get at myself for listening to my inner chicken. Next on the list, learn how to make the chicken stop clucking. Let's get to work.

The comeback kid

Today I had my first pool workout after being sidelined for 2 weeks by my ear infection. Truth be told I was scared of it. I was afraid I was not going to be able to even swim a single 50...

The day started off wrong. I had set my alarm for 5 am but forgot to actually turn it ON. So, when I woke up at 5:36 because I had to pee, I cursed... Nice way to wake up my husband ;) 

Even though I was scared of the workout I was looking forward to it. Besides the morning was the only time I knew I would be able to swim for sure. It is month end closing at work and us accounting type folks get quite busy at this time of the month; so swimming during lunch was a long shot. But it was my only choice. I made sure to get to work about 45 minutes early so that I could take an extended lunch IF I was able to get caught up with everything that needed to get done today.

Lo and behold, I busted my little booty (well not so little) off and made it to the pool with plenty of time to do my much needed yards.

The warm up was good, I was actually able to feel myself "gliding" through the water and that got me thinking about Coach's post on how she felt better in the water after a few days with less swimming... I entertained the idea for a while, sometimes less is more. 

I think not being able to swim for a couple of weeks actually helped me realize what I was doing wrong when I got back in the pool.

The main set looked though, I was really concerned with the 400 continuous swim; but somehow I was able to do it. Then there was a set of 6x50's that I had to do at some intervals; and then repeat the entire main set. I did the 6x50's at the prescribed interval and felt that it was giving me way too much rest; so when I did the set the second time around, I cut my interval about 15 seconds shorter. Oddly enough I was still able to meet it and not be completely out of breath. 

After finishing my sets I got out of the pool feeling pretty good about my swim, and set my goals for the race on saturday. I will push HARD during the swim, harder than I have ever pushed in the open water before. My lungs will not explode, the pool helped me realize that; now I have to learn to get outside of my comfort zone on race day. 

Double Feature

Yesterday Todd and I had a "date". It had been a while since we did "couple" stuff. It was much needed. We had a rough couple of weeks. I was sick, he had long work days, he was tired/worried, I was upset/tired, Megan was just being Megan. You get the drift.

We dropped Megan off at the in-laws at about noon yesterday and went to the movie theatre to watch, not one but 2 movies!!! YAY! Did I mention that I am a movie junkie?? Especially action movies with great FX and kick a$$ sound. The kind you absolutely HAVE to watch in the theatre to get the best experience. What did we watch? Iron Man and Indiana Jones. Loved them both.

After the movies we went to a little restaurant and had some dinner. I had been developing a headache ever since my morning brick and by the time we were eating it had become a full blown migraine. Did I ever mention I HATE migraines? I think the headache was brought on by a severe case of dehydration. But I am not sure how I got there. Yes, I did a brick in the morning and it was hot and sticky. But I drank a whole bunch of fluids. 24oz of sports drink and then 24oz of water. The brick was not that long, a mere 1:20 hrs; so I really don't get it.  Good news is that I was able to sleep it off and this morning I am feeling like my old self again. YAY!

Today Megan keeps insisting that she wants to go "somewhere". I think we will take her to the pool and I might attempt some swimming to see what I will be up against tomorrow when I head to the pool for my first swim workout in 2 weeks. Cross your fingers that it won't be too bad, I am crossing mine too.