Shawn Tris (archived)

Mulligan

2010-12-28T09:03:00.000-08:00

Alright - I decided that I'm going to combine my Triathlon Blog and my Weight Loss Blog into one.

I'm calling it "Tri-ing to Lose" and you can find it here: http://shawn-nawlb.blogspot.com/

PS: NAWLB = "Not Another Weight Loss Blog!" which is kind of how I feel - lol

2010 - kicked my ***

2010-12-17T12:29:00.000-08:00

So here's the deal...

2010 wasn't so great a year for me. I lost focus, stopped training and gained back some of the weight I had lost in 2009.

On the flip side I did get some things accomplished. I moved, I got a new less stressful, better jobs AND in the past few months I've started going back to the gym.

I feel like I've regained focus and that I'm on track to get back to being an athlete again!

That being said, I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do with this blog. It started as a way to chronicle my training as I went through Team in Training for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. Then, as I found I liked doing Tris, and wanted to continue doing them, I kept posting to this blog about my Tri tribulations.

However, this was only a small window of the 'big picture' of my 'athletic life' and I actually had an older blog that I was maintaining that had years and years of my weight/training struggles posted to it. I found myself struggling to decide what to post to that blog and what to post to this one. I didn't want them to be mirrors of each other, and was trying to keep information that was related to the 'subject' of the blog on each blog.

As you might guess, with two subjects so closely intertwined, it got difficult and as my motivation fell, so did my posts.

Now I'm left with a quandary. As I start to ramp back up in both endeavorers, getting fit and losing weight what do I do with these blogs? Do I continue them, but keep them separate? Do I retire one or the other of them? Or, do I close them both and start a third blog with the focus being my entire 'fitness' journey.

Given that my posting has been so sporatic that neither of these blogs get much of a 'visit' I think the third option might just be a good idea and a great 'clean slate' for 2011.

Epiphany?

2010-07-26T09:30:00.000-07:00

Last night after posting my workouts I came to a realization. I'm ignoring my strengths to focus on my weakness.

While on some level this might seem like the right thing to do, but on another... it seems a little backwards; especially in triathlons.

Let me explain. I'm a good swimmer. Maybe even a little better then average. The fact that I can go out and complete a 1/2 mile open water swim after not touching the water for eight months, and still manage to stay in the upper/middle of the pack, I believe, speaks to my swimming aptitude. Because swimming is so easy for me, I've been completely ignoring it in my training.

Then last night I realized, that if I took a little extra time and actually focused just a little on my swimming, I could probably really kill the swim portion of the tri and give myself some additional breathing room when it came to the run. By ignoring my strongest event I was losing out on a chance of making my weakest event less of a handicap.

So, I'm reworking my schedule to add in more swim workouts and committing myself to stop skipping them.

Maybe with a little work I can (as my husband put it) catch 5 waves :D

Week One - Check

2010-07-25T19:28:00.000-07:00

Week one of thirteen is in the books - managed to put in all my training except the one swim I had planned. I'm ok with that. Three runs and two bikes for a total of 56 miles for the week is a pretty big accomplishment. and, I logged 5:46 in training time.

First day was a strength workout that included 'hill bounding'. Only there are no hills in Alameda - so I modified my workout to 'stair bounding'.

After a 15 minute warm-up run I did 8 sprints of the stairs, with a 10 second sprint after reaching the top. Then it was a recovery jog back to the bottom of the stairs to do it. It was a short, but intense workout. What was funny was that while I was pooped after doing the stairs, after a short recovery, I was hardly felt like I had run at all and was feeling like I should do more! That's a good sign that I'm starting out on the right foot. 2 miles for 26 minutes

Day two was hill repeats on the bike. We've already established that there are no hills worth speaking of here in Alameda, so I do simulated hills on the trainer... In some ways I think training on the trainer is harder because there's no coasting it's 35 minutes of spin spin spin... 2 minutes of hills with 3 minute recovery 5 times 8 miles for 35 minutes

So, Thursdays are going to be my 'hard' run day. I know, it sounds strange for a 2 mile run to be hard, but I have have a goal of doing the Bridge to Bridge 12K at a 11 min/mile pace. So, thursday is when I'm training at this pace and for me, right now, 2 miles at 11 min/mile is HARD! Hopefully this'll get easier as training goes on.

For the actual 2 miles of my run (the .4 was warm-up) I managed to average 11:16 min/mile. A little above goal, but I'll be doing this same run next week and maybe I'll be able hit that 11 then. 2.4 miles and 28 minutes

Saturday I decided to ride with the Oakland Yellow Jackets. This ended up being my longest ride to date. I was really happy with how the ride went - enjoyed the team, and the ride itself was fantastic. Just enough of a challenge on the hills without being overwhelming. The pace was perfect for the distance because I ended feeling I could still go more. AND I didn't fall once! 41 miles 3 hours 45 minutes of training logged.

Today was my last workout of the week -- Hooray!

I was so tired today, my legs just didn't want to move! even after 10 minutes of warming up I didn't feel warmed up and when it came time to put on the gas just a little bit - the engine just didn't want to go. Still, I made it through even when I wanted to quit! and managed to log the final 2.8 miles in 34 minutes.

I am calling this week a complete success.

For next week the plan is:

Monday - Rest
Tuesday - Leg/Abs and running hill repeats (Might stay and run in SF for this one)
Wednesday - Chest/Biceps and biking hill repeats (Probably on the trainer)
Thursday - Back/Traps and 3 mile run for pace
Friday - Shoulders/Triceps
Saturday - Endurance Bike - (probably try to catch up with the yellow jackets again)
Sunday - Run 45 minutes Fartlek and 1500y swim

Oli Training starts

2010-07-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

Start of a new training cycle. Planning on doing an Olympic Tri in October and that's the focus now, although I have a few fun races I plan to do along the way, including the Bridge to Bridge. I also plan on doing a intense resistance training program, mostly because I like and enjoy lifting weights, and it's nice to spend time doing something I'm good at :D

This week's schedule

Tuesday: Run - Hill Bounding
Wednesday: Bike - Tempo Hill Climbs
Thursday - Run - 2 miles goal pace
Friday - Rest
Saturday - Bike - 20 miles steady
Sunday - Run - Fartlek and Swim - 1500 Yards

Yes - my training is going to be run heavy - it's really what I need the most help with so I've decided to add an extra run day in there.

Next race is the third try at the tri for fun in Sacramento on August 8th. Hopefully I'll be able to break the 2 hour mark this time.

2010-06-14T10:46:00.000-07:00

Took some time to recover this past week.

I did my markerset/TT run on Tuesday and my Markerset/TT on the trainer on Wednesday. Thursday, I was having a really bad day, so I ended up just going for a walk with the dog. Friday and Saturday I rested and recovered and then Sunday I joined up with Team Alameda to see what it was like to do a group ride with them. Boy was I in for a pleasant surprise. Fantastic group of people, and a great ride through areas I hadn't been before and where I probably wouldn't have gone by myself. I think we ended up riding about three hours. Hit a few challenging (for me) hills and overall just had a fantastic day. The only bad parts were 1) my bike 'ghost shifting' in my low (climbing) gears and thus making the climbs 10 times harder then they had to be, and 2) getting caught in my clips and majorly biting the back of one of my legs with the opposite petal.

BUT, there was one positive to all of that. When one of the other riders took my bike for a spin to see if he had fixed my ghost shifting problem... HE nearly wrecked because he couldn't unclip. All this time I thought I was just dorky and uncoordinated and part of the problem was that my clips were too tight! He adjusted them for me and I have to say, I'm 100% more confident when coming to a stop that I can get out of my clips and not fall over!

The goals for this week are:

1) get in some quality weight training

2) spend some time doing yoga (trying to solve a tightness issue in my back)

3) clean up the nutrition!

4) Train

The training plan is:

Monday - Rest

Tuesday - Tempo run

Wednesday - Tempo swim/Tempo Bike

Thursday - Speed work (run)

Friday - Rest

Saturday - Bike/Run Race Sim Brick

Sunday - Open water swim

I'm finally starting to feel a little fire in my belly again - it's good to be back!

Lose It! Weekly Summary for Week of Mon, May 31st

2010-06-07T19:11:00.001-07:00

Weekly Summary for Week of Mon, May 31st

for Shawn Mueller-Boddy

Daily Summary
	Budget	Food	Exercise	Net	+/-	Weight (lbs)
6/2/10	1,333	0	0	0	-1,333	207.4
6/4/10	1,333	0	0	0	-1,333	207.4
6/5/10	1,357	3,343	1,810	1,533	176	211.1
6/6/10	1,357	1,334	0	1,334	-23	211.1

153 calories over budget for the week

Gained 3.7 pounds this week

Nutrient Summary		% Calories
Fat	203g	40.3%
Saturated Fat	62g
Protein	259g	22.8%
Carbohydrates	420g	37%
Sugars	129g
Fiber	29g

Exercise Summary		Calories
Running	45 Min	528
Bicycling	1 Hour 5 Min	980
Swimming	20 Min	302
Total	1810

Report generated by Lose It!. For more information or to sign up for your free Lose It! account, please visit http://www.loseit.com

2010-06-06T10:55:00.000-07:00

Well, this has been a tumultuous year.

I've gained weight I didn't want to gain. I've not trained the way I wanted to train. I've had to change plans dozen of times (it seems). And yet, yesterday, I finally got out and did a Triathlon. It was a sprint, but, I did it. And despite all the set backs of the year, I didn't do as bad as I had thought I would. Hey, I didn't come in last! In fact, I think I might have even seen a slight improvement on my bike.

Overall, I have a lot of work to do to get back to the shape I was in last year, but I'm willing and ready to do it!

Next weeks a recovery week, with short runs and rides to recalibrate my baseline, then it's back to serious training to see how much I can improve before doing the same race on July 10th.

I'll have some fitness goals soon - weight goal - I'm going to drop 16 lbs.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

2010-01-20T12:11:00.000-08:00

So, I mentioned that I haven't noticed a lot of changes with the change in diet. But, when I sat down and really thought about it, yes, I have. Now, I'm not having one of those "OMG, I can hardly stand it, where is all this energy coming from" transformations, but, I am seeing some interesting things going on with me.

Now, understand that I did a 'lowish' carb diet last year as part of my weight loss program, but it did include some dairy and some grains. It was also low fat and calorie restrictive. When I followed the program exactly as written I was always hungry, as in chew my arm off hungry. So, I would often supplement with nuts and generally felt better. I say all of this simply because, the fact that my body is already used to a lower carb intake could be one of the reasons I'm not experiencing a radical change in feeling/energy by going paleo. Or, it could just be that I haven't given it enough time.

Anyway - back to the changes I am seeing.

1) I'm losing weight. I'm not counting calories. I'm not going hungry. I'm not constantly watching the clock waiting for my next meal. I'm also not spending hours planning my meals for the day, and yet, I've lost 7.6 lbs since Jan 1st!

2) I'm not losing strength. Generally, dieting means having to compromise on strength training (and sometimes even cardio) and yet, I'm still putting up the same (if not better) strength numbers as the end of the year.

3) I have fingernails! I know, this is probably a strange thing to mention, but you have to understand that I'm a person who can't grow fingernails. My nails are normally super soft and very thin. They rip and break right to the quick, constantly. And yet, right now, I have nails that go beyond the ends of my fingers on all but one finger!

4) My sleep patterns are changing - for the better. Ask anyone, they'll tell you, I'm not a morning person. This wasn't helped by the fact that I often had trouble falling and staying asleep at night. Even after sleeping 8+ hours I would often wake up groggy and exhausted. Weekends were a constant battle for me. I would often not wake up until 10AM and could easily fall back asleep and stay in bed until Noon. Then Sunday night I would be laying in bed at 1:00AM staring the clock, stressed out because I knew I had to be up by 5:00 AM the next day.

This past weekend (a three day weekend for me), all three days I woke up 6:00AM (WTF!). Even after telling myself, "It's the weekend! You can sleep in" I ended up getting up before 8:00. I've also found myself falling asleep faster (in usually 10-20 minutes, instead of the HOURS it could sometimes take) and waking up in the middle of the night a lot lot less.

Now, my sleep patterns have always been cyclical, going from bad to worse at certain times of the month, so I'll be tracking the quality of my sleep for at least 30 days to see if it continues to improve, or even just stays as good as it is right now. If it does, then whoo hoo!

Oh, and last night, I made the most amazing pork stir fry w/tangerines and bok choy, and tonight we're having chicken that's been marinating in a homemade peach sauce. Nom Nom Nom!

And the 1/2 Iron Training Begins

2010-01-19T10:20:00.000-08:00

One thing I didn't mention in my last post is 2010 will also be the year of the weight training. Hubby and I started getting constant at going to the gym late last year during the "off season". We plan to continue that effort through tri training. Normally that will mean hitting the gym for weights and stretching early in the morning (we get up at 4:00AM) and then doing tri training at night after work. Today however, since we got done with the weights early, and the run was only 30 minutes, we did our run right at the gym on the treadmill. Since the the weather's been bad to worse of late, and the focus was on running drills this actually turned out to be ideal.

Now, my back is sore from a killer weight workout, and I'm all energized from doing 30 minutes on the treddy - 10 of those minutes doing inseam drills.

The remainder of the workouts include:

25 miles on the bike tomorrow (we'll use the trainers)

45 min run on Thursday (The long run of the week)

30 min of drills on the bike Friday (supposed to be hill repeats - I'm thinking we'll just simulate with big chain on the trainer)

40 minutes of running w/hill bounding on Saturday (cross your fingers that the weather will clear like the report says it will)

and

30 miles on the bike on Sunday (again with the hoping for good weather!)

Yes, I know there's no swimming in there - that's because as of right now, I don't have any place to swim :( I canceled my membership in the town where I live, and I'm a woose, and I won't do open water swims when it's 50 degrees outside. My goal is to be able to do my swims on my lunch hour but that'll require me getting a second gym membership, something that's not in the budget (today). So, for now I'm going to have to rely on the the fact that I'm a strong swimmer and I've completed the 1.2 mile swim easily many times before...

That being said, I'll be signing up for a gym membership if I ever get some extra chashola, and I'll be hitting the OW as soon as the temperatures get reasonable.

PS: if you want more details on my weight training, I track it all at Daily Mile - and update twitter with my workouts (SAMBoddy69) You may notice I'm a much better weight lifter then runner - heh.

PPS: bought a second bike trainer over the weekend so hubby and I can workout together :D

2010 Goals

2010-01-18T18:47:00.000-08:00

So, 2010 is upon us, and like most folks I've set a few goals for the new year.

I'm going to continue to do triathlons - I mean, do I have much of a choice? It's either that, or change the name of my blog :D

I've got one big goal for this year tri wise and that's to do a Half Iron Man distance race. I'm still finalizing my plans, but my hope is to do the "World's Toughest Half Iron Man" on May 23rd. I know, I aim High :D. This race is called "World's Toughest" because of the sheer elevation. I know, I know. If you've spend any amount of time on my blog you know I hate hills. Well, guess what, I'm the kind of person who likes to face my weakness head on - and so, I want to tackle the 1/2 Iron distance and hills all the same time. What's even better, this race has a 70.3 mile distance Duathlon. So, my husband is training for the same distance, same race. woo fun! Oh, and since this race is 18 weeks away, training starts this week.

I'm going to do a few other races along the way - some of the same races I did this year - overall, I plan to have some fun.

Now, if you've spent any amount of time on my blog, you can guess that the other big health and fitness goals is to get to my goal weight. Last year I started reading "The Paleo Diet" by Loren Cordain. I was intrigued, but wasn't ready to make such a drastic change. Then I bought, "The Paleo Diet for Athletes" by Loren Cordain, and Triathlete Coach Joe Friel. After some study and some deep thinking At the beginning of the year, I made the switch. How do I feel so far? Not really that different, I mean just a few weeks I'm not feeling as if my life has suddenly become roses. But, I'm not suffering giving up (most) dairy, grains and legumes so I'm going to keep with this. Mentally, at least, I feel healthier and that says a lot. I know I'm putting good food into my body, that has to be a good thing.

I know to a lot of people, this is rather extreme. And some might think my diet has got to be bland, but I'm actually really happy with the variety I've managed to have. Today I ate: 2 eggs and 3 turkey sausages for for breakfast, a turkey burger w/a couple cups of mixed veggies for lunch, and for dinner chicken w/beets and orange butter - yummy yummy! I've been having a lot of fun making dinners for new 'diet' and I hope you don't mind if I share them with you.

2009 Recap

2010-01-14T15:04:00.000-08:00

The year 2009 was an interesting year for me. I turned 40, and while not the introspective, page turning birthday that some experience, it did make me realize that I was getting much to old to keep putting my dreams and goals on hold. If I was going to make a dent in my bucketlist, I better get a move on.

One thing I had be thinking about doing for years was a triathlon. As I started to look forward to 2009 and my pending birthday, I knew that this was the year I was going to finally do it, so, I signed up with Team in Training and started training for Lavaman in Oct 2008.

At 240lbs, training was difficult. I struggled with running and biking and was always the absolute back of the pack. But, I persevered and through a myriad of struggles and injuries, on March 29th I started and finished my first ever triathlon.

It became clear to me that day that I was hooked. But, it also became clear to me that I couldn't continue in this sport with success and with any longevity at 240lbs. So, the day after we got home from Hawaii I stared, once again, to work on something that's been a goal of mine for 25 years; to lose weight.

With race after race looming on my calender and the burning drive to "not be last" I stuck to my plan and continued to lose weight week after week. By August I was at my lowest weight in years and was feeling good. I was also starting to feel a little 'competitive' at races, looking for more then just 'don't be last'. I started trying to compete against others at the race instead of just myself. I started having a lot less fun.

I was in the middle of Run Girl Run when I realized what I was doing. Mid race I had an attitude adjusted why race if it made me frustrated and discouraged. What was important was that I was out there, having fun, and on the road to self improvement.

Overall, health wise, I think I've had an excellent year. In running I went from averaging about a 15:00/mile pace, with an average distance of 2.5 miles to 11:00/mile pace, with an average distance of 5 miles. On the bike I went from averaging 11 MPR on most rides, to being able to hold a pace of 16 MPR. On top of all this, in body comp I lost just over 50 lbs, and dropped 5" off my waist and 6.5" off my hips.

Not too shabby

My Races for the Year:

2.25 Miles

Dog run Dog - 25:26

5K

Tough a Granite Trail Run - 37:47
Mountain House Run - 32:54
Skirt Chaser Run - 33:32

10K

Old Mill Run - 1:39:25
Skyline Mountain Run - 1:14:50

12K

Bay to Breakers - 2:08:10
Bridge to Bridge - 1:26:43

1.2 Mile Swim

Catfish Crawl - 46:23

1.5 Mile Swim

Sharkfest - 1:02:30

Super Sprint Tri

Deer Valley - 59:44
Central Valley - 45:42

Sprint Tri

Napa Valley - 2:21:17
Anchorman - DNF (Got lost on the run)
SV Mountain Bike - 2:02:32
Tri for Fun (Pleas) - 1:30
Tri for Fun (Sacto) - 1:57:50
Tri Girl Tri - 1:49:22 (same race as Napa Valley)

Olympic Tri

Lavaman - 4:59:11
Central Valley - 3:16:46

Other

Escape from the Rock - 2:21:11 (No Bike)
Salmon Duathlon - 2:20:35

And that about sums up 2009 - I'll post again with some of my 2010 goals - it's going to be a GREAT year

Ramping Up

2009-12-29T09:04:00.000-08:00

Although my Run/Bike workouts haven't been 100% I have been tearing it up at the gym.

Yep, I've been lifting - hard and heavy, and I'm feeling great! Finally did a run last week and could feel the difference in the way I ran and how I felt after words. I certainly have missed the RT! (Resistance Training). I have a 'plan' for my Half Iron Distance race for this year, but, until I have registration confirmation in hand, I'm not going to post about it. But, the training plan is in place, and hubby's going to train with me! I'm soooo excited about this new year!

I haven't lost any weight the past few weeks, but I wan't really expecting too. I enjoyed the holidays and to do that without gaining is a good thing. Interestingly enough I'm kind of sick of 'crap' food and have already cleaned up my diet starting this week. Who needs Jan 1st to start resolutions? :D

Waited too long

2009-12-17T15:23:00.000-08:00

I've had a lot of stuff going on and haven't had the money to sign up for Vineman. But, today, since my company gave us a little tiny Christmas Bonus (enough to cover the cost of Vineman) I decided to finally sign up. Only...

It's sold out!!!! They opened this thing Nov 1st and it's sold out!? please excuse my language but WTF!? Not only are they sold out, but there is a waiting list almost 600!!! athletes long!?

Needless to say, that put me in a tailspin this morning. Whatever was I going to do.

I had decided that I wanted my first 1/2 Iron distance race to be a 70.3 branded event. I figured for the first, I would go to the 'big ball'. So, I got online and checked the IM website. We're luck enough here in California to host two 70.3 events. Both are sold out... So I started looking at other states. The next closest event was in Washington - in August. Well, I have an aunt in Washington who would gladly give me a place to stay. And I could use a little vacation, been meaning to visit the family up there anyway... So I went to active.com to sign up...

Now, I don't know about you guys, but it's rare, and I do mean RARE that I see a review for a race on active.com. When I do it's usually some little blurb about 'race was fun' or something else useless. People don't usually take the time to come back to the registration site to rate the race. But this race in Washington, it had reviews. 45 of them!? Do you know what could drive 45 people to come back to the registration site to let people know how their race had gone? Deep and bitter dislike and frustration. After reading trough the first 10-12 I figured I was better off not doing this as my first 1/2 Iron distance race *sigh*

So, I'm back to square one. I really really really really want to do a 1/2 iron race next year. I want to do it in July/August and I don't want to have to spend a lot of money to travel. what to do? What to do!?

A whole lot of nuttin'

2009-12-10T20:52:00.000-08:00

Oh my, where to start...

I did the skirt chaser 5K in San Francisco on Nov 15th, and basically have done NOTHING since.

I woke up that morning not feeling 100%. I didn't think much of it. I figured it was allergies or something. I continued to feel 'off' up until the race, but ran anyway. It was actually a lot of fun. A good race, well run, with great support, great food etc.

But, as soon as the race was over I wanted to go home. I was tired a chilled and just wasn't feeling right.

By the end of the night I was running a fever and KNEW I was in a bad way... it was over a week before I would leave the house again. The flue hit and it hit HARD.

Since then it's been really hard to get off the couch again. The temps here have been running in the low 40's and sometimes into the 20's. Yeah, here in Central Valley California, go figure. Still, it's less the weather and more motivation that's got me glued to the couch. I justify it by saying "it's the off season" - but feel guilty about it all the same.

On the positive side I have done SOMETHING the past two weeks. I've gone to the gym! That's right, hubby and I have gotten up, drove to the gym and worked out; three times last week and three times this week. going back and hitting the weights feels AWESOME even if the weights I'm lifting feel piddly.

As for diet -- well it hasn't been so hot. I'm kind of in damage control mode right now. Enjoy the holidays, but try not to gain 10lbs. Of course damage control would be easier if I added a little cardio into my routine... :D

I'm signed up for a race this weekend - not sure if I'll go or not. The entry was free and since I haven't trained in a month and it's a 12k... Just not feeling it, but we'll see.

Hopefully, everyone else is having a good holiday/winter season. I'm going to focus on getting back into the training 'groove' next week. Breathing is pretty much back to normal - it's time.

Vineman 70.3

2009-11-12T13:02:00.001-08:00

I'm going to do Vineman next year - I'm gunna I'm gunna! haven't bought my entry yet -- but it's on the list, in the budget.

I've set myself some big big goals to go with it - as in - I WILL be at my weight loss goal. And the incentive. I've I'm not at or below my goal - I'll bow out of the race.

As for training? well it's going ok. I'm still finding the heart rate training to be incredibly SLOW, but, it's not boring! :)

I'm going to try to post here more often. I get caught up in things and don't always get my thoughts put down. But I know how good it is for me to be able to refer back - so this journal is important.

upcoming races in my world?

Skirt Chaser 5K - doing this with hubby, should be really fun!

Double Lake Merced - a 9 mile run I'm doing with Hubby and my Step Son - this will be my new 'offical logest race'

Modest Turkey Trot - a 5K with hubby on thanksgiving day

are what's in store for this month. A lot of easy fun runs - just as it should be in the winder months!

alright then - back to work! :)

Zone What?

2009-10-29T21:17:00.000-07:00

When I set up my training this week I didn't plan very well. I didn't take my schedule into account when planning and that messed me up. So both Tuesday and Wednesday I was tied up after work until 10:00PM - my workouts didn't happen.

So tonight was my first opportunity to do heart rate training. It was an interesting experience. The workout tonight was my 'endurance run' and it called for a 5 minute warm-up and then 30 minutes in Zone 2.

I learned a LOT

I learned I never run in zone 2.

I learned that running doesn't have to = suffering

I learned that I don't have to want to quit after the first mile

I learned that I'm a pretty tough task master and I'm actually really good at pushing myself

I learned that running can actually be fun :)

I learned that have been approaching every training session as a race - pushing it all out usually in zone 3-4 and that's probably why it's sometimes hard to get myself out the door.

It was interesting, it was fun and I think I'm going to really really like my new training program.

There's always been a part of me that wondered if I've been pushing myself hard enough. There was always this voice in my head that said "You're being a wimp, stop complaining" I can't tell you how good it felt to know that I haven't been a wimp all this time and I've actually been pushing myself to the actual edge of my endurance. Now to see if stepping back a little will continue to allow me to improve. I wonder if I'll see the same results tomorrow on the bike.

Off and running

2009-10-25T12:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday went pretty much as planned. I was spot on with nutrition, even with having lunch at Panda Express. I got out in the evening and did my TT testing.

The plan for the day was to figure out my lactate threshold heart rate using Joe Friel's plan (which you can see here: Joe Friel’s Quick Guide to Training With Heart Rate, Power and Pace

I started with a 15 minute warm up with 30 second sprints mixed in. By the time I was done with the warm-up I was at the park. What's nice about your community is that all the parks have a dirt 'track' around them .75 miles long- pretty nice to run on. I figured this was as good a place as any to do my time trial. I started my watch and did the first 10 minutes, then hit the lap button and did 20 more. It was tough. There were several times when I thought "Why am I doing this again!?" I used every trick in the book to get through it, focusing on form, running to the next 'land mark' and in the end it worked. I made it through and I believe I got so good data out of it. (Unfortunately, I can't look at ALL the data because I broke my ANT+ stick for my Garmin and can't download my data to my computer right now)

I did get enough info to figure out my training zones though.

For the first 15 minutes (warm-up) I went 1.33 miles @ 11:18 pace with an average heart rate of 161.
The next 10 minutes I went .94 miles @10:56 pace with an average heart rate of 171.
And, the last 20 minutes I went 1.83 miles @ 10:58 pace with an average heart rate of 173.

That makes my 30 minute distance 2.77 miles
And, my LTHR is 173

Throwing that number into my calculator...

Zone 1 - 147 and under
Zone 2 - 148 - 154
Zone 3 - 155 - 163
Zone 4 - 164 - 171
Zone 5a - 172 - 176
Zone 5b - 177 - 183
Zone 5c - 184 and up

And now I've got even MORE data to play with while working out. I'll be doing my bike TT today. I wonder if it'll give me the same Heart Rate Zones

Starting a new cycle

2009-10-24T01:18:00.000-07:00

I'm starting a new training cycle and a new weight loss cycle.

For training, I'm testing out the 10 hours/week training plans (with some minor modifications) from over at Endurance Nation. (The ebook is an excellent deal).

I'm starting the sprint program with the focus race being a Du I've got planned for Jan 2nd. (2 mile run/7 mile bike/2 mile run) I've got a 10 week plan in place. The first five weeks I'm going to focus on:

Swim - Muscular Endurance (I'm pretty much planning on maintaining my swim fitness right now)
Bike - Muscular Endurance and Strength (Let's figure out how to fly up the hills)
Run - Muscular Endurance and Strength (Again, figuring out how to run the hills)

I'm also going to refocus on weight loss. The past few months I've been in maintenance mode. Since I don't have any 'big' 'important' races planned for the next 10 weeks, I've no excuse to 'carb up' :) So it's back to a tight, clean eating plan. I know one of the best things I can do for my race times is drop more weight.

And so, in brief here's my goals:

Goal Date: Jan 2nd
Race Goal: New Year Du
Weight Goal: -20lbs

Goals this week:

Fitness Tests this weekend

Sat - Run - 30 min TT for heart rate zones; Swim - 20min for distance
Sun - Bike - 30 min TT for Heart Rate zones

Mon - Rest
Tue - AM: Lower Body training/PM: 30 Min Fartlek Run
Wed - AM: 1000Y Swim/PM: 10/15 Miles - Intervals
Thu - AM: Upper Body training/PM: 30 Min Run
Fri - 15 Mile Hill Repeats Bike
Sat - 30-35 Min Hill Repeats Run
Sun -15/20 Mile Bike

Goal weight: -3 lbs (don't get all spazzy on me. I've been eating like crap and I'm sure the first week I'll drop a ton of water weight - I'm probably under selling myself with only a 3 lb goal).

And that's it! I'm going to try to update my blog daily with all the boring stats to keep myself honest. And... maybe I'll even have some interesting stories to tell along the way :)

Central Valley Tri - International Distance

2009-10-20T10:15:00.000-07:00

I'll try to put together a full race report later, but I had to post my results from the weekend!

The Backstory - in case anyone is new to my blog:

I did my first triathlon in March 2009 - yes, this year. It was the Olympic Distance Triathlon called Lavaman. My goal at the time was to finish, and I did, in just under 5 hours.

After nearly a year of training, I was hoping to improve at this, my second ever tri of this distance. I had been seeing steady improvement over the months and was feeling really good going into it - I set my goal for under 4 hours. Yes, a 1 hour improvement.

And I did that - and then some!! To my abslute amazement, I finished this tri in 3:16:46 almost 1 hour and 45 minutes difference!!

Oh - and because this was a rather small tri - I took first place in my age group!

Three Days...

2009-10-14T10:13:00.000-07:00

Three days until I revisit the Olympic distance triathlon. I'm not sure how I feel. I'm excited. I mean, I get to see how far I've come since March. At the same time I'm worried. Lavaman took me 5 hours and the thought of spending that much time moving my body while being at the brink of exhaustion... It makes me wonder why I always call these things 'fun'.

And yet, they always are fun, in their own special way :)

So, Saturday is my last Tri of the year, and it neatly bookends with my first Tri of the year -- both Olympic Distance. I'm sure I'll have a lot to post/reflect on when I'm through.

Catching up!

2009-10-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

Well, a lot has gone on the past few weeks. I've been a bad blogger. My inner perfectionist getting the best of me. It's hard for me to type up something that I don't think is 'perfect' and 'interesting'.

You'll just have to deal with me being boring and imperfect - sorry! :)

As you know, on the 3rd I did 'Tri-Girl-Tri' which happens to be the same exact course as the "Napa Valley Sprint Triathlon". The NVST was my first ever 'sprint' tri and I did it on May 3rd of this year. My goal for Tri-Girl was to improve on my time of 2:21:17 and hopefully go under 2:00. I did both.

Race day was lovely (if chilly) but much nicer then the pouring rain we battled in May. It was a good sign. The water was calm and warmer then the outside air. It didn't take much for me to decide to not wear a wetsuit for this one.

Other then not thinking straight and starting on the left side of the pack (when I pull to the right) the swim went really well. I just focused on form, strong pulls, good rotation and staying long. I came out of the water feeling GREAT.

Previous time: 21:29

New time: 19:14

of course my decision to completely give up on Modesty and just run in my tri suit really speeds up my transitions. Plus, I wasn't dealing with the rain this time so it was not surprising that I beat my previous T1 time of 9:46 with a time of 4:12 (there's a REALLY long run from the water at this race - California, drought and all that).

Then it was off on the bike. I had convinced myself that the hills in this race were all just part of my 'conditioning' and that I was just being a silly whiner last time. As soon as I got out onto the race course I realized that no - they were REAL hills and it was going to take some power to get over them. The good news is I wasn't passed on the uphill nearly as many time this time and almost every time I passed that person back again. There were a few frustrating moments, most involving the same racer. For some reason she felt she needed to ride on the left, usually right on the wheel of another rider - basically blocking. Three times she blocked me on a downhill causing me to have to mash on my breaks and lose all my momentum for the next uphill. We played cat an mouse most of the course. On one down hill when I didn't mash the breaks and tried to go around her she drifted over and pushed me into the oncoming lane - gah! Finally, near the end I said - screw it! I saw her coming up beside me near the top of the hill and I gritted my teeth and threw myself into the climb - cadence, gears, 'saving myself' none of that mattered I was NOT letting her pass me again - she didn't and I didn't see her the rest of the race! Victory for me!

One other thing - I learned NOT to set myself a pace goal on my watch before the race. There is nothing more annoying then the whole ride having my watch BEEEEEEEEEP at me. "Speed up!" it told me on the uphill and "Slow Down!" it told me on the down hill. I just couldn't make the damn thing happy.

Still, I came off the bike happy

Previous time: 1:03:56

New time: 51:41

T2 had the same story as T1, I was BLAZING in comparison to last time.

Previous time: 5:41

New time: 2:06

And it was off to face my nemesis - the run

Here's where my previous knowledge of the course helped me out. I remembered the course being 'uphill' on the way out and 'downhill' on the way back. Running on bike tired legs is hard enough. Bike tired legs on a stead uphill - bleh! But I didn't let it get to me mentally. I knew if I could just hang on that the 'back' would more then make up for the struggle out. I just kept moving. Again - it payed off. I knew I was doing well, I knew I was doing better then last time, I just had no idea how much better. When I approached the finish line it wasn't much help. I couldn't see the clock - so I just ran as fast as could and hoped for the best.

Previous time: 40:23

New time: 32:07

I finished in 1:49:22 - smashing my old time and my goal time! yay!

(May I say this is one of my favorite running photos ever)

All around a GREAT Day - I finished 166th out of 351 overall and 42nd out of 77 in my age group. A good day for me :D

but I wasn't done!!

You see, I decided to keep hubby company on the Bridge to Bridge run on Sunday, so, I got up bright and early the next day, suited up and headed into the city.

Oddly enough, the City decided to put on a show for us. The weather was amazing: temperature perfect and almost no wind. It was like I was in some other city!

@ 12k this run would be my longest ever - I was excited about it. The biggest deal was to relax and have a good time. And I did. I was surprised at how good I felt, and I ran easy (I can't believe I'm saying this) for the first 4 miles or so. After that I started to feel a little 'lead legs' I tried one of the powerbar energy gels I had brought along and soon after was back in form. The biggest thing I took from this race was that I could slow down and 'recover' without having to walk. I also watched my heart rate (with my new heart rate monitor) and found I would 'push' myself at the low 160's and go for a while, but just under 160 - in the 158-9 range I felt excellent - like I could run forever. It'll be interesting to see that number change as the year goes on.

Overall, I had a great time, enjoyed the heck out of the race and finished in 1:29:33 and new 12K PR (since the only other 12K I have ever done was Bay to Breakers and I WALKED that one).

I even passed someone on the finish! wow!

(And yes, the girls are madly out of control when I run - even double bra-ing it.)

And that brings us to this weekend :)

You see, for some reason I decided another double race weekend was in order. 'Cause I'm just a little kooky like that. This weekend it was two short and very fun races that I just 'had' to do.

Saturday was 'Dog-run-Dog' in San Francisco. 80+ people an their dogs all got together in Golden Gate park to do a race. Only problem was, the race officials had a little trouble with their permits and the course etc and ended up making major last minute changes. In the end the '5K' was only 2.25 miles long. But it was a wonderful 'trail' run and so much fun to run with all the other dogs and owners. I would love to do it again, but it wasn't really worth the $50 entry fee :(

Zeus and I finished in 25:31 and were 8th out of 18 'women 5k with dog' - the winner - she finished in 19:09 with her Jack Russel Terrier. :)

Sunday was another race I just couldn't pass up. I mean - it was in my 'backyard'. Yes, the little community I live in was having a race, so I signed up hubby and I. Then, his son came over for the weekend, so we signed him up, and amazingly enough my son paid us a 'laundry visit' from college so I signed him up too! Four of us all doing the 5K together.

My son (who is 18) was a little nervous about this race. It was going to be his first race ever and he kept saying 'but I'm out of shape, Mom'. I told him not to worry about it. He's a fit kid who's played a lot of sports and besides, it's a 'fun run'.

I have to say, setting the alarm clock for 6:30 on a race day, heaven! Taking our time, getting ready, eating breakfast and then Walking -- WALKING to the race was so much fun! We got our numbers, pinned each other up, and watched the little kids do a .25 and .5 run. Then it was time for the 'big kids' to go. They blew the horn and everyone got started. I watched my son TAKE OFF, his step brother right behind him. I stared out slow getting my legs under me and letting a crowd thin out a little. The first mile was hard on me. I have fall allergies and they have been causing my asthma to flair up. It was annoying to be battling my breathing so early in the game. I also had a bad stomach ache - I have a feeling it's because I took my allergy pill before the race - lesson learned. I was also watching more and more people pass me. But I knew I was running my pace. at about 1.7 miles I saw the front runners on their way 'back' and to my surprise and pleasure I recognized the unmistakable form of my son, right along with them. I whistled loudly even though I knew he wouldn't hear me and then turned back to my own run.

Before I knew it, I was at mile two and was headed back toward the finish. Now the run got easier because, even though it looks flat I knew from running this same path sometimes three times a week for the past year that it actually had a slight uphill on the out and downhill on the way back. MANY of those people who had pushed passed me on the out, had used all their energy battling the wind and the incline and were fading. I've never passed so many people on a run before. I felt like I was getting faster with every step! I finished feeling fantastic!

Our family results - out of 77 racers

Me: 32:54 (PR) 36th overall (3rd in my AG)

My hubby: 27:01 (PR) 19th overall (4th in his AG)

My Step-son: 26:44 18th overall (2rd in his AG)

My Son: 24:42 11th overall (1st in his AG)

Yep - three medals for our family (and nice ones at that) and a promising first race for my son :) He was already talking about what he would do differently 'next time'.

and by the way this wasn't your 'normal' small town 'fun run' crowd. I don't know what was going on but the winner's time 18:03 -fuh! #2 19:58. #3 and #4 were both under 21 minutes. Is it just me, or is that just blazing fast!? I'm happy to have held on!

And that's what I've been up to - how about you!? :)

Tri Girl Tri

2009-10-03T20:53:00.000-07:00

Well, my goal was 2:00 -- and my final time -- 1:49
I made my goal and then some! And I wiped out my last time of 2:21 by 32 minutes!

I don't have official splits yet - but I know I improved every event including transitions.

Interval Interval

2009-10-01T21:47:00.000-07:00

I just wasn't feeling it tonight. I started tired with a headache and really unmotivated. I had been excited to use my new heart rate monitor, but when I tried to set it up, it wouldn't work. I spent about 15 minutes trying to find a new battery to no avail. So, that was a bummer. I took the dog out with me, that usually cheers me up, but even that wasn't putting a bounce in my step. A minute or so into my first run interval the dog 'spooked' and ran smack into me. In case you didn't know - My dog almost weighs as much as me, so that wasn't a small 'tap'. I recovered from that only to a little down the road have the dog go round one side of a pole, while I went round the other. We nearly killed each other. Shortly after that, I fell out the bottom of my sports bra. Yeah - it was that kind of night. The biggest blah of the night though, was that I set my interval goal too high for too long and blew myself out too soon. So, during each of my run intervals I had the watch BEEPING at me to speed up. Yeah - that was fun. But, I got it done - some miles are in the bank . This is my last workout before my tri on Saturday and the Bridge to Bridge 12K on Sunday.

Well, well, what do you know

2009-09-29T21:17:00.001-07:00

Was working on cadence tonight so I put on Podrunner "On the Right Foot" a 171 BPM Mix. I figured I would struggle to keep up with the cadence - after all, I'm rather slow so it's likely that that my running form isn't 'ideal'. According to the 'experts' elite runners run at a stride rate of 180-190 steps per minute. So, one of things you can do to improve your running is to learn to run in the 180-190 steps per minute range. I figured I would start at 171 and work up to 180 :) The plan was to stay at 171 BPM for as long as I could as often as I could for the three miles that was on my schedule for the day. So, I fired up the ipod and headed out. The music came on, it started 'thumping' I started running and ooo hey... Turns out, 171 is just slightly slower then I was already running! Wow! I'm pretty happy with that... I easily kept the cadence going for the entire mile... AND I think I set a new PR for three miles tonight... pretty darn cool!

Reflecting and Looking Forward

2009-09-29T12:13:00.000-07:00

So, I got a few photos from Saturday's tri - This was the first time I ever wore 'just' the tri suit for the whole race. It wasn't easy for me (being a little body conscious) but wow did it make a difference on transitions - and ended up being really comfortable too. Thank you Jaggad for having a sale and enabling me to get this QUALITY suit for only $30 - it ROCKS. And - I don't hate the photos of me in it. Yeah, I've got a ways to go to goal, but - I'm planning to do my next few tris in it :)

The day started early for me, but then it always does. There aren't any races in my backyard - and this race started at 8:00 AM - ugh! I've gotten good at getting ready to go and we were out the door, early for once. The drive over was easy, but once he got into the park things got a little dicey. There was NO signs on where to go to find the race! luckily there weren't many choices and we found it without too much trouble, just a little stress.

The race started 'pretty much' on time. Well, they got everyone into the water and started pre-race announcements at 8:00 :) Once that was through, we all lined up and the race was started.

The start was a little strange. A mass start of about 200 athletes and not all doing the same course. The folks doing the 'super sprint' (like me) were doing an out and back to a small buoy. The folks doing the sprint were swimming to the same buoy, only turning toward a second to do a 500 yard triangle. I had positioned myself at the front of the pack for the start, and when the 'go' was signaled I was OFF. As always there was a lot of thrashing, bumping in the like, but I managed to avoid most of it. I know I knocked into a few people, but there's really no avoiding it. I tried to forget about the other bodies around me and just swim as hard as I could, while keeping my form. That worked. My plan was to stick as close to the front runners as possible and that was what I did - without too much trouble. When I came out of the water I believe I was forth or fifth place overall, and one woman had gotten out of the water before me.

I sprinted into transition and tried my new routine. Step on towel, and grab helmet; Squirt feet while putting on glasses; dry feet, put on socks and step into shoes; start 'training' on watch so it can find satellites while I roll toward the mount line. I did my normal clumsy bike mount (the next thing I want to work on) and had a heck of a time clipping in, but in the end I got it all together and got on my way. I think I passed at least one person in transition.

Sadly, I haven't been showing my bike much love of late, but I figured that wouldn't matter on this short 5.5 mile ride. It didn't 'much'. What I did notice first thing was my seat felt too low. It wasn't terrible so I ignored it, but in looking at race pictures, it's obvious that I need to adjust it before riding again.

Although this was a short course it was challenging - One big 'hill' and lots and lots of rollers. For someone like me who has to use a lot of gears on the hills, and who uses clip on areo bars - it meant not much time spend 'in the position'.

But still, I passed all but two men in front of me, and was only passed by two men. That's a huge improvement for me.

What that meant was I came off the bike as the first woman. I didn't know that though until after a quick transition (Helmet for Hat, Bike shoes for running shoes) and hitting the trail.

It was the photographer who screamed at me "Whoo Hoo! your the first Lady!"

Even though it was only a 1 mile run - it was grueling. I had pushed hard on both the swim and bike and I felt it. And now, I was in first!? I knew the chances of losing my position were big on the run. I'm slow. But I knew I had to try to not let that happen. And so I ran, and ran and ran. I walked near the top of one hill, trying to catch my breath and get my heart rate to go down, but it wasn't helping much. So, I ran some more. The turn around was a welcome site! I grabbed two waters and drank them both on the run. I was a little confused at one point where the trail split - Super sprint folks were supposed to go one way, and Sprint folks another, but it didn't really say which was which - what was worse is one of the people in front of me went one way and the other went the other! I shouted back to the water stop volunteer and she got me going in the right direction.

After that it was just a matter of holding on for that last 1/2 mile. I know 1/2 a mile doesn't sound like a long time, but when you're running in for your first win, and you KNOW there are many many people out there faster then you are -- we'll it's FOR-EV-ER.

I'm sure I was grinning from ear to ear when I crossed the finish line having not been passed (by any women). I had done it - first place! woo hoo!

So, what's next for me?

Well this weekend (as I've said) I'm doing Tri-Girl-Tri. It's the same exact course as my first ever Sprint so I looked up my times for that race:

Swim: 21:29
T1: 9:46
Bike: 1:04
T2: 5:41
Run: 40:23

Total: 2:21:17

So the goals are:

Swim: 18 minutes - I know I can do this because I did it at the Tri for Fun in July :)
T1: -- Well that should be easy to beat I'll try for 5 min
Bike: 55 minutes - This will be fast, even for me :)
T2: -- again I think I can do this in less then 3 min
Run: 38 minutes -- I've done a trail run in 37, but I didn't swim/bike first

So, my ultimate goal will be 1:59 less then 2:00 hours

But any time that's faster then last time will be good.

Tough as Granite

2009-09-29T08:05:00.000-07:00

I've never been much of a hill runner. I still struggle with hills - probably because I'm still 50 lbs from my 'ideal' weight. But that didn't stop me from doiong a 'hilly' 5K in 37 min and taking #1 in my age group.

Who's rocking the short courses?!

2009-09-26T15:47:00.000-07:00

I am!

Last weekend I did the Tough as Granite 5K trail run while my husband did the half marathon. Although I felt I had a good race (for me) I didn't really check on my time or anything because I was busy cheering my husband on during his long brutal race. Two days later, when they posted results I found out I was #1 in the 40-49 Women age group!

This week, I did a super-sprint triathlon. (200 yard open water swim, 5.5 mile bike, and a 1 mile run) I blazed through the swim and came out of the water probably in fifth place(?), a quick transition thanks to my new tri suit from jaggad and I was blazing through the bike course. Even with the gnarly hills I was able to maintain a 15 MPR pace on the bike and I hit the run feeling pretty good. When I passed the first photographer I got the surprise of my life when she yelled "whoo hoo! You go! First Lady!"

Whaaaa!? Me!? Hearing that, and knowing what a poor runner I am really made me push - I left it all on the run course and I was flying high when I crossed the finish line having NO ONE pass me! That's right! My first podium for a tri and it was a #1!!

I'm starting to like these short courses!

Time to 'Escape'

2009-09-12T21:42:00.000-07:00

Things have gotten interesting around here -- and not really in a good way.

The two races I had based my training around were the upcoming Escape from the Rock (which is tomorrow) and the Anchorman Championships in October.

Recently, I started wondering why I hadn't heard anything about Anchorman. I dug through e-mails and realized that I had never gotten a confirmation to the "I Accept" email I had sent in response to the invitation to the championships. That concerned me, and with a little digging I found that that, alas!, I had sent my acceptance too late and I was NOT going to San Diego. This took a little of the heart out of me. Anchorman San Francisco had not been a good race for me and I was really looking forward to redeeming myself in San Diego, but it wasn't meant to be.

Then just a few short weeks ago another blow. I had been psyching myself up over the past few months over Escape. It was going to be my longest race since Lavaman, a test to how far I had come. The bike was a short but grueling 13 miles, and with two runs (Swim-Run-Bike-Run) it was going to have a mileage of over 8 miles. Again I was to be disappointed. Some kind of construction going on in the presidio has made them close the roads in the area to ALL traffic and the folks that run 'The Escape' had to pull the bike portion of the race. Escape from the Rock Tri had been downgraded to a 'Splash-n-Dash'! 1.5 mile swim and 7 mile run with almost no hills!

These two disappointments seemed to do something funny to my head. I found myself facing my workouts with less and less enthusiasm. In fact, I missed quite a few.

Today, I've found the fire once again... Because... I signed up to do an Olymipic distance tri on October 17th. This gives me a chance to build on and use the training I've been doing for 'Escape' AND replaces the race in San Diego!

That's right, I'm back in it :)

And tomorrow I'm going to do a really long 'Splash-n-Dash' :) for the record -- the weather's CRAP :) should be interesting.

5 more in the bank

2009-08-27T22:13:00.001-07:00

Trotted out another 5 mile run tonight. I struggled just a little, more mental then anything. I kept making excuses not to finish. But, I ignored that little voice in my head and did the whole thing.

Thursday night is interval night and this is week 8 of my interval training... 14 minutes of running and 1 minute of walking - x 4. That plus the 5 minute warm up and my total workout of 1:05 - total miles 5.82!

My run intervals were: 10:52, 10:45, 11:01, and 10:55. Still holding out around the 11:00 min/mile pace and I'm pretty darn happy with that, although I'm looking forward to the mileage dropping after Escape from the Rock when I'm going to do a 5K training program and try to add a bit more speed. Less miles sounds good right now - we'll see if I think that in a month! :)

Oh my GOD!!

2009-08-25T20:21:00.000-07:00

I've been training, and there are times when I feel like I'm beating against a brick wall. I've been so frustrated because, even after all these months, running is still hard. Like, struggling to just put one foot in front of the other hard. But then I realized that running wasn't getting easier, because I don't take it easy when I run. Every time I go out it's with the goal to go futher or faster or both.

Tonight was another 5 mile run. My mid week run bumped to 5 miles last week and I had shocked myself by running that distance. I had expected tonight to be another exercise in willpower as I warmed up... But something strange happened...

Maybe it was the fact that we had gotten up early and did a leg workout at the gym, or maybe it was because a friend had taken me out to lunch and I had a few mire calories then usual in my system. Or, maybe it was because I'm mid cycle, and it's rumoured that women are at thier athletic peak at this te of the month... Whatever it was, I want more of it!

I didn't start my run with any goal except to finish it, but I was happy to finish the first mile in just over 11 minutes. Still, an 11 minute mile for the first mile isn't unheard of for me. I checked my watch after the second mile and was happy to see I had actually dripped a second off my average pace! Hmm. Cool! At 2.5 miles - the 1/2 way point I was still hovering at just over an eleven minute per mile average pace and I was feeling good... that's when the idea hit me, 5 miles in under 11/mile... How cool would that be!?

And so I ran... And ran... At 3 miles I had dropped below 11 minutes. That was good because I was going to be turning into the wind again soon.

At 3.75 I hit the turn around a headed into the wind. I had brought my average pace down to 10:55 but knew I was going to have to fight to keep it up. But there was a fire I had never felt before... I had aleady ran through a side cramp, and even though the wind felt stonger then ever I knew I was going to go for it.

And so I ran.. Huffing and puffing along, feeling as though I was headed towared some personal finishline. 5 miles finally came... My watched beeped out that I was finished and I checked my time... 10:53 average pace! YES!

Sharkfest Potos!

2009-08-18T22:37:00.000-07:00

I've posted all my photos from the swim here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/samboddy/sets/72157621956674401/

Here's a few to get you started.

Swim across the SF Bay!? No Problem!

2009-08-17T15:12:00.000-07:00

Well, I did it! I swam the 1.5 miles across the bay from Alcatraz to San Francisco. It was AMAZING! EnviroSports puts on a great race! I had so much fun in and out of the water. Since this was 'test run' for me in prep for Escape from the Rock (also put on by EnviroSports) I took it easy, learned what I could from it and even took pictures while I was out there in the water. I'll say it again - it was an absolute BLAST!

My time 1:02:30

Results swimming with a wetsuit:

F 40-44 - 28th out of 40
F Overall - 187th out of 251
Finish order - 531 st out of 655

I can honestly say that I'm not worried about the swim portion of Escape at ALL now - so I can focus on facing the bike and the run. And that makes me really happy.

I can HIGHLY recommend the Sharkfest to anyone who's thinking of doing this incredible swim. Just remember to sign up early, this year's swim has been full since JANUARY! And I think the Alcatraz swim should be on everyones 'to-do' list :)

Whatever am I to do now!? No races for a whole month! :)

Tri For Fun

2009-08-08T21:52:00.000-07:00

Finished in 1:57

300th out of 433

And 20th out of 35 in my age division!!

Almost middle of the pack

Interesting Things Going On

2009-08-07T10:33:00.000-07:00

I have a race this weekend - another sprint. After setting a PB at my last sprint I almost don't want to do it. This is probably going to be the first time that I don't improve my times at a race. But, I may surprise myself :)

The biggest difference with this race is that the bike is long; 16 miles to be exact. But, I've really really been working on my running, and I'm going to do everything I can to run the entire last leg of the race. That's my #1 biggest goal for this one. Get over this wall I have. No WALKING! :)

Other then that - my goal is to finish in 1:45.

The focus right now though is for Escape. The practice run for the swim in in a week, and I feel ready for that - got my Swag in the mail the other day - I'm really excited!

I'm regularly swimming 1.2+ 2-3 times a week at the lake. I swim with a bunch of REALLY fast people who push me every single swim. It's funny how slow I feel at these swims, and yet when I get with a group at a tri or whatever I discover that I'm not that bad :)

After escape my focus will be on the Anchorman Championships in San Diego. I want to hold my own on this one so I'm planning to stay with my 6AM lake swims, and start an 'advanced' 5K training program to try to bring my run speeds up.

Not that my run speeds aren't improving - I did a 4.5 mile run the other day without taking a walk break and finished in 53 minutes. My Garmin is telling me I averaged a 11:45 pace! under 12 min/mile for 4.5 miles! I know that probably seems really really slow most of the athletes out there in blogger land, but on 11/19 of last year I did a 'fitness test' and ran 2 miles, my pace was 15:48. That's 4 min/mile in 8 months - that's good right?

After Anchorman my focus race will be Lavaman - I plan to get back to Lavaman SOMEHOW -- The goal is to be 110 lbs lighter in 2 hours faster - I've got 3 eight week cycles planned to train for that...

Once that's past well, I'm going to step out and really push myself - I plan on doing Vineman 70.3 - that's right a 1/2 Iron Man. With Lavaman in March and Vineman in July, I figure that'll give me plenty of time to add the new distance,. In all honesty, I'm already doing the swim distance, and for Escape, I'm training as if the run is the 13 miles so I don't think it'll be that big of a leap... I'm excited about it.

Lastly, I wanted to share these... My finish at the last tri:

Me, sprinting to the finish:

There's my finish time - by the look on my face, this is about when I could see it - remember the 'girls' started 20 minutes after the clock started :)

I like this shot

I feel like I'm channeling Steve in a Speedo here and his One legged Pirate Pose. although he's much better at it then I am...

And this one: Well this one is fun just because it freaked my husband out -- He saw it and said - what the hell is that!?

"That" being the muscles in my arms... rar!

Catfish Crawl - 1.2 mile swim

2009-07-26T10:53:00.000-07:00

I finished my race. 1.2 miles - 46:23 - not bad

results? 44th overall and 7th in my age group!! (40-50 year old female - non-wetsuit)

knowing the calaber of the competition at this event, I'm thrilled with those results.

Tri for Fun - Pleasanton - Race Report

2009-07-20T17:21:00.001-07:00

I knew, coming into the tri for fun that it was going to be a good race. My training has been right on of late with three open water swim a week I haven’t been in such good swim shape since I was in synchronized swimming in Jr High! My bike rides have been intense, but I’m easily powering up hills that used to leave me stopped and gasping for breath. And my running, well the time at the Skyland run showed that I’ve made huge improvement there too. It felt like it was all coming together for this race. You add on top of this that the bike is almost completely flat – and yes, I knew I was going to have a good race! I set my goal high – under 2 hours.

(for reference – I finished the Napa Valley Sprint tri – this same distance – on May 3^rd in 2:21, and the Mountain Bike Tri – a little shorter but on single track – on June 20^th in 2:02)

I started prepping Friday night. I had a good dinner w/the Orca swim team and Forward Motion Racing Club out at the lake. We had good food and I enjoyed trading stories with others who would be racing the next day at the Tri for Fun and/or at Vineman 70.3 on Sunday. It seemed to relax me even more.

I got home at a reasonable time and it was a relaxed evening of hydration, fueling (with MRD) and packing my transition bag. I even got to bed at a reasonable hour!

Of course, there was a reason for getting up at a reasonable hour. Even though this race was practically in my own back yard my teammates had warned me that the place filled up quickly, so I was up at 4:30 and on the road by 5:00 (ish). The drive over was pretty uneventful and we got in easily and got prime parking. I was happy to see a few teammates already setting up in transition when I got there, and I dumped my gear off and headed over to pick up my ‘race packet’.

Because this was a Tri for ‘Fun’ there wasn’t much to packet pickup. Basically I just signed a waver and received my race number, no timing chips, it was very easy and very well organized.

Then it was back to transition to set up my stuff, gab with teammates, stretch a bit and basically wait for the sun to come up. As it got closer to race time I headed over and got body markings, my race t-shirt, slapped on some sun screen and was ready to go. Given the air and water temperature, there was no way I was wearing a wetsuit for this race… No Way!

As the 7:00 AM start time approached I headed down to the water and tried my ‘new’ warmup technique. I swam sprints with short recoveries for about 10 minutes. My goal was to get my heart rate UP and then recovered before the start. It worked and by the time the race announcements were over I could feel the little ‘buzz’ that comes from a body ready to do some serious work.

Of course, I’m a 40 year old women, so in this race of 6 waves I was in wave 5. That meant I had to work a little to keep that buzz up, but adrenaline did a little of the work for me. Before too long the first 4 waves were off and in the water, and I was standing waist deep waiting for the signal to go. A quick countdown from the announcer and we got the go, and I DOVE in, literally. Where a lot of people were wading into deeper water before starting I used a little of my prior pool racing experience and did a shallow water dive right into a hard fast stroke as soon as we got the go signal. It served me well as I stayed right up with the front swimmers. My warm-up had served me well too because I was able to maintain the pace I set throughout the entire swim – two BIG bonuses. The only thing I would have changed on the swim. I set myself on the far right of the group. I pull right a little when I swim. The first buoy was at an angle to the left of the swim start. So, when I finally sighted, about half way to the first buoy, I was abreast of the front swimmers, but I was also far to the right of them, and I lost a little time having to cut across to the left. Still it was obvious I was in the front of the pack and I didn’t let the miss calculation get to me, I just kept on swimming. Once around the first buoy I started passing people. I could tell that things were going well, it just was hard to tell HOW well – it always is when swimming. I made it around the second buoy and headed to shore. The area here seemed to have a lot more swimmers in it – probably as people had slowed down – tired. Plus it was a little narrow, up against the edge of the lake. There were two ladies swimming side by side in front of me and both were doing the breast stroke – the ‘frog kick’ of the breast stroke takes a lot more room then the crawl and I was kind of stuck. If then had been doing the crawl I probably would have swum between them, but I had no desire to be kicked in the head if should misjudge the space. So, I slowed a little and tried to pass on the right. Just as I did, the girl on the right started drifting to the right… dang! BUT, when she did she opened the space between the a little and with a little juke move (who knew you could do that in the water!?) I squeezed between them and started pouring on the last burst of speed to the swim finish – whew!

I don’t have any ‘official time’ for my swim, I knew I had done ok when I glanced at the people who were getting out of the water around me and most were under 40 - the wave that had started before me.

The run to transition was really short and it was a straight shot to my bike. It didn’t take me long to switch over to bike gear – no wetsuit to strip – and head out. I was now on the part of the course where I planned to see the biggest improvement the bike. I climbed up the hill out of the park and hit the roads. It didn’t take long for my new found bike speed to show itself. I was passing people almost faster than I could shout out “On your LEFT”. And it was EASY. One after another I set my sites on girls with 20 or 30 something written on their calves, chased them down, and passed them. I was almost giddy with joy! Yes, I got passed a few times. But the 4 people who passed me in the 11 mile ride were nothing compared to the 30 or so that I left behind.

The turn around of the short out and back portion of the race, was there before I knew it and I took the corner easy and headed out again.

I would like to say “SORRY!!!” to the few people I passed during that short time when we were riding on the wrong side of the road, to whom I called out “On you LEFT” and then I passed you on the right. Passing people is new to me, and I got a little confused. Thank you to the one girl who pointed out my error. Seriously, I felt like a complete dork, but I was glad I didn’t do the same thing to too many other people.

About mile 8 or so I saw what would be the one and only hill other than the one at the start. It was steep, but short and I hit it, focused and got up and over it without dropping my cadence – a huge victory for me. I did get a little grumpy when the little girl who I had passed at the bottom, passed me at the top, looked over at me and said “That was easy!” I’ve come a long way, but not THAT far! I got my revenge though when I passed her on the downhill like a large lightning bolt :)

The end of the bike ride came so much faster than I expected and before I knew it I was swooping down the hill into the park, unclipping, and dismounting back at transition. Again, I knew I had a good time, I just didn’t know how good, and the hardest part was yet to come, the run.

I came back to my transition spot to find – someone had taken my spot! My stuff was still there, but someone else’s bike was parked over the top of it. I grumbled a bit, but one of my teammates who had already finished (thanks for being there CHRIS!!) calmed me down, pointed to an empty spot further down the rack and got my head back into the game. I did a quick change and headed out onto the run course. This was it – this was where I would make or break my race I was sure of it. My legs were feeling the bike as I trotted to the start of the run course – could I do this? I just kept repeating to myself – 2 hours! 2 hours!

The run started off frustrating. I was tired, my legs were rubbery and the first thing off the bat was a gnarly hill. Yes, the bike had been flat, but the run was anything but! But I gave myself permission to walk the up hill and just kept swinging my arms to keep my momentum going. It took me about a mile to settle into a comfortable pace and by then at least 15 people had passed me. But I didn’t let it bother me. I knew I lost time on the run – I just had to focus on running my race, my pace… 2 hours… would I make it?

The run was a funny little clover leaf thing that I really liked. You got to see a lot of people as you were running and it made the whole thing seem really friendly and fun. It was also good for someone like me who tends to get stuck running alone a lot. Not on this race there was always someone coming and/or going and not just people who were leaving me behind :)

I hit the water station at the center of the leaf at the end of the first mile and finally started to feel as if I had my legs under me. It was cool to see so many of my Forward Motion teammates there handing out water and that helped to boost my confidence just a little. Still there were a lot of hills left to go. About mid way through the second mile I was feeling it. It was hot, I was tired, I was worried I had spent too much on the bike and mentally I was starting to crumble just a little. I dropped to a walk even though I wasn’t going uphill, that’s when I heard a voice behind me. “Don’t give up! Keep going, just take small steps, they conserve energy. Small steps, keep going”

I have no idea who my angel was, but THANK YOU! Your tiny little bit of encouragement got me going again. Got me thinking positive when I wasn’t doing so hot on my own… I did start moving again. I focused on finding a ‘happy pace’ and maintaining it… and I continued to maintain it, even up some hills! I hit the end of mile two feeling pretty good and started on the last ‘loop’ of the clover. I still had no idea if I was meeting my time goals but I knew I would finish with a smile on face, and knowing I had given it my all.

I hit the top of one hill to cheering from one volunteer. “You’re doing great, almost there – go there”

There, was down a hill and off the ‘ridge’ we had been running on. I pounded down the hill expecting to have to climb up again only to find another volunteer at the bottom pointing me across the grass. “Head across the grass to the finish” she told me… I literally WAS almost done!

I started to pick up the pace my heart pounding with excitement. I was almost done – the finish like was up there, I could hear the music and cheering. I jogged a bit faster, and then faster, would I make it!? I knew that the big clock over the finish line had started with the first wave, and that I had started 20 minutes behind the first wave – so to be under 2 hours I needed to see less then 2:20 on the clock. I saw the finish and spotted the clock… I squinted trying to read the numbers… it says… something 40 something... darn it! I kept running, pushing myself to the finish, that’s when I realized – the first number was a 1!!! I was not only under two hours I was WAY under two hours!! I sprinted to then end and passed across the finish line at 1:50 which made my official time 1:30!!

I swear I was on cloud 9 the entire rest of the day!

Shrinking out of my Tri-Suit

2009-07-16T11:49:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since I shared...

Skyland Mountain Run

2009-07-13T13:42:00.000-07:00

This was going to be my 2nd ever 10K and once again I was doing it with my husband and my step-son. One big difference was going to be that this time, my husband had been training and he wasn't going to hang back and 'walk' with me.

The drive down to Los Gatos was nice. It was already shaping up to be a BEAUTIFUL day. Although this was touted as a 'fun run' ran by a local church, from the moment we arrived on site it was apparent it was very well organized. There were folks visable immediately; directing traffic and making sure people parked correctly. There was other person at the entrance to the 'staging area' directing people to exactly which table they needed to be at to pick up our numbers and shirts. The bathrooms were well marked, and there was water set out for people to use before the race.

We lounged around, warmed up and stretched as we waited for the race to start. Near 8:30 (race start time) they called everyone to the starting line. And I mean everyone -- all the races were starting at the same time the 10K, the 5K and the 5K walk. Somehow everyone managed to arrange themselves appropriately as they gave a brief explanation of the course and then... we were off!

One thing I can say about this course - it is BEAUTIFUL! Nice enough that I didn't even notice (much) the rolling hills, and boy were there hills!

I started out middle of the pack. I knew I didn't want to have to weave my way through the walkers, and I also knew I didn't want to be in the way of all the speed demons that were crowding toward the front.

When the gun went off, I started at a nice comfortable pace. I had set my watch to 'ding' after a mile, then count down a 1 minute rest interval, and then ding so I could run another mile. I was really surprised to find that in that first mile I passed a LOT of people. I was managing the slight incline ok, and didn't feel like I was going to die! I could actually FEEL all the work that I've been doing to improve my fitness - and the 40 lbs I've dropped. I finished the first mile in less then 11 minutes! (don't have my exact times because somehow my watch lost my run during the download process - AGAIN!! *sob*)

Of course, when I started walking, a few of the people I passed, passed me - but I was really happy to know that I could maintain a reasonable 'middle of the pack' pace now!

The rest of the run went pretty much the same. I would run for a mile, sometimes pass someone, and then walk for a minute and get passed myself. I didn't mind, it was great to just feel like I had the 'gas' to get through the long run! At 1.5 miles the people who were doing the 5K turned around and those of us who were doing the 10K kept going. I had to walk sometimes during my 'run' interval because the hills were too much, but I ran for as long as I could each time and started back up as soon as I could.

My biggest goal for this race was to beat the time of my last 10K - the Old Mill Run that I did on April 18th -where I finished in 1:39. The way I set my watch I couldn't really see what my overall time was, but I as I finished each mile it was apparent to me that I was doing better then I had in April. Still, as I got closer to the finish line I started pushing it a little. By the time I got to the final stretch I was pretty much sprinting. It was pretty cool to hear so many people cheering and shouting "Great finish!" and I certainly crossed the line with a smile on my face.

Even better was stopping my watch and finding out that my total time was 1:14! I shaved 25 minutes off my 10K time in three months! I need to schedule another 10K in three more months and see how much better I can get! :)

Oh, and the after party for this event - GREAT! A fantastic pancake breakfast with eggs and sausage, a raffle, a band and really nice friendly people! I would certainly do this one again.

I didn't give up

2009-07-08T15:17:00.000-07:00

Went for a run last night.

It was a frustrating evening. I ended up working late, then Hubby and I mis-calculated where we should leave the 2nd car and ended up driving WAY out of our way. Finally hit the lake at 8:00! Plus, we were both hobbling around after our first leg workout on Monday. There were about 10 times last night where I expected one of both of us to say 'let's just forget this!" But we didn't. We got out there, ran the trail and did what we could. I only got 3 miles in, but I still felt good about it.

The trail itself was awesome. The lake was so quite and peaceful, for a while I actually got into a groove and was able to enjoy my environment instead of focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and not passing out. It gave me hope - I might become a runner one day after all! If running is EVER as easy as swimming... I don't know what I'll do :)

AM Swims - ROCK

2009-07-07T13:52:00.000-07:00

All is good right now. I went for a 45 minute bike ride last night. Then got up at met a group of folks at the lake at 6:15AM to do a 1.2 mile swim.

Otherwise, I'm recovering from yesterday's leg workout. My hamstrings (back of the thighs) are really really really sore. Ladies, you want to tighten up your rear view - stiff legged dead lifts are the BOMB... just expect a little pain for a few days after.

Weekend Recap

2009-07-06T13:49:00.000-07:00

Thursday I started the day with a open water swim that seemed to just make everything right with the world. Then Friday I enjoyed the day with my wonderful husband and rested and relaxed a little.

Saturday we got up early and headed over to watch the local 5K/10K races. It was awesome. Fast people, slow people, entire families all racing together. So much fun!

If you read my blog, you know we got home from that in the mood to run! I changed, leashed up the dog and took off only to find out it was WAY TOO hot to be out. Still it felt good to get out there and stretch my legs a bit.

Saturday night we went up to the wine country and watched the fireworks. It's always nice to get up north, even if it does make us want to move back. But, the next move we make will be closer to work - there's just no question that this 2 hour commute (each way)is slowly killing us.

Sunday I got up early and met some of my ORCA team mates for a swim. We did a mile in the lake at 8:30 in the morning. It was a fantastic way to start the day. A dry off and a change and two of us headed out for a short/easy bike ride. We took a route that I had biked before (40 lbs ago) and I was thrilled to make it to the top of hills without stopping that I had stopped on before. Even with the few hills we made it 15 miles in an hour. A BIG improvement!! The best thing was I still had energy to burn! I had visions of finishing the run that I hadn't been able to finish before, but later decided that it was better to let myself rest a bit.

Finally get my act together and wrote out a resistance training plan. So, this morning we got up at 4:00 AM. That's right 4:00AM. So we could go to the gym before work.

It was 5:00AM by the time we hit the gym (which is normal) and we did a 'moderate' workout. Still, it felt GREAT to be pushing iron. We did a Body for Life style workout that seemed to be perfect for our current goals:<

Squats: 90 lbs x 12, 105 x 10, 115 x 8, 135 x 6, 115 x 12
Leg Extensions: 55 x 12
Stiff Legged Dead Lifts: 85 lbs x 12, 95 x 10, 105 x 8, 115 x 6, 105 x 12
Lying Leg Curls: 40 x 12
Standing Calves: 60 x 12, 70 x 10, 80 x 8, 90 x 6, 80 x 12
Seated Calves: 90 x 12
Cable Crunches: 70 x 12, 80 x 10, 90 x 8, 100 x 6, 90 x 12
Leg lifts: 12

Oh - and because I didn't mention it earlier...

The Double Dipsea was SO HARD! I was determined to finish it though... until, while coming down a particularly knarly hill I stepped on a rock and fell HARD. I thought I was ok until the path started going uphill again. My knee had swollen up -- I had to stop at the turn around :( only a single dipsea for me

Oh well, next year!

When not to excercise

2009-07-04T20:19:00.000-07:00

it seemed like such a nice day out that Zues and I decided to go for a run. I needed to get in a 4 mile one in on the weekend and since I have a swim and bike planned tomorrow, I figured I better get'er done today.

we got geared up and headed out.

from the start I knew this wasn't going to be easy. It was HOT and it was hard to breath. The dog and I were both panting after the 5 minute warmup.

but, I kept going. I got the first running mile in and I was less the 12 minutes into my run! That was exciting! But, I was struggling. I tried slowing down. It almost seemed to make it worse. The dog was struggling too. I slowed to a walk, trying to recover. But couldn't seem to do it. Finally Zeus stopped in a patch of shade and wouldn't move.

I decided to listen to the smarter of us and head for home.

3 miles complete. It'll have to do. Proof that I shouldn't have been out... I got on the scale before getting into my post run shower. a two pound drop! Oops!

Still Improving

2009-07-02T22:57:00.001-07:00

got my second run in for the week. I don't know what was going on, since I ran two days in a row, and I never do that, but it had to be one of my best runs on the road ever. I really felt GREAT. Guess the weight loss is finally catching up with me?

It was an interval run and I managed to keep my first 4 minute interval at 6MPR (10min/mile) and didn't drop below 11:30min/mile for any interval after that. In total I did 4:05 miles in 51:41. Considering the first time I ever did this route (in Feb) it took me 1 hour and 8 minutes, I really proud of that.

in case your curious, the interval program I'm doing is called "Freeway to 10K" and it's supposed to get you from a 5K to a 10K in 10 weeks. You play it on your ipod and you can get it at: www.podrunner.com

This week looked like:

42 minutes @ 137 BPM to 153 BPM

BPM Chart
5 min. warmup @ 137-142BPM
4 min. @ 153 BPM
90 sec. @ 142 BPM
4 min. @ 153 BPM
90 sec. @ 142 BPM
4 min. @ 153 BPM
90 sec. @ 142 BPM
4 min. @ 153 BPM
90 sec. @ 142 BPM
4 min. @ 153 BPM
90 sec. @ 142 BPM
4 min. @ 153 BPM
90 sec. @ 142 BPM
3 min. cooldown @ 142-137BPM

I hope to get one more swim done before the end of the week - maybe an early Sunday swim. I also want to do two bikes and one more run. So, an early morning Bike tomorrow - and probably a BRICK Bike/Run on Saturday is probably in the works :)

I hope everyone has a GREAT 4th!

Swim/Bike/Run

2009-06-26T15:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday ended well. Hubby was tired and didn't want to go run around the lake, so we went home instead. I was ok with that because he does the driving - so I try to be considerate of how he's feeling.

So, we drove home, I changed, grabbed the dog, and headed out for my run.

Now, many of you might not know that my next big Triathlon (I'm doing some 'baby' ones before then) is in 12 weeks and it's going to be a tough one. 1.5 mile swim from Alcatraz to SF. a 2.5 mile run after that (it's called a warm up run - huh?) a 9 mile bike, and then another 7.5 mile run. That's a total of 10 miles running. I struggled with deciding what kind of running plan I would do to try to get myself to this kind of mileage, and finally I figured out a 'hybrid' of my own.

I started with the Novice 1/2 marathon plan from Hal Higdon. I had used his plans before and I liked them. I also figured training for the longer distance of 13 miles couldn't hurt me do better on race day. But - I really like my "10K" running program from podrunner intervals the tempo tends to push me, and I like the interval format for getting faster and going longer. So I decided to blend that in as part of my program. Thursday night's runs would be the interval program from Podrunner and the other two runs would be as written by Mr Higdon.

That made last night my 'interval' day. So I plugged in my head phones and off I went :)

It was so much fun! :) I really like interval training because I feel like I can really push myself during the shorter run segments and know I'll have time to recover. So, last night's workout looked like this:

BPM Chart
5 min. warmup @ 137-142 BPM
4 min. @ 153 BPM
2 min. walk @ 142 BPM
4 min. @ 153 BPM
2 min. walk @ 142 BPM
4 min. @ 153 BPM
2 min. walk @ 142 BPM
4 min. @ 153 BPM
2 min. walk @ 142 BPM
4 min. @ 153 BPM
2 min. walk @ 142 BPM
3 min. cooldown @ 142-137 BPM

After my cool down, since I wasn't home yet, I went ahead and let the workout repeat and walked for 2 and then ran until I got home.

The exciting part is that I DID push myself on every run segment and kept below a 12 min/mile pace on each one! I have a feeling with the short run on Monday - the interval run on Thursday and a weekend long run... my fitness levels are going to go through some interesting changes over the next 12 weeks!

So, tonight the plan is to try out my new Friday Night routine. I'm going to change at work, BART to the car - where I've left my bike, and then ride my bike to Shadow Cliffs and swim with my tri team. Hubby will pick me up after he gets off work! Should be FUN!

Next week I'm adding weight lifting back in... look out world - cause believe it or not, weight lifting is my first love :P

Thursday Night DSE Running

2009-06-25T15:52:00.000-07:00

Hubby and I are going to go run with the 'group' tonight around Lace Merced. 4.5 miles - I hope it's easier then Tuesday night's run was. When I told hubby that I was looking forward to running with the club tonight he responded that he was looking forward to the cookies they provide after the run! lol - hey whatever motivates you right?

2009-06-24T13:37:00.001-07:00

My 3 mile run last night was hard. I don't know if it was the low calorie day I had on Monday, the lack of sleep over the weekend, the heat or all of it, but I struggled. But, I did it - got it done, logged in the books and I'm sure my body benefited from it. My training partner (the dog) thought it was tough too :) He actually let me squirt him with the hose when we got home when normally he runs as soon as he hears the water turn on!

Exercise planned for the week:

2009-06-24T13:37:00.000-07:00

Did a 30 minute bike ride - kept it between 11-16 MPR. Nice and easy recovery from Saturday. Tonight I'll go for a run - 3 miles minimum as I start a 1/2 marathon program this week in prep for my 'Big' triathlon in September. Wednesday is a longer bike ride (1 hour). Thursday 3 Mile run. Friday a bike and a long open water swim, and then Saturday Hubby and I are doing a 14 mile run/walk called the Double DipSea. (it's more a 'hike' then anything).

Again with the Progress!

2009-06-22T16:29:00.000-07:00

You guys - I'm in tears right now...

This might not be something that everyone can relate to, but I hope you will join me in celebrating anyway :)

They finally posted the results from my tri on Saturday. Up 'til now, all I had was my finish time - nothing else.

Well, now I know more and it's... well, for me it's a NSV that still has me stunned.

First of all:

My finish time (as you know) was 2:02:33 - that was fast enough for me to place 139th out of 177 people. That is my BEST finish time to date and in and of itself was very heartening.

Of the women who competed I finished 33rd out of 57 - again a really pleasing number.

of women my age (40-44) I finished 10 out of 14 -- again, for me that's good and those numbers along were enough to make me do a happy dance, but -- there was more.

If you read my report you know that I felt like I struggled on the swim. The results paint a slightly different picture. My time for the 500 yard swim - 11:54. That was fast enough to finish 81st out of the 177 competitors. I was in the top 1/2!! and better yet, only 16, YES 16! women finished in front of me! Oh My God!! I was in 17th place out of 57 (women) when I was done with the swim!

The bike and run numbers weren't nearly as dramatic. On the bike I was 134th out of 177, and on the run I was 146th. Just the fact that I finished the run faster then about 30 people is still, a really, really big deal. I'm making progress!!

Silicone Valley Mountain Bike Tri - Race Report - 06/20/09

2009-06-21T22:00:00.000-07:00

After the disaster that was Achorman, I needed a good race to get my confidence back. The Silicone Valley Mountain Bike Tri was a bit of an unknown. Given that I’ve never actually ROAD true ‘mountain bike’ style, it could go really, really badly. But, since it seemed to be a more ‘everymans’ race then Achorman – it could be ok.

The night before the race was the usual for me. Carefully laying everything out. Going through each part of the race in my mind and making sure I had everything I needed. I also spend some time making food for myself to take along in order to make sure I didn’t have any excuses to eat ‘crap’. By the time I was done, it was 12:00AM! Ack!

Packet pickup was slated for 6:30AM and I knew I wanted to be there about that time. Since I live over an hour from San Jose where the race was held, that meant leaving at 5:30 and getting up at 5:00.. ugh!

Luckily I had no trouble falling asleep and no trouble getting up in the morning. In no time we were all in the car and on our way.

We arrived just after 6:30 and my hubby dropped me off in front of the park. I was quickly unloaded and rolling my bike to transition while he went off to find a parking spot. I walked through the racks and finally found a spot I liked. On the end so I didn’t have to fight people on either side of me. I hooked my bike on the rack to save my spot, dropped my bag off and went to find the packet pickup table.

I was really surprised at the line at packet pickup. There was probably already 20 or more people in line, at it wasn’t moving quickly. Because this was a USAT sanctioned race, everyone needed to either have a day, or a year membership, so almost every person was going up to the table, then having to fill out paperwork, pay, then wait for them to find chip, packet, t-shirt, swim cap… it was taking, FOR EV-ER! Finally, they opened another line and while the process was still slow, they were at least getting twice the number of people through. Since I already had my Yearly USTA membership, I just flashed my card, got my stuff and was out of there (although I had to correct the guy when he tried to hand me a ‘mens wave’ swim cap. I mean seriously, I’m not the prettiest girl around, but there are two undeniable marks that I am a chick... they sit on my chest J

Anyway, once that was cleared up, I headed back to transition and started setting up my stuff. They seemed to have plenty of room for the number of athletes which was really nice, and my ‘end position’ on the rack let me hang my swim jacket up as an extra marker to guide me to my spot later. I was feeling really good about the day so far. I checked my watch and I still had plenty of time… unlike last time at anchorman – whew! But, I wanted to be able to warm-up and test he water on the swim so I went ahead and climbed into my wetsuit, always a workout in and of itself.

Once the wetsuit was on, I headed down to the water. The beach was nice and clean. The water was… lake water not very clear at all, but clearer then the bar, not too cold either. I was feeling good. I swam around a bit to accustom myself to the temperature and then got out to await my wave start.

The starts were nicely spaced and seemed to be a good number of people. The ‘men 30+’ might have been a little large, but overall everything seemed to be going smoothly. As usual, my wave was last and I got into the water and headed out to the starting line. I had decided that this time I wasn’t going to hang back. I’m a strong swimmer and it’s time to stop putting myself behind from the start. I floated up to the front of the pack, and took a spot on the edge with a clear shot to the first buoy . The countdown started and whoosh we were off. And MAN was I off. I set myself a pace like I had never set before and was happy to feel that I was holding my own fitness wise, and looked to only have only one person in front of me speed wise. That lasted until the first buoy . It seemed to take forever to get around the stupid thing, and people were catching up and passing me while I floundered! I finally got around it and soon was headed toward the second marker. Still I couldn’t seem to get a rhythm going. It felt like I was swimming in slow motion. I had no idea where I was in the pack anymore, but it felt like last! About half way through the straightaway I felt the muscle in both my gluts cramp. I couldn’t believe it – this was not how I wanted to start this tri! I relaxed and slowed down a little, grinding my teeth as more people passed me. Slowing down seemed to ease the cramping so I put my head down and started swimming for real again. It seemed to take forever to reach the second buoy , and I was so glad to finally reach it. I had a line on the buoy and was swimming toward it when suddenly I was on the wrong side of it! I still don’t really know what happened. I don’t know if a gust of wind took it, or someone kicked it, or what but I had to quickly reverse in the water in order to go around the correct side. But, as I tried to swim around it, it just kept moving – at one point it actually went over the top of me! I was so frustrated! I finally got it straightened out and got around the stupid thing and headed to shore. When I turned to shore I could actually see how many people were in front of me and I started to get discouraged. The swim is supposed to be my strong suite, and yet here I was limping in at the back of the pack (or so it seemed). I swam a bit to shore and that’s when it hit me. My form… it sucked! For some reason I had started focusing so hard on going fast, that I had let all I had learned about body rotation go out the window! I quickly shifted into correct form and everything seemed to ‘click’. I was breathing easier, passing people, and my stroke count was down. I could visibly see the shore coming closer when I sighted. I was kicking myself for screwing up something so simple, but at the same time, I was glad to have found the problem and had learned a valuable lesson.

Once out of the water it was a short run to transition. I stripped the top half of my wetsuit off and jogged in, easily finding my bike. I grabbed my swim towel and draped it over my head while I finished stripping my wetsuit. Then I rinsed my feet, stood on my second towel, before packing my swim towel around my lower body to absorb some of the moisture while I put on bike shirt, helmet and sunglasses. Then it was quick jump into bike shorts, socks, and shoes and I had my bike out and I was OFF!

I felt good on the bike. My husband and I had walked part of the bike course and I felt good about it. I had talked to one of the other athletes while waiting for the swim start and she had said there weren’t many hills. Just a short one about half way through and then it was all down hill from there. Whew! So I felt great, felt confident and best of all felt strong! My bike seemed to be just EATING through the miles and a quick check of my GPS showed that to be true. I had only been on the course for 12 minutes and I had already gone more then 2 miles! This was going to be an epic bike day for me, I just knew it! And the best part of all? No one was passing in me! Finally, I could see the hill in front of me. It didn’t look bad, not bad at all! And I faced it with confidence. It didn’t even have to downshift all the way to get up it. “Now it should be downhill” I thought to myself. Only, hmm there was another hill. To my surprise I caught up with a girl and passed her!? And she said something to me about being “half way” I checked my GPS. “Not Quite… we’re just past 3 miles”

I kept rolling and soon found myself catching up to other people! OMG I was actually catching people on the bike! I put my head down and pushed and found I was closing the gap without wasting myself. Then there was a turn and then I saw something that made my stomach drop. It was a hill. Not just a hill but a HILL. It was steep, steeper then anything I’ve climbed before and it long… some claimed it was over a mile, I was too busy trying to survive it to clock it.

I quickly downshifted and put my heart into making it to the top of the hill. There were four people almost to the top of the hill that were pushing their bikes and two people who were right in front of me who, like me were down shifting and pedaling furiously. The first one gave up about half way and started pushing. The next made it just a little past her before she started pushing too. I made it just past both of them before I couldn’t do it anymore and I stepped off my bike too. We all put our heads down and gutted our way up that hill on foot. It was brutal. Even on foot I was barely managing a 23 min/mile pace!

But the end did come and the reward – an amazingly steep downhill! I hopped on with a feeling of joy and hit the decline with all I had… only, crud, there’s a 90 degree turn at the bottom.. BRAKES!!! I made the turn without a problem but was bummed that I didn’t get to use all of the hill the way I would have liked. There was another wonderful quick decline with another 90 degree turn at the bottom and then the entire race changed!!

Up till now the race had been on wide fire roads and even surface streets. I had laughed a little at the “Mountain Bike” name of the tri up ‘til now. But then, we were over a curb, back into the park and on a trail. A REAL trail. “this is interesting” I thought, before pelting through the brush and down the trail. The trail widened a bit, went down a hill and, whoa! There was water! I slowed down and tried to see where the trail turned, but it didn’t. There it was, on the other side of the rather wide, deep creek! Did I mention I’ve never really road on trails before, much less crossed water on my bike! I shrugged mentally and went for it. I figured if I crashed, hey it was water, no biggie. I did ok, actually. But the water was deep enough to get my feet wet as I tried to pedal through. And unfortunately I bogged trying to get back up out of the water and ended up having to put my food down, soaking both shoes and socks!

The rest of the race was just a blur of, ‘Oh Crap’ and ‘Weeeee!’ moments. Every time I turned a corner there was something else I had never done before. Ride my bike through river rock – done it now. Down a hill with a ninety degree turn, that if you miss dumps you in the creek – done it now. Over roots – done it. Duck under trees while pedaling for your life – done it. And through it all – I stayed ahead of the few people I knew were behind me! I have to say, it was the most fun I had ever had on a bike, and while I won’t trade in my road bike, I can certainly say that there will be some single track in my future!

Once out of the trails and back on fire roads, I knew I had this bike ride beat. I just tucked into my handlebars and road it the rest of the way into transition.

The transition to run was made very easy by wearing the same shoes for bike and run. For modesty sake I stripped off my bike shorts and threw off a running skirt, but other then that, all I needed was to grab my Garmin and I was off. Only... uh, where’s the run? I wandered around a little bit losing time before someone showed me where the run out from transition was and I was on my way.

I had no deletions about the run. I knew I was tired and that most people would be outpacing me, but I was determined to hold noting back. I settled into a pretty comfortable run/walk pattern that served me for the remained of the race. The run was actually really nice. With an out and back run you get to see people as they are finishing and most are friendly. Smiling, nodding, cheering you on. I just focused on keeping my feet moving and trying to relax to the finish. I did occupy myself a little bit with noticing that the race seemed to be miss marked, and that the mile 1 marker was actually at 1.25 according to my Garmin, and every other mile marker was off a similar degree. What really surprised me though was when I actually caught up to (and passed) an man and his son! I had seen them during the ‘out’ portion of my run. So I knew they had been quite a ways in front of me. But here I was, passing them! It was a GREAT feeling. They eventually passed me again, as we came into the finish, but the fact that I had made up that much ground was enough to satisfy me.

I literally charged into the finish and was rewarded by loud cheers from everyone as I headed into the chute. It felt fantastic to hear people yelling “Way to finish strong!” and “Go Go Go!” And better yet to finish and know that I had given EVERYTHING out on the racecourse.

I needed a day like that…

And best of all was finding out I finished in 2:02:35!!! (My last sprint finish was 2:21:17) Not a number I ever expected to see. My training (and weight loss) is paying off!

Finished!!!

2009-06-20T16:20:00.000-07:00

Yep - I finished! It was a GREAT race. Well run and so much fun!

500 Yard swim

9 mile bike (mountain bike, single track)

3.5 mile Run

Finished in 2hours 2minutes! whoot!

Run Girl Run!

2009-06-19T00:33:00.000-07:00

So, as I mentioned earlier - Hubby and I met up with a running group in San Francisco after work and did a run with them. It was our first time with this group so we didn't really know what to expect. I've had bad experiences running with folks in San Francisco before because... well they are all so FIT. But this group seemed to be a nice cross section and I felt really comfortable.

The plan for tonight was to do a 4.5 mile run around Lake Merced. At the designated time we all lined up, someone yelled "GO" and we were off!

I really wasn't expecting to be able to keep up with the pack. It's just not the way it is for me - I'm slow and I know it :). They all pulled away at first and then, magically, they stopped gaining ground! I did a mental check and found that i wasn't struggling, really, so I just went with the flow, keeping a few folks in site.

The first mile rolled past rather quickly and I checked my watch.. WHAT! 11 minutes!? I kept going. Mile two came -- another 11 minute mile!? But now the running path was starting to head up hill. I was hitting the wall that I always seem to hit somewhere in mile three. I was tired, I was winded, I was hurting... But I was determined. Even as I saw the others pulling away and eventually go out of site I knew what my goal was. I was going to run 3.2 miles (a 5K).

I kept running. I felt like I was barely moving. I wanted to stop, to walk for a while, or even maybe halt all together to catch my breath. But I kept running. I was determined, no matter how slow I had to go, that I would reach my goal of 3.2 miles.

And I did! I finished that 3.2 miles in 37:15 - averaging an 11:38min/mile pace! (that's 5.2 @ 1% incline if you're used to the treadmill).

But I wasn't done yet. Nope - the route was 4.5 miles long. I had reached a milestone, but wasn't to the finish yet! The last 1.3 miles I did a run/walk combo and in the end, I finished the 4.5 miles in 53:53 - averaging a 12:06 min/mile pace. Not too shabby!

What was really exciting was that when I got to thinking about how far I've come...I realized that the first "Marker Set" we did while training to do Lavaman we were asked to run 2 Miles and record our time. That first time out (On 11/20/09) I ran that 2 miles in 31:35. Just a little faster then I ran OVER 3 miles tonight! WHOO HOO!!

A Peacefull Easy Feeling

2009-06-18T12:05:00.000-07:00

Not much to say today. Took my rest day last night so no workout. And my weight rebounded a little bit this morning. No worries, I was expecting it.

The plan tonight is to go run with one of the local running clubs. They do a 4.5 mile loop around Lake Merced every Thursday, so hubby and I are going to stop there, and do that before heading home. I can hardly believe that I look at a 4.5 mile run as such a 'normal' thing now. I like it.

Otherwise - not much else to say... lol. Perhaps I'll have some amazing insight later on today :)

I had the most amazing workout!

2009-06-15T23:20:00.000-07:00

The night started like any other. I got home, looked outside and really really didn't want to get on my bike. (we're having a really 'un-california' like spring - windy, cold and threats of rain).

So, like many a night I told myself "I'll get on the trainer instead".

As the night wore on I found myself putting off my ride. Trying to keep myself focused on training while inside 'spinning' is really hard, and I usually end up giving up within 30 minutes or less if I even manage to force myself on it at all. So, I decided to scan the internet to try to find something to make my indoor rides a little more interesting.

Podcasts to the rescue! Since I use podcasts to run with I thought I would do a little search over at iTunes and see if anyone else had the indoor training issues I have had and whether someone had filled that need with a podcast. Low and behold, someone (a few someones) had! After searching and reading and reviewing I finally found one that sounded promising, 'subscribed' and downloaded the first workout. It was called The SufferFest And trust me, it's aptly named (in a good way)

The Sufferfest #5 started easy enough. And then things heated up! Here's the description per the website...

5 minute warm up – Get the legs going while watching some 1987 Paris Roubaix, 1988 Gavia Pass Giro D’Italia (truly, truly horrific what they had to do that day) and 1987 Tour of Switzerland (Bob Roll in his early, timelessly classic days).

1minute interval – Crank it up and climb with Hampsten in the 1987 Tour of Switzerland as he tries to limit the damage to Winnen on the climb to Laax.

2 minutes tempo – Tempo along with the front group in the 1987 World Championships as Stephan Roche takes the win.

2×25 second sprints with 30 seconds rest – Winnen wants the sprint, but Kiefel wants it more. Sprint hard for 25 seconds and then recover while the pack returns to Zurich velodrome.

3×10 minute over/under slogs – Now it gets seriously hard. Here is how it works…you’ll do this three times. The first time you’ll follow Lemond and Hinault in the 1986 Tour de France Alpe d’Huez stage (stand up when Lemond stands up), then Lemond and Fignon in the 1989 Paris time trial, then Argentin and Kelly in the 1992 Milan San Remo final.

2minutes “Over” – Get your effort just barely above your anaerobic threshold. If you don’t know what that is, then find the point where you just about can’t talk anymore and really wish the pain would end. Then go a bit harder.
2minutes “Under” - Get your effort just below that threshold. It should be pretty damn hard, but you should be able to recover just barely enough to make the big effort again.
2minutes “Over”
2 minutes “Under”
2 minutes “Over”
4mins rest - Recovery pace between each slog (If you do these right, you’ll thank me for every second of this recovery). Follow Sven Nys, the cyclocross cannibal, during a snow covered 2008 world cup race (sorry, no 80s cyclocross footage…). Don’t let your heart rate drop too much though…keep it just in the aerobic zone.

4×40 second heavy resistance climbs with 20 sec recovery - Here, with Paris Roubaix 87 and Tour de France 86, you get 20 seconds of moderate resistance and then 40 seconds of heavy, heavy, heavy resistance while standing.

5 minute(ish) warm down – Take it easy. You deserve it after that misery. Some more cyclocross, then some classic quotes from 89 Tour and 87 Tour of Switzerland.

-------------------

I seriously couldn't believe I did the whole thing, but I did. Yes, it was hard and yes I wanted to quit a few times, but I did it and MAN do I feel great.

Uh-better get some sleep now!

'night all!

P.S. -- Can someone help me up the stairs now?

Deer Valley Tri

2009-06-11T21:40:00.000-07:00

Finally posted the photos from the Deer Valley Tri - and so I bring you:

Start

Swim

Bike

Run

Finish

All photos per my loving and wonderful husband! :)

Ummmm - Holy Cow!

2009-06-03T09:42:00.000-07:00

When I signed up to do Anchorman - I thought the challenge would be the .75 mile swim in the bay. Well today I finally got the race maps working and took a look at the bike... ULP!!! As you know, hills arn't my strong suite (yet). Check out the elevation map on the puppy!

San Francisco Races Bike
Find more Bike Rides in San Francisco, California

Oh and we're supposed to do that - twice.

It's good thing I've been doing 1/2 my training on my rides into the wind!

The ride of (for) my life

2009-06-02T22:11:00.000-07:00

Tonight I had a 10 mile bike ride on my schedule. I may have mentioned before that I live in a really small community – it’s barely 6 miles square; so long bike rides have been a problem for me. I either have to start in and ride around another town or I have to ride on the country roads around here where people drive fast and there is no shoulder. I certainly can’t ride on those kinds of roads in the dark (I wouldn’t even if I had a caltrans set of super lamps traveling over the top of me the whole time) so, when we got home late tonight (BART delays – AGAIN) and I was facing riding in the dusk, I knew I was going to have to figure out another route. As soon as we got home, I got changed, kissed my hubby and headed out on my bike. The idea I had was to ride a circuit around the outside of our community (about 6-7 miles) and then do part of another circuit to total 10 miles. The ride started ok, I was fighting a cross wind, but riding around here, (where the wind is always blowing) I’ve gotten used to it. I made my first turn and hit the headwind; this was my chance to do ‘hill training’. Since there are no hills on my planned circuit, I shift my bike into a low gear and hit the wind like it’s a hill. It’s quite the workout! I made the next turn and just kept on riding. Things were going great, just as planned. The next turn took me onto the busiest road on my route – Byron Highway. Hubby and I had scoped out this road before. Although it’s a highway with a posted 60MPR speed limit (which means people go 70 to 80), it’s got nice big shoulders, and we’ve seen people riding on it before so I had figured I was good to go. As soon as I turned I realized that things weren’t going to be as easy as I thought. On this side of the road there was construction going on and there were big cement barricades in the shoulder. It looked like it was only for 100 yards or so, so I went ahead, and kept going. Only, the barriers didn’t stop! Now I was worried. I was on a highway, were cars regularly ZOOM along at ridiculous speeds, at dusk and having to ride in the road with a cement barrier between me and the safety of the ‘non-road’! So I started peddling as fast I could. Surely the barriers would end soon. I peddled, and peddled, praying that no cars would come. My lungs were burning, my legs were shaking and still there was no shoulder and OH NO! a car was coming. I could hear the tires of a giant 4X4 coming up behind me, and fast! And worse, there was a car coming in the opposite direction! I hugged the barrier as close as I could and was practically riding with my eyes closed waiting for the truck to pass me. It did, and as you might already guess, I survived! As much as I wanted to stop I had to keep going, and going fast, I wasn’t to the turn off yet. I finally hit the corner, made the turn and slowed down. My legs were shaking so bad I couldn’t even stand on my peddles and I was gasping for breath, feeling a little sick from the air in my tummy I had sucked in. And yet… I felt fantastic! I had pushed myself harder then I ever thought possible and survived! The rest of the ride I was in a cloud of euphoria. I hit the wind tunnel and pushed my legs again. I weaved my way through the neighborhoods back to home and finished up at 9.6 miles and it took me a little less then 40 minutes. The best part was getting home and looking at my GPS download. That section of road that I pushed through was 1 mile long and I didn’t drop below 20 MPR the entire time! For me – someone who was struggling to maintain 11 MPR on my rides a few months ago – that’s a BIG DEAL! Now remember, 7 months ago my idea of a 'workout' was walking up the stairs to go to bed at night. And that used to make me out of breath. And yet - here I am doing 20MPR bike ride! I'm not AT my goal, I'm not in perfect shape but I'm doing it. I'm getting out there and making improvements every day. It took me starting out 'running' 1 minute and walking 90 seconds at first. And getting on my bike and barely managing to ride 3 miles @ 8 MPR before I was exhausted and my girl parts hurt so bad I couldn't pee afterwards. (I've since done a 30 mile ride - it was so much fun) It just takes one step. Do as much as you can do TODAY, and then tomorrow take two steps, and then next day three. If you say "I can't" then you're right. Don't place those kinds of limits on yourself!

By the Way

2009-05-26T21:53:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't notice - there's a new tri over on my list. "Anchor Man" is being held weekend after this. It's 1/2 the Escape from the Rock tri and I figured it would be a good chance to go over the course and get a feel for it. I'm a little nervous about it. And for once it's the swim that has me worried - .75 miles is no big deal - but .75 in the bay!? heh. Plus, because it's in the bay I'll have to wear my wetsuit. My wetsuit and I still don't get along... bleh

And the run up the sand ladder will be interesting too. But I'm going to take it all in, learn what I can and have fun. That's what it's all about right?

Oh - and if you've been watching my ticker up there you know I've been working on my goal to shed a few pounds - wanna see how I've done?

On the right, me, in my tri suit before lavaman. On the left, me in my tri suit after Deer Valley :)

Super Sprint was SUPER!!

2009-05-25T14:15:00.000-07:00

I just finished the Deer Valley Super Sprint in Antioch (250y Swim/6 mile bike/2 mile run)- what a fun fun race!

I wasn't sure how this one was going to go - I've been training so hard to get my run times down and with this short short course I figured I could really go all out - you know, SPRINT :)

The best part was that my step son was also doing this race. After seeing pictures and watching me do triathlons he's become interested so I signed him up for this one thinking it would be a great 'first time' race.

I have to say, that the organizers of this race weren't that 'organized'. The race was supposed to start at 9:00 so we go there the 'standard' one and a half hours early (7:30). Only to be the very first people there. There was no sign of any race anywhere! I double checked all my info, looked over the map several times and confirmed that, yes, this is where we were supposed to be - so we waited. Finally about 8:00 someone showed up and started directing folks. Participants started setting up the bike racks, etc while the race director and another volunteer checked people in. We wandered over, picked up our race numbers and then, when they finally had the bike racks up, set up transition.

Then we waited, and waited, and waited. Everyone was friendly and relaxed so it really made for a nice wait, but a wait non-the less. At about 9:15 they finally shouted 'We're going to start, everyone head to the pool!'. And so we did.

This race had a short course and a long course for the kids so they were the first two 'waves'. It was so much fun to watch the itty bitty guys swim in the pool, then run to the transition 'tri' mom and dads cheering, leading and sometimes, pushing them along. Then it was finally time for our race. The director called out - "wave 0! Short course wave 0!" and nearly everyone on the desk said - huh?!

There had been so explanation of the way the waves were going to be handled and most had no idea if they were in wave 0 or not. it took a bit, but finally it was explained that the wave was related to your number. If you were 1-9, you were in wave 0; 10-19 was wave 1 - etc. "I" the step-son was in wave 0 and he diligently got on deck, then into the pool and before we knew it, they were OFF. Waves started every 5 minutes after that and I was in wave 1, so I got ready. Luckily the lane I picked cleared before the 5 (or so) minutes was up so I got it to myself. I had 1/2 a second for a quick dip before the director yelled "GO!" and my wave was off.

The swim went good. I felt great in the water and had no problems getting an easy stroke and breathing rhythm going. It was just a matter of swim swim swim, turn, swim swim swim turn. I popped out of the water just as they sent the next wave in - 5 minutes for 250 yards! whoot! Much better then I expected.

From there it was an easy run down to the transition. I was a little surprised to see (I) there still in transition. I had seen enough to know he was struggling on the swim but had expected him to be long gone. We wasn't. He had really spent himself trying to swim and had actually gotten sick after getting out of the pool! When I got there he finally started changing into his bike gear, but not quickly. I FLEW through my transition as fast as I could. (No chips - have no idea how long I took) and was out of transition before him. Overall I would say I was really pleased with how that part went.

The bike course had been described as 'rolling' and I knew I was in for some hills, but I was determined that this time they wouldn't defeat me. I figured with this short 6 mile bike I could afford to spend some effort on the hills and really try to push through them. And I did! The biggest bummer was that I wasn't able to take advantage of my excellent downhill biking abilities :) The downhills were short and just as I would start to gain momentum there would be a turn. Another disappointment was that I got stuck 5 times by traffic lights. Although there were bike lanes the streets were really busy and a biker had to keep their wits about them. Overall though I was really happy because I was only passed by three people on the bike - that's a record for me! :) I finished the 5.76 mile bike course (it was a little short) in 22:45, averaging 15.2MPR! My goal had been to do it in 30 (12MPR) so I was thrilled with those results.

Once off the bike I did a quick change into run shoes and skirt and I was off to hit the trails. I had really lofty goals to NAIL this run and actually run the whole thing. I'm still doing a run/walk plan in my training but I figured I could push it a little on this race day and run the 2 miles straight.

I started with good intentions. I fell easily into running, following the trail along for a short while and then I look up and see 'the hill'. It was really nasty looking. I knew the way my legs felt and with that grade I wasn't going to run up the silly thing, and I didn't. BUT other then the hill, and walk through the turn-around/waterstop I did run the rest! (I) caught up with me right before the turn around at mile 1, but I was ok with that. I still beat him on overall time - he never made up the 5 minute loss from the swim ;) I managed to finish the 1.84 Mile (again a little short) run course in 24:36 with an average pace of 13:22. Since I had a goal to be under a 15 Min pace I BLEW that goal away.

I had figured - if I finished the swim in 8 -10 minutes, did the bike in 30, and ran in 30 and added a little time in there for transitions etc, I should be able to finish under 1:30 -- my total? 59:44 - I squeaked in UNDER an hour! I was so excited and so proud of me!

If you're in the area, this is certainly a really really fun race. Not the best organized but easy going and fun. I mean, how can you beat watching 6 and 7 year olds do their first tri!? I learned some more about my transitions (like give my feet time to dry before trying to put on socks) and gained a lot of insight as to my limits. It's a lot easier to push hard on the bike when you know you've only got to run 2 miles after. I have a few minute gear changes to make too for future tris, but other then that - I feel more dialed in then ever. And the Step-Son. Well he's not so sure about future tris - the swim kicked his @$$ and I don't think he liked that I beat him. But he's interested in doing Dualathalons and to continue running so that's good :)

Alright - time to get some rest - keep Triing everyone!

Big Update

2009-05-18T11:06:00.000-07:00

So much to catch up on!!

First of all, I've been training. I haven't been perfect but I've kept at it and that makes me happy.

After the Napa Triathlon my Step Son showed a LOT of interest in doing tris so, I signed us both up for a Super Sprint on Memorial Day. I figured it would be a fantastic first Tri. It's a 250y swim in a pool, a 6 mile bike and a 2 mile run. It'll be good fun for me too because it'll give me a chance to feel what it's like to go all out for all three events - something I can do at those distances.

Bike training has been sporadic at best. I know my biking is something I need to work on, but finding time to ride before it gets dark has been a challenge, and weekends have been busy. Ok - so I'm making excuses. BUT hubby and I have made some plans this week that'll make sure we get a couple of good rides in this week. I'm excited about it.

Swimming - well it's been non-existent. That is, until last week :) I After some searching I found a local tri team that sounded really good so I joined! (Forward Motion Race Club ) Then I found out they do group open water swims on Friday nights so on Friday I showed up and joined in. It was GREAT!! It's certainly going to become a regular part of my routine. I like long open water swims so much better then pool work - although I know the pool work is good for working on specifics like form and lowering stroke count.

Running - that's actually been going really really well. I've been hitting almost every workout and I'm currently getting better/faster. Last week was week four of my 1st day to 5k program and I ran a three minute set, followed by a 90 minute recovery walk and then a five minute set. Although I've ran that many minutes (and more) before, I'm now running those intervals at a less then 12 minute/mile pace. It's my goal to keep lengthening those intervals without dropping my pace so that eventually I'll be able to run an entire 5K at the sub 12min/mile pace. After that - I'll be doing a program to keep that same pace for the 10K length!

Outside of training - well you might have noticed I finished another race. Well I don't know if you would call it a race as much as an 'event'. We did the Bay to Breakers this weekend. I have to say, this is certainly something that should be on everyone's life list and everyone should do it at least once just for the pleasure, and a pleasure it was.

Five of us signed up for the race, my hubby, my step-son, my two daughters and me. We all pretty much started together but my step-son (I) and my youngest daughter (S) decided to run the whole thing and they took off. Hubby, oldest daughter (C) and I all just walked. We had a BLAST - even with the heat.

I ended up leaving Hubby and C behind at mile 5 and ran the rest of the race. It was beautiful! and the last turn to an ocean view and then the race to the finish along the beach was picture perfect. Even with all of that though the highlight of the day was something I was never expecting...

In the last month or so Hubby and I have become addicted to and inspired by the "Biggest Loser". I purchased season 6 and we watched the whole thing over a few days. Then I got a season pass to season 7 and we watched all of it except for the last few episodes that hadn't aired yet. Friday night we finally got to watch finale. It was FANTASTIC! Jerry's weight loss/transformation was just amazing. So, you can imagine our surprise and happiness when we ran into Jerry on the street before the start of the B2B!

After the race, we ran into him again and the girls wanted to check on how he did. He said he had a great race and that doing the B2B had always been a dream of his, but that he had always been too heavy... well, he's not too heavy now! The girls and I got another picture just cause we could!

As for our results:

Step-son(I) was first to finish for the family with a time of 01:28:56

This was the first race for him of this length, and considering the crowd and the hill - I thought he did really well and I was proud of him.

Daughter (S) was next with a time of 01:41:42

This was her first race EVER and at 15 with no training other then months and months of soccer I thought she did EXCELLENT. She even pushed through an asthma attack that started at mile 7. She said she didn't want to stop she wanted to finish running. That's my girl!

I was next with a time of 02:25:55

As I said, I wasn't out to 'race' this one (maybe next year). And I even stopped along the way a few times (Including a long stop at a chevron to get some water since the water stop was out.)

Hubby came in at 02:39:32

He's been battling planter fasciitis and I was proud of him for finishing at all - at one point a few weeks ago he thought he was going to have to drop.

and then my oldest (C) finished 02:43:25

She had set herself a goal of finishing in less then three hours, and she did!

Overall - it was an excellent family filled day -- the worse part? the three mile walk from the finish line to catch muni back to the start. :P

Napa Valley Sprint Triathlon – 5/3/2009 – Race Report

2009-05-07T12:34:00.000-07:00

We woke up early on Sunday. The race was supposed to start at 8:00 and due to parking and setup it had been suggested that we arrive at 6:30. Since we live 2 hours from Lake Barriessa where the race was being held that meant leaving the house at 4:30 – and a 4:00AM wake-up call.

I had a little trouble falling asleep the night before and 4:00AM came very early. But, I had set everything out and packed my bag in prep so there wasn’t much to do other then get dressed, grab my bag, load my bike and go. A quick stop for gas and we were on our way.

The weather was terrible. I watched the rain and wind with growing apprehension. The rain was really coming down and the wind showed signs of getting stronger. Not exactly ideal conditions and certainly not what you would expect for the area in May.

We made it to the Lake without much of an issue and just a little past 6:30. I was surprised to see so many people there already! We were directed where to go and then I watched with dread as we passed parking lot after parking lot that were full! Finally about a mile down the road we found an open spot and pulled in.

It didn’t take me long to grab my bike and gear and start the long walk to transition. The rain was still pouring and not showing any signs of letting up. Luckily the wind was gone and even though it was raining the temperature was nice – perfect even. Not too cold and not too hot.

The transition area was about ½ full and I quickly found a spot and racked my bike. A short hike toward the water and I checked in, got my race packet and had my number marked on my hands. ((Which, by the way, was a total waste of time! Every person there had no markings left as soon as they walked away from the table))

Back at my bike I decided it was time to start the fight into my wetsuit. Hubby tried to help me get it on and set correctly, but I could already tell it was going to be a problem. The tightness across my shoulders and under my arms just wouldn’t ease no matter how much I tugged and stretched. I finally gave up and gave my attention to setting up my transition area.

I stood there in the rain at a complete loss. It was POURING and I knew I didn’t want to have EVERYTHING get soaking wet. Finally I just shoved everything back in my tri bag and covered it with my rain coat. Transitions were just going to have to suck!

Once that was decided, it was time to go check out the lake. A short walk over decently clean surface and I got my first good look at the swim course. The water was as I expected, brown, with 0 visibility and choppy from the storm. The course was supposed to be a triangle but from the start looked more like an out with a slightly wide ‘back’. And there were three buoys with a small turn at the second toward the third.

Finally I took the plunge and got in. After swimming at SF Aquatic Park and Livermore’s Lake Del Valle I was shocked at how warm the water was. There was no gasping for breath from the cold, no instant locking of the muscle. WHEW! Yeah, the visibility sucked but that I could deal with.

A quick swim and I was back on shore. I wandered through the transition area, and then walked back to near the swim start to listen to the prerace announcements, then, we were all standing on the beach waiting for the start.

The start seemed a little strange to me, and from the grumbles I was hearing, to everyone else as well. They were going to have 6-7 waves and everyone was asked to self seed by swim ability. Eh – huh? Elite swimmers and those going for a top age group finish go first, first time triathletes, and poor swimmers last; everyone else in between. Their goal was to get 100 or so swimmers in each wave. It didn’t really work. The first wave was maybe about 20-30 swimmers; the second, 30-40. I had planned to go out in wave three but when I watched 150 or so people walk into the water I held back. What a mess! Wave four looked a little more reasonable and I got an outside/front position right in line with the first boyee.

We got a ‘ready-set-go’ and we were off. My adrenaline was pumping now, and I was trying to not let it get out of control. I tried to keep my swim at a steady rhythm, but in the back of my mind was the thought that I didn’t want to get run over by any of the swimmers behind me. The 0 visibility made it a lot harder swim then it had been in Hawaii and I found myself having to spot a LOT more. That was tiring. Plus, the minute I started swimming, I lost all the give I had pulled into my shoulders and I was fighting against the material of the suit. Half way to the first turn and I was already tiring out. It was frustrating. To top it all off the storm had made the lake choppy. Whereas the ocean swim the waves and current had gotten familiar and predictable, this was not. I found myself more than once breathing into a wave in the face, and worse, I started to swallow lake water. I kept on swimming, desperately trying to find a pace that was comfortable without dropping me behind. Finally, I was at the first turn, and around it. I found a sighting/breathing rhythm that seemed to be working and I finally started to feel like I was making progress with a slow and steady crawl. I was passing people now; mostly those who had dropped into breast stroke or side stroke. The problem with that is that is you have to be much more careful about not getting kicked or hit as you pass people doing these strokes, because they are ‘flailing’ a bit more.

I was surprised when the second turn came so quickly and I made it eager to have this swim over with and head to shore. I again found my rhythm, this time seeming to neither pass or be passed. The third buoy was coming closer and suddenly I shocked to see people getting to their feet and starting to walk! I didn’t remember the last buoy being so close to shore but I started piling on the speed anyway. I passed several ‘walkers’ and then found myself in the midst of swimmers again. HUH? Apparently the water just got shallow for a second there and I had bumped my swim to the next level too soon! I dropped back into my normal pace but was struggling a little, winded. I kept on swimming, sighting for shore and chugging along. Finally the REAL finish was ahead and I pushed to it, swimming ‘til my fingers touched bottom and then standing and running up out of the water and to the shore.

Several people had left shoes at the shore, but having walked the path before I knew it was smooth and clean. Still winded from the swim I started the uphill run back to transition. There was no way I was going to make the same mistake I did at Lavaman. It was all out – all the way. I unzipped my wetsuit on the run, grabbed my left shoulder and pulled it out…I instantly knew something was wrong and heard a little gasp from the sidelines. I looked down and confirmed what the cold air had already told me had happened. When grabbing my wetsuit I had accidently grabbed the strap of my top too and pulled them BOTH down. I stopped before TOTALLY exposing myself but certainly gave a few people something to talk about J It took me a moment to find my strap and dig it out of the wetsuit and get it back on, but once I did I was back on my way. I was a bit more careful taking out my right arm and my suit ½ way off before I was ½ way to transition.

I hit transition with a time of 21:29. Not Great for a ½ mile swim, but not bad either.

Back at my bike it was a mess. Everything was soaking wet. My feet were muddy and nothing was in order. Changing clothes where your wet from a swim is one thing, but changing clothes when your wet from a swim and your clothes are wet from being soaked the rain is another. One of my big goals for this tri was to improve my transition times and things weren’t looking good so far. T1: 9:46 – bleh!

Just as I started running my bike to the mount line, the rain started to let up. What a relief! I had not been looking forward to riding on rain slick roads. The clouds looked like they were breaking! Yay! I hit the mountline, mounted and I was on my way! Oooo slow down a bit cowgirl! First thing out of the mount line was a BIG downhill with a sharp turn at the bottom. The rain may have stopped but the roads were still slick! I mashed my breaks to keep my speed reasonable, made it down the hill and around the corner, over the speed bump and NOW I was on my way. At least one person behind me wasn’t so lucky and I heard a crash that made me wince, secretly glad that wasn’t me!

I had been looking forward to this bike. I felt like I had improved in the past month and I knew the 20lb weight loss couldn’t hurt. Then I turned onto the road and faced the first hill. I was shocked and disappointed at how hard it was! I had carried such high hopes into this race that it was completely demoralizing having them crushed just minutes into the bike. I knew right away that I wasn’t going to be setting any personal records. This was going to be one of those races I just hung on and gritted my way through! Would it ever going to get easier?!

I kept on riding, trying not to let all the negative thoughts going on through my head get to me. Downhills were still my friend and I passed many many a rider on them, only to have them catch back up on the uphill. It became very apparent that many of the riders were beginners because I was constantly having to shout people over to the side of the road, and I wasn’t the only one. Once again, on a steep downhill I had a girl drift into and push me over the yellow line. It was frustrating, but at least took my mind off my disappointment at not being better/faster.

The turnaround came up fast. I was rather surprised that they were having us just turn around in the middle of the road. The turn was too sharp for some people and many either came to a stop to make it, or had to slam on the breaks to keep from ridding off the side. I made the corner carefully (because I hate to stop) and started the return trip. Ahhh glorious downhill! Although the entire course was either uphill or downhill, overall the course gained elevation on the way out and lost on the way in. I was enjoying the ride back.

I actually managed to pass a few people who didn’t pass me back! Better yet, my feet weren’t going numb – well, they were numb from the cold, but no pain and I was getting to use my areobars to good effect.

The ride back was a little sobering in one sense though. I passed two different spots where a bike was on the side of the road and the rider in an ambulance, at one place there was quite a bit of blood on the road too – the ride was taking a few causalities – I just needed to make sure it wasn’t me.

The turn to the bike finish came as a pleasant surprised and before I knew it I was off the main road and going back UP the ‘killer hill’ to the mount line. I unclipped without a problem and dismounted like a pro – that was a victory in and of itself! J

The transition to the run was pretty easy. Off go the bike shoes, on go the running shoes. Off goes the helmet and on goes the hat. I wasted a bit of time so that I could find my watch and put it on, but I knew I was going to need the motivation to get through the run. My legs were rubber! T2: 5:41

I set off on the run determined that I was going to make at least THIS part of this triathlon a positive. I had set up my garmin earlier to beep me every time I dropped below 4MPR. I told it to ‘go’ as I crossed onto the course and off I went. It was actually a really nice start to the run. Soft trail running along the lake front, a slight downhill was just what my legs needed to recover from the bike. The trail turned a bit and then went UP and onto the main road. Now it was time to settle into my pace. The sun had come out now and it was actually turning into a beautiful day. Everyone seemed to be running with smiles and I relaxed into a run/walk rhythm that seemed to be getting me to my goal. As time rolled on the rubber started to leave my legs and it just became a battle with my cardio levels.

Before I knew it, I was at the turn around and feeling really good! The run, like the bike, had very little ‘flat’. Overall, it seemed to climb on the way out and so I was looking forward to the down on the way back. I kept up the run/walk combo. I wasn’t passing anyone – but I wasn’t being passed either so I was happy about that. Again I was surprised when the turn off the road onto the trail came up. I was running now and decided to just keep on running. Down the hill, across the trails then up another hill and I just kept on running.

I was getting tired and considering walking for a little when I turned a corner and wow! There’s the finish!! I crossed the line with the biggest smile, and then looked up to see the photographer. I kept smiling and kept running waiting for him to take my photo… and waited and waited. I wanted to stop running so bad but I wanted to good photo! Finally he flashed me and I could stop!

I was finished – I had done it! Another triathlon and a new PB on the run (40:23)

After, I collected my metal (a nice one btw) my t-shirt and get grabbed some food from the table. Then loaded up all my gear and started the LONG walk back to the car (I think that was the worse part!).

Overall I think it was a great race. It was well run, the volunteers were great and the venue beautiful. I can’t wait to do this one again next year!

Napa Valley Sprint - 2:21:17!!

2009-05-03T20:09:00.000-07:00

34 Mueller-Boddy, Shawn Mountain House, CA 40 F 2:21:17.0
swim ( 0:21:29.1 ) t1 ( 0:09:46.5 ) bike ( 1:03:56.3 ) t2 ( 0:05:41.6 ) run ( 0:40:23.3 )

That's right! I met my goal! under 2:30!!! whoot!

Yes - I was disappointed with the swim time - but then I've not had good experiences with swimming in a wet suit - this wasn't an exception.

I was disappointed in the bike too - there was hill after hill after hill and it made my overall time much much slower then I was aiming for.

But, the run... I mean, look at that time!! *happy dance* I pushed and look what I did!!

I'll return with a much longer race report - cause I'm tired, you should know I'll be going to bed happy.

Big Day Tomorrow!

2009-05-02T22:52:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is my first 'on my own' Tri. I'm so excited! I've signed up for this particular triathlon three times - this will be the first time I actually make it to the starting line. It feels GREAT!

Training has been a little spotty. I haven't swam since HI :| but I'm not really that worried about it. The swim is only 1/2 a mile, and I'm very secure in my swim form. I'm sure the work I've been doing in the gym has strengthened my muscles, and that the running and biking has kept my cardiovascular system working. My only big concern with the swim is that I'll be wearing a wet suit, and if you've been around here at all you'll know I don't like my wet suit... If you haven't been here before then I'll say it here - I don't like swimming in a wet suit. Still I hope to push through and put up a decent swim time.

Run and bike though... I've been training, and really working on pushing myself on both and I'm pleased with the results. I've also been working on what I feel was my biggest obstacle for Lavaman (both my training and my race)- my weight. The past four weeks I have had laser focus on my goal to lose weight and it's payed off. I've dropped 20 lbs since Lavaman!! If you've never dropped 20 lbs in your life I have a suggestion for you. Gab a backpack w/20lbs of weight in it and go for a run :) and/or a bike.

So between the two how have I faired? Well I went for a short BRick workout today. 25 minutes on the Bike and I averaged over 14 MPR! a month and a half ago I was averaging 11. And the run? Well I did a 10 minute run and the best part was I didn't feel like my legs were made of lead when I started - 10 minutes and I averaged under 12 min/mile. Now I can't sustain that pace for long still, but to keep it up for 10 minutes!? I was lucky/happy to keep a 15 min/mile pace before!!!

So - wish me luck tomorrow - I'll try to post a report as soon as I can. I want to finish in less then 2.5 hours. I think they'll be posting results on this page Envirosports sometime tomorrow.

Is that... Progress?!?

2009-04-24T11:49:00.000-07:00

After the string of aches pains and injuries before Lavaman, I decided it was time to strip my run training back down to the basics and start over again. I spent two weeks just trying to build myself up to 'normal'. Doing runs three days a week but only on the treadmill. First with my brace and then without. Everything seemed to be going ok. Then came the 'big' test. On the 18th I did a 10K.

I came into this race wanting to learn a bit more about myself. I wanted to take what I had learned from Lavaman and see how it felt while racing on my own. Could I push a bit harder? Can I spend more time outside my comfort zone then I did that day? Plus I thought it would be interesting to see how my run performance would be when not proceeding it with a swim and a bike ride :)

So Saturday we got up at the 'Butt-Crack' of dawn and headed up to Columbia for the Old Mill 10K. My husband and his son were also entered and it was kind of exciting because it was the first time we had all done something like this together.

In case you aren't familiar with this area, Columbia is a tiny town in the Sierra Foothills, that has been turned into a State Park. From their website:

The Gold Rush to Columbia, California began on March 27, 1850 by a small party of prospectors. News of the discovery spread and they were soon joined by a flood of miners.
Unlike many settlements that have changed with the times, Columbia, California seems to be frozen in the 1800's. Today, Columbia State Historic Park is the best preserved of California gold rush towns.
As a popular destination for school living-history programs, special family gatherings, or a year-round getaway, Columbia State Historic Park offers a unique blend of museums, displays, town tours, live theater plays, and shops, restaurants and attractions.

When I read about their 10K I thought it would be a nice easy 'fun run' for our family to try as a first time.

We arrived an hour before out start time and picked up our race packets. It became very apparent that this wasn't a run that was used to people coming from 60 miles away to participate. We got a lot of "Who's kid are you? Should I know you?" looks from people. But everyone was very friendly and helpful. A short wait in line and we had our t-shirts, ribbons and race numbers. We pinned each other and then went for a short warm-up.

The time leading up to the start was easy going. We watched them launch the three races that were starting before ours. It was fun to watch the casual folks file in for the 2 mile run. One older couple were there in jeans and t-shirts saying "We may as well get our Sunday walk in today!". Then the LITTLE kids lined up for their 300 yard run. We had entertained ourselves watching the 3-8 year olds, 'warm-up' and 'stretch' with mom and dad before the race. They were all so serious as they lined up to start. The starter told them "GO!" and they were off... kindof. A little girl and boy had gotten tangled at the start and crashed to the ground upsetting them both. And one little guy just stood at the starting line looking confused. They untangled the two 'crashers' and both of them started running again but the little boy lost at the starting line just started crying when dad said "come on! let's run!". They were all so cute! :)

After that was the start of the kids mile. These were the 'serious' 14 and under runners (most probably 10 and under). They got started without a hitch and we were left to just wait for our race to start.

Finally 9:15 rolled around and we were ready. I got my Garmin ready, unsure how accurate or regularly the mile markers were going to be on the course, and with a pace goal in mind. I wanted to run for a full mile at a time, with 1 minute walk breaks in between.

The first mile was a gradual uphill climb. I put my head down and just kept chugging. My husband had been battling plater faciitis and didn't want to injure himself by running so he kept pace with me by fast walking (Yes, I run that slow :)) The run course was a funny thing - winding it's way through city streets and even parking lots before finally coming out on the highway shoulder. The way was VERY well marked and there were volunteers at all the right places to make sure everyone got through the higher trafficked areas. The hills were taking their toll on me though and I was struggling to keep running. But I didn't let my doubts win though and kept on running. I slowed to a walk at the first water stop right at mile one. The water felt great and I had two cups because it was starting to get warm out there. They were calling out times as people passed and I learned that I had finished the first mile in just over 14 minutes! whoo hoo! I left the water stop at a quick walk feeling really good about my race so far.

It took me a little bit to figure out that somehow I hadn't set my watch program right. It didn't signal me to start running again after one minute. I made quick alterations to my plans and figured I would start running at 1.25 and I did. The route continued to climb and it was getting hotter. Luckily the scenery just got more and more beautiful! The hills were an amazing shade of green where they weren't completely covered with wildflowers. The houses hiding in the hills were amazing, each one left my husband and I going --- "Oooo I want that house!" I just kept pumping my arms and moving my legs. I dropped to a walk again at the two mile marker (matching my watch exactly) and started evaluating the route in front of me. The gradual rise was giving way to a brutal hill. I shook my head and looked at my partner. "I'm going to have to walk the hills" I admitted. He just shrugged and told me "Whatever you need to do".

There was nothing else I could have done. Near the top of the hill I checked my watch and I was only managing and 23 min/mile pace and yet my heart and breathing were worse then when I had run that entire first mile! I took half a second to catch my breath and then started jogging down the other side. At mile three was another water stop and again I took two BIG cups of water. They called our times again but I was too focused to pay much attention - it was over 30 min. After that was another climb, then another drop and then a field? We just kept following the arrows and the volunteer's directions and we were pointed through a fence and onto the airfield. The race route went through the airport and two of the runways! (How's that for small town - lol). I started out thinking the run across the grass would be easy, but I was wrong. The grass was cut, but had a weird springiness to it that made it almost like running in sand. Somehow I had lost my husband, and when I looked around mid-field as I hit the 4 mile marker I was surprised that I couldn't see him anywhere. I started walking again as the path pointed to what looked like a nice shady spot under some trees.

Shortly after passing through the trees and starting back on a road again I heard noise behind me and turned to find my husband running to catch up with me. He hand sprinted through the grassy part. I gave him a quick kiss hello and we started back into our pace. I found out that what was separating us was that I was running the downhills - whereas he had to slow down the on the downhills because they hurt his foot more. Before I knew it we were back at the mile one water stop which was also mile 6! Almost done and I was going to finish in GREAT time. I picked up the pace a little more. It was a gentle downhill now and I tried pushing myself to give just a little more. At one point I started to really feel the effort and thought about dropping to a walk but thought - NO I'm going to finish this strong, I'm tired of leaving gas in the tank. So I kept on running.

As we turned the corner to the finish line my husband started piling on the speed. Even on his worse day and my best I can't keep up with him but I turned it up a notch too. He came in the finish line well before me, but turned around and waited in the shoot for me to cross the line. I was thrilled to have finished in 1:39:25 - and again, was NOT last! That's just over a 16 min/mile pace and considering that the grassy airport area was the only part of the entire route that wasn't uphill or downhill, I was really pleased with those results! And best of all, I had ran the entire thing without my brace on - and was pain free!

Oh and my Step Son - for whom this was his first race EVER -- he took first place in his age group! :) He wants to know when we're going to race again.

The next few days of recovery were a little tough. All the downhill running had really made my hips sore! But it was normal muscle soreness that went away after the allotted time.

This week I've been back outside running again. I've started back with a couch to 5K running plan with the hope that slowly building the miles/minutes will keep me from ending back in that 'bad place'.

Yesterday I was starting to get the lower leg pain that had plagued me all during my Lavaman Training. It was frustrating. I went for a run with my new running partner (My Great Dane Zeus), and came back in pain. I quickly grabbed ice when I got home and wrapped both legs in it. Once they were comfortably numb I got into a position that stretched the painful area and just sat there for about 10 minutes. Then I loaded up on the ibuprophene before heading to bed.

I woke up this morning with that familiar sense of dread. What's it going to feel like when I put my feet on the ground? I wiggled my feet a little under the covers....hmmm. That's strange. I threw my legs over the side of the bed and sat up. Then slid forward and started to put weight on my feet. Wow - really strange. I stood up and took a step. HUH!? where was the pain? I took some more steps... oh heck yea! I mild twinge in my foot is all that's there. No tight calves, no heal pain, no icepick in the side of my foot!

Yaaaaaaaaay!

Going strong!

2009-04-17T09:29:00.000-07:00

Going to Lavaman had more then one positive effect in my life... it's gotten my husband back in the gym! yay! I'm so much stronger and dedicated when my training partner is right there beside me! When we stop at the gym tonight on the way home, It'll be the the second week in a row that we've made it all five days! And we both feel fabulous because of it!

We're both doing a 10K this weekend, and I'm meeting but with a bunch of teammates from TNT on Sunday and we're doing a bike ride. I love my new life - making fitness a part of everything we do, and having friends who do the same thing. It's empowering.

Weight loss is going great - down almost 14lbs since Lavaman. I know that'll only help in every race to come!

Whoo Hooo! - I can't wait!

2009-04-16T15:21:00.000-07:00

Sunday, May 3, 2009

OFFICIAL ENTRANT NEWSLETTER

Dear NAPA VALLEY SPRINT TRIATHLON entrant,

Congratulations on your entry in the 11th annual
NAPA VALLEY SPRINT TRIATHLON scheduled for
Sunday, May 3, 2009 at the Oak Shores Day Use Area located on the west shore of Lake Berryessa.
We trust that your training has gone well and hope this event will be an ample reward for your effort.
Come prepared to have a great time and pack a picnic to enjoy afterwards!

This is the official "ENTRANT NEWSLETTER." Nothing will be sent via regular mail. All
triathletes will
pick up Race Packets, which include your timing chip, race numbers and swim cap at
PACKET PICK-UP on race day (details below).

Please read the following information carefully and PRINT IT OUT to review again before race day.

CHECK-IN DETAILS

CHECK-IN
DETAILS

When: Sunday, May 3rd, 6:30 AM – 7:45 AM
Where:
Oak Shores Day Use Area, Napa, CA

Rack your bike FIRST, then come to Check-In.

What to Bring to Check-In:
Photo ID — NO ID, NO RACE!

RACE PACKET contains:

Velcro ankle strap timing chip (which you will wear on either ankle for the duration of the event)
Bike number (which goes over the top tube of your bike near the handlebars)
Bike helmet number (which sticks onto the front of your bike helmet)
Run Bib Number (which must be worn on the FRONT of your jersey). Please Note: This bib number
is also your ticket to regain entry into the transition area to recover your bike and gear after the event.
Swim Cap

RACE DAY DETAILS

RACE DAY
ITINERARY

When: Sunday, May 3rd, 6:30 AM – 12:00 PM
Where:
Oak Shores Day Use Area, Napa, CA

6:30-7:45 am Transition Set-Up and Check-In

7:50 am Pre-race announcements

8:00 am Race starts approximately at this time

11:00 am Informal Awards ceremony will be held at the finish area,
announcing the winners for all age groups in each category. Full results will be posted at www.envirosports.com
within 48 hours of the event and personalized award plaques will be mailed six to eight
weeks later.

TRANSITION
DETAILS

Rack your bike and lay out your transition gear in the transition area.
Racks are NOT pre-assigned, but are first come first serve.
Please be respectful of your fellow participants who've arrived and set
up their spaces ahead of you. *If it comes to our attention that you have been
disrespectful of your fellow participants, you may be disqualified from the
race.
The transition area is for athletes ONLY. No spectators will be allowed in the transition
area!
Be sure to make a mental note of where you rack your bike.
Racks will be labeled to help you.
A bike mechanic will be available for any last-minute emergencies.
This does not mean you should count on him inflating your tires. You
should arrive with a ready-to-race bike.
Anticipated RACE START is 8:00 am. Do not arrive at 7:45 a.m. and expect to set up your transition area in time to compete!

HELPFUL HINTS FOR NEWBIES

TRANSITION CHECKLIST: Following is a list of items that you will need or may want
in your transition area:

Small towel
Wetsuit
Goggles
Bike
Bike Helmet REQUIRED!
Bike Shoes
Bike Gloves
Sunglasses

Socks
Running Shoes
Running top and/or race belt
Running Hat
Nutritional Aids (water bottles, sports bars, gels, etc.)
Sunscreen

Following the swim, there is a short
200-yard run back to the
transition area. Most athletes opt to run this barefoot. However, if
you prefer to have shoes for this short run, some athletes choose to
leave a pair of flip flops or their run shoes on the beach near the
swim finish.

COURSE DETAILS

SWIM

The half-mile SWIM starts in self-seeded, ability-based waves of 100 swimmers each. This means that athletes choose which wave
to start in. Fastest athletes (those shooting for a top-five finish in their age group) are asked to go in the first wave. The
final wave is reserved for new triathletes and tentative swimmers. Everyone else figures out where they fit in between.

Before the start of each wave, the Race Announcer will ask the next 100
swimmers to enter the water. As you enter the water, you will
walk across a timing mat and your timing chip will record which wave you are about to start in; your personal race clock will
begin ticking at the start of that wave. Starting the swim this way minimizes passing during the swim and the bike, making for a
safer, saner event. View
SWIM MAP.

Each group of athletes will enter the water before the start of their wave. The swim course follows a clockwise, triangular
course, marked by orange buoys. Swimmers must keep the buoys to their right at all times.

After the swim, there is a 200-yard run to the bike transition area.
Remember: The transition area is for athletes ONLY. No spectators will be allowed in the transition
area.

BIKE

The 11-mile BIKE course begins at the main
entrance to Oak Shores, turning right onto Knoxville Rd. and traveling
north. You bike out to the turnaround at the north end of Putah Creek
Bridge (5.5 miles), then return southbound on Knoxville Rd and go past
the main entrance and enter in at the south entrance to Oak Shores. Entire bike course
is closed to traffic. NO HEADPHONES!
View BIKE MAP.

IMPORTANT BIKE COURSE RULES & SAFETY INFO

Your safety and the future of this event depend upon ALL athletes adhering to the following rules while
out on the bike course:

Absolutely NO HEADPHONES! Athletes wearing personal listening devices will be disqualified.
Bike helmets are MANDATORY! Your bike helmet must be fastened before you mount your
bike and may not be removed until you return to transition area and have dismounted your
bike.
All participants must obey all normal traffic laws during the bike portion of this event. This
means riding as far to the right as practicable, no cutting tangents and especially no crossing
the centerline.
Cyclists must ride single file at all times. Participants may pass slower riders when conditions
allow and the pass can be made quickly. After passing a slower rider, cyclists must resume
riding as far to the right as possible.
No riding two abreast. NO DRAFTING or riding in packs.
All participants must obey all directives from race officials, volunteers, CHP and Napa County
Sheriffs.

Any violation of the above rules will result in penalties (TBD based on violation) against the offender.

RUN

Runners will exit the
transition area and turn left onto Knoxville Rd heading south to the
turnaround (1.5 miles), then return northbound along Knoxville Rd,
entering Oak Shores at the south entrance, down to the dirt path and to
the finish line. Runners should stay to the right at all times.
NO HEADPHONES! View
RUN MAP. There will be one aid station as you exit the
transition area and one that you'll pass at the turnaround at mile 1.5. Runners MUST stay in the lakeside
lane of the road at all times.

COURSE CUTOFF TIMES

The following cutoff times are cumulative from the start of the last swim wave.

Swim: 25 minutes
Bike: 2 hours
Run: 3 hours

More Cutoff Time Details Here

POST RACE DETAILS

Be sure to pick up your well-earned t-shirt after the race.
There will be plenty of post-race snacks for you to enjoy in the
finish area.
You will need your run bib number to retrieve your your bike and transition gear.
You must pick up your bike by
12:00 NOON.
We ask for your cooperation in keeping the finish area clean. Please put trash in the trashcans.

TIMING & AWARDS

Your ankle-strap timing chip will record all of your discipline and transition splits. An informal awards ceremony will be held
at approximately 11:00 am. There will be some prizes
donated from IslandersWear, The Framery, Health Spa Napa Valley, Gotts Winery and Juice Beauty which will be handed out at this ceremony, so stick around
to take home your prize! Personalized individual award plaques will be mailed to athletes
six to eight weeks following the race. Full results will be posted at www.envirosports.com.

GETTING THERE &
PARKING

DIRECTIONS TO OAK SHORES

~5520 Knoxville Rd., Napa, CA

Please note: These are slow, narrow, winding roads. You should allow AT LEAST 40 minute drive time from Napa. From
the EAST side of the Bay Bridge, you should allow at least 1. 5 hours
drive time. Please plan accordingly.

From Marin County (Allow 2 hours)

Take Hwy 101 north. Take Hwy 37 east. Take Hwy 121 towards Napa. Turn left onto Hwy 29. Take
the Trancas Street east. When Trancas ends, bear left onto Hwy. 121 (Monticello Road). At Moskowite
Corner, turn left (north) onto Hwy. 128. Turn right on Knoxville Road toward Lake Berryessa. Continue
along the shores of the lake until you reach the Oak Shores Day Use Area.

From Vallejo (Allow 1 hour 15 minutes)

Take Hwy 29 towards Napa. Take the Napa-Vallejo Hwy Exit, which turns into Hwy 121. Take Hwy
121 (it may also be called Monticello Rd.) east towards Napa. At Moskowite Corner, turn left (north)
onto Hwy. 128. Turn right on Knoxville Road toward Lake Berryessa. Continue along the shores of the
lake until you reach the Oak Shores Day Use Area.

From Winters in the Central Valley (Allow about 1 hour and 15 minutes)

Pick up Hwy. 128 in Winters and head west. Turn right onto Hwy. 128. Turn right on Knoxville Road
toward Lake Berryessa. Continue along the shores of the lake until you reach the Oak Shores Day
Use Area.

PARKING

Parking is limited, please carpool if possible!
Limited parking will be available in the Oak Shores parking lots on
Sunday. There will also be parking along Knoxville Rd. and in the Smittle Creek lot (about 1 mile north of Oak Shores on Knoxville Rd.)
NOTE: Participants who park in the
Oak Shores parking lots WILL NOT be permitted to leave until all cyclists
and runners have come off the road
(about 11:00 am).

SEE YOU THERE

We look forward to seeing you at the NAPA VALLEY
SPRINT TRIATHLON on May 3rd!

Sincerely,

Wendy & Dave Horning,

Jessica Grace, Michelle Ruettinger

and
THE ENTIRE ENVIRO-SPORTS TEAM

Enviro-Sports Productions, Inc. | PO Box 1040, Stinson Beach, CA 94970 | 415.868.1829 |
info@envirosports.com

Lavaman Lessons and "What's next?"

2009-04-13T10:53:00.000-07:00

First of all - thank you to everyone for your support in this. It meant a lot to me to be able to share this journey with all of you!

As for Lavaman and what I learned here's a list:

1) I'm stronger then I think I am

2) It's ok to swim aggressively. I don't have to slow down and let the other person pass me

3) I'm a better swimmer then I gave myself credit for. I should take advantage of that

4) Don't assume the timer stops when you get out of the water - keep hustling through to transition.

5) Transitions don't have to take 10 minutes. I don't have to fear leaving transition

6) Training on hills, even when they tell you this will be a 'flat race' is still a good thing

7) Being undertrained is not the end of the world

8) A good nutrition plan really does make all the difference in the world

9) Running into random people a few days later who also did the race, is just as fun as doing the race yourself

And yes - I am thinking about doing Lavaman next year. After finishing in the 700's how could I not. I mean it's a race I almost can't help but do better at next year!

As for what's next for me? Well I've a list of races I want to do. Some for fun and to get some more confidence, some to challenge myself at the longer distance again.

Before I left for Lavaman, I wrote a training plan that pretty much takes me through the entire summer. I started on that 4/6. The goal is run 3x per week, bike 3x per week and swim 3x. So far so good although I haven't hit every workout - I feel like I'm continuing to improving my general fitness which is really the reason for all of this in the first place.

I've also started on a new nutrition plan. I know I can only improve my bike and run times by dropping pounds (I've proved that to myself before when I've lost weight). If all goes according to plan, when I return to Lavaman I'll 100lbs lighter as well as better trained! (I've dropped the first 10 already).

I'm also back to weight training 5 days a week. What a joy it is to have barbell back in hand - AND hubby and I might be taking yoga at least 1 day a week :)

So - a typical week looks like this for me:

Monday (AM)

Weight training

Run - Treadmill Intervals

Monday (Noon)

Swim (per

Tuesday (PM)

Weight Training

Yoga

Bike - Trainer Cadence Training

Wednesday (PM)

Weight Training

Run - Treadmill Distance

Wednesday (Noon)

Swim

Thursday (PM)

Weight Training

Yoga

Bike - Distance

Friday (AM or PM)

Weight Training

The remaining Swim/Bike/Run workout are not set in stone - depending on my race schedule, and what we are doing over the weekend, different things will happen different days. If there's nothing 'special' going on I'll probably be running and swimming on Friday and then Biking either Saturday or Sunday. However, this week I have a 10K race on Saturday so I'll probably swim/bike on Friday. My goal is to have one entire day of rest per week.

And yes, I realize that all looks really aggressive. But, when I say 'run' I'm usually talking about 2-3 miles. Bike is in the 10-15 mile range and the swim, we'll that's a bit more, but I love to swim :) . Weight training is a 5 day split and usually only takes 30 minutes or so (Chest on Monday, Legs - Tuesday, Back - Wednesday, Shoulders/Tris - Thursday and Bis/Abs on Friday).

It may sound strange but it feels good to be in charge of my own training again. Now I just need to hold myself accountable.

I'll try to update my progress every week or so!

Race Report - Lavaman 2009 - The Race

2009-04-08T13:31:00.000-07:00

I got to bed relatively early the night before the race and didn't have much trouble falling asleep. I woke up once to the sound of the wind howling, but ignored it and went back to sleep. I had set the alarm for 5:00 AM because we had to be down in the Hotel Lobby to meet the team at 5:45. If I'm well rested I have a pretty good internal alarm clock and sure enough I found myself waking up on my own, knowing the alarm clock was going to go off at any second. I rolled over to look at the clock and groaned to myself. It was only 2:00AM. Apparently my internal clock was still on Pacific time!

I didn't have any trouble falling back to sleep though and enjoyed those extra few hours.

When the alarm did go off, I was ready for it. I hit the floor 'running' It took me almost no time at all to get ready as I had done all the worrying about what to wear the two nights prior. All that was left to do was to put on the clothes I had laid out and eat.

The Bagel and cream cheese I had purchased the day before made a perfect breakfast. I chased that down my morning dose of caffeine, and by 5:30 I was ready to walk out the door.

I met the rest of the team in the hotel lobby and we all prepared to walk/ride down to the race start together. My transition bag was just a 'bag' and wasn't really fit for riding with so I chose to walk my bike down. Since everything in my bag was carefully sorted, and I didn't want to mess with it too much all I wore was my tri suit, TNT shirt and my running shoes. It never occurred to me that walking a mile in my running shoes without socks was a bad idea. I was about 1/2 way there when I noticed the 'rubbing'. About 3/4 of the way I felt a sharp pain that I knew was serious bad news! ^*(^*(^@!#

I tore off my shoe and sure enough I had a blister AND it had already ripped!

I thought to myself "Seriously!?" could anything else possibly go wrong!?

(11 days later and I'm still fighting with this fricking blister)

I limped the rest of the way to the transition area - one shoe on, one shoe off, pushing my bike with my large purple transition bag slowly sliding off onto the ground. I'm sure I looked a mess!

I found my number in the bike racks and noted that the space was just as tight as they had warned us it would be. I joked with the men on either side of me that I was glad they were there because it meant that their bikes would be out my way when I got done with the swim. The both laughed and joked in return although the guy on the left commented that he expected me to be gone when he got back from the swim. I laughed at that - assuming the 6 minute head start he would have on me would get him into transition well before me.

Then it was time to find a porta potty and then stand in line to be numbered. Overall the mood was very relaxed and easy going. It was good to finally be there and I was getting so much energy from the people around me I was pretty much 'buzzing' with it.

I happened to be a little 'late' to the marking line so I was standing in a bunch of 'locals' rather then TNT folks. It was cool to hear them chatting so casually about a race that was a 'really big deal' to someone like me.

Marked and chipped I was ready to eat my banana and then head down to the swim start.

Talk about wearing your age on your sleeve - I mean leg :) I was a little bummed when they told me I needed to move my timing chip to the left leg as that was the leg I would need to put a brace on, but I was pretty much rolling with the punches that point.

The energy levels kept going up as we all waited for the swim start. Some people were getting really nervous and worried, some were really quiet and introspective and some seemed to be like me, in the moment and enjoying the hell out of it. I tend to be like this for big events in my life. Spend the days leading up to it worrying about all the details and the day of - just going with the flow. I usually figure if there was something to worry about I had already worried about it and done anything I could to solve the problem if I could. At this point it was in God's hands :)

And then the Pros and relay teams lined up. We watched them take off with a big ol' WHOOP and the race was started.

Then the red capped Men

Next, the yellow - Men 40+

and then the pink capped women - <>

and then my group 40+ women were in
We were supposed to 'self seed' ourselves and frankly I had no idea were I should be so I hung out at the back. The only time I had 'raced' with others I had been struggling with learning how to swim in my wetsuit and I was one of the last in, so I figured the back was a good place for me.

And then we were off...The water felt great, the temperature perfect and there was hardly any surf. It actually felt much calmer then the day before - it was encouraging, maybe the wind wouldn't be that much of a factor after all...
And suddenly I discovered that the back was NOT the best place for me... I wasn't even pushing myself and was passing about 1/2 the pack. In fact I couldn't push myself otherwise I would have been running people over! I kept a steady pace as much as I could, squeezing through when I found an opening and mostly trying to avoid people. I have a pretty balanced swim stroke so swimming in a straight line isn't that hard for me. I normally just have to make minor adjustments as I go. Being able to 'site' on the bottom was real boon as well. I would pick a pit of corral or plant and just swim toward it. Unfortunately, not everyone was so fortunate. I found myself constantly having to stop or slow to avoid being run over by people who were obviously (to me) going the wrong way! twice during my swim someone passing in front of me going parallel to swim course! I have a feeling that I'm going to have to learn to swim more aggressively in future tris.

Except for avoiding collisions the first trip 'out' was pretty uneventful. I was swimming well, breathing well and felt great. the practice swim the day before had taught me my lesson and I was keeping the water out of my face as I breathed and all was good. I rounded the first turn and headed to shore. It looked so far away! but I knew I had felt good all the way out so it couldn't be as far as it looked. Again, I kept my head down and just swam my pace. I passed a few more people including a few 'yellow caps' and 'pink caps' from the waves before mine. As I make the turn near the shore to do the last leg of the swim I had this rush of joy... I had done this swim the day before, this was a piece of cake! I really got into it then, paying a lot of attention to what was going around me, watching for people cutting across my path and trying to work it so I didn't have to slow down to let them through. I was squeezing through narrow and narrower gaps and generally being more aggressive (without punch, hitting, scratching or kicking anyone). I made the final turn and took a good look at the shore - there were two big palm trees to site on and I kept them firm in my mind. I was pushing myself now, keeping a steady pace. I had found my rhythm. Every time I check my trees there were right were I expected them to be. At one point I spotted two sea turtles swimming under me and I raised my head and yelled - look turtles! Then I realized what a dork I was being and got back to swimming

Suddenly there was someone pushing between me and another swimmer. Ok fine, you want to go faster? I let her push her way through and then got back into my groove. Suddenly I was running over someone. the swimmer who had pushed through was now stopped, head up, checking her sighting. I swam passed her, only to have her sprint past me and stop again! When I passed her the second time I realized I had had enough of this. I started upping my pace, breathing was now every right stroke instead of every fourth and I was bearing down on the shore not willing to passed again. I wasn't. Coming into shore with the crowd cheering and music playing was just awesome! I came out of the water with the biggest 'swimmer's high'!

I couldn't help myself I ended up coming out of the water with both hands in the air as if I had just finished the race! :)

I saw my coach on the sidelines cheering me on. He looked a little surprised to see me so soon. I hadn't show the potential to be a solid middle of the packer at any of the practices. I waved and shouted "That was fun - can I do it again!" and I seriously meant it - which bodes well for some of the longer races I have planned for this year :)

There was a short run to the transition area that I didn't push on - I could have gone much faster - still I was pleased with my time: under 40 minutes was 20 minutes faster then I had thought I would go! :)

As I hit the transition area they were announcing that the leader was headed back from his bike ride. I kind of had to laugh at myself for being so proud of my swim when this guy was nearly done with the swim AND the bike already. I was kind of shocked when I got back to transition and my neighbor on the left hadn't come back from the swim. Turned out he was right, I did finish the swim first. In fact the guy on the right of me was just leaving as I cruised in having just finished his transition from swim to bike.

I took my time in transition. I mean - really took my time. It wasn't that I had a lot to do, I just dawdled. Luckily, when I had packed and put everything but the kitchen sink in my transition bag I had thrown in a roll of athletic tape. I tapped up my blister, put on a wrap (not my brace) on my ankle hoping it would help support it during the ride and save it for the run, put on my bike shoes, bike shorts and my tri top and then I was ready to go. It took me over 10 minutes. WAAAY longer then it needed to.

I was finally on my way! I walked to the mount line, mounted my bike and off I went. Sorta... as I came out of the main start area and was heading toward the first turn I could see what appeared to be a traffic snarl up. There was a line of cars backed up waiting to turn left (I was going to turn right). As I rolled forward the shuttle bus from the hotel swerved over into the right hand lane blocking my (and other riders) way! Volunteers were waving and shouting at the guy as he made his own way through the traffic holding up a clump of bikers. I just kept going slower and slower. I couldn't tell if this guy was turning left from the wrong lane or was turning right or what and I certainly didn't want to end my lavaman being run over by a bus! But also knew I didn't want to stop! After my mishap yesterday trying to unclip I would do almost anything to not have to put a foot down. Finally they got everything sorted and I was REALLY on my way this time.

I quickly got into my bike rhythm. I could feel the wind on the turn onto the highway, but it wasn't anything like the day before. I just focused on trying to keep my cadence even and shifting when necessary. I played a cat and mouse game with one rider. He would pass me on the inclines (I carry too much extra weight to be a good hill climber), and I would scream past him on the down hills (That extra weight has to be goo for something). I passed one of my teammates standing on the side with a flat waiting for the SAG vehicle. That got me thinking about my back tire and I eyed it warily. It had 'felt' full this morning, but was it really!? I had also noticed that a muscle in my back into my glut was tight. I was hoping it would work itself out as the ride went on and not get worse, but it was slightly annoying on every downstroke.

I tried to keep those worries out of my head as I continued. I downshifted as I came to the 'big' hill. Again I just focused on keeping my pedals moving. If any spot on the 'out' side of the ride would be a challenge this one would be it.

Suddenly there was a distraction on the other side of the road. There was a pack of riders on the decent and they had gotten bunched. Someone was blocking and I could hear the yells. "On your left!" "Get out of the way!" "Move over!" I shook my head and went back to griding up the hill VERY glad I wasn't caught up in THAT. Near the top of the hill a man was parked with his truck. He was sitting out on his folding chair in nothing but a speedo. For some reason that struck me as odd and added a bit of levity to this long grinding hill. As I got closer he shouted, "you're almost to the top, this is the worse one!"

I have to admit, speedo wearing old guy race fan, that was awesome of you and a great mood lifter for me. Thanks!

Yes there were more hills after that, but he was right, that was the worse one!

A girl in blue had passed me on that hill. Ok, no problem, but, I rolled down the decent of that hill, she started to get down on her areo bars and got wobbly - just as I was passing her. This made me have to slam on the breaks and it killed my momentum for the next hill... I got a little frustrated, but figured hey, it happens. But I never seemed to get that momentum back again through to the turn around.

The turn around was as they described it, tight and fast and... speed bumps!? huh? luckily I was already going slow when I saw it. I laughed to the volunteers as I came on it, jokingly complaining "No one told me this was a cylocross race!" They laughed in return, and I even hurt one of them repeating my comment to someone who hadn't heard.

The water stop at the turn around was a new experience for me. It was probably one of the few things I hadn't practiced. I grabbed an ice cold water from the first person and drank a bunch of it down. I still had plenty of water on my bike so I tossed the 1/2 empty bottle to another volunteer as I exited and just kept on going. I found out later that a few teammates had stopped and gotten off their bikes at the water stop. The thought hadn't even crossed my mind. I just rolled through.

As I came up the big hill from the water stop I realized that the way back wasn't going to be easy. The wind had kicked up - a LOT and it was out to get me. Luckily the way back was in total down hill, but it had some inclines too. The worse thing about the wind is it didn't let you enjoy the decents. I had to put as much energy into going downhill as I did going up!

My legs had started to feel a bit trembly at this point. Nothing to worry about but I noticed it. My bake tire seemed to be holding up, and that was a postive thought. But, my feet had started to go numb! I peddled on, wiggling my toes as I went hoping that this was just a passing thing. It wasn't. The numbness turned to pain, so that each peddle stroke felt like someone was pounding the bottom of my foot with a hammer. I kept going. I started curling my toes with every downstroke and that helped, but after a few minutes of that my calves started cramping. I knew I needed my calves for the run later so I stopped. Finally I curled my toes and jammed them agains the bottom of my shoes so they would stayed curled without my having to hold them there. While painful to my toes it at least have me some relief from the hammer pounding. Some. What I desperatly wanted to do was to get off my bike and take off my shoes. It soon became all I could think about. I didn't want to stop though. Again, yesterday's 'crash' was still fresh in my mind. Plus my legs were trembling so bad I was afraid when I put my leg down it would give out on me. What if I got off my bike and couldn't get back on again!? Instead I found a point where I could coast a little and managed to coast and balance myself long enouch to undo all the straps on my shoes. The extra room gave me a little relief. So I kept riding. Soon I found myself doing down the 'big decent'. Even with the wind I was able to take advantage of this one and found myself coming up fast on blue bike girl again. This time I wanted to give her pleanty of warning and I started screeming 'On your left'! She stuck to the middle of the lane. "On Your LEFT!" I yelled again. Nothing "LOOK OUT!" I screemed as I passed her, and she drifted into meand I hovered with my bike tire rolling along the white dissqualification line. I put on a burst of speed and got around her as fast as I could. I needed that momentum!

The rest of the ride was just a blur. I dutifly ate my energy gells, drank my water and peddled. My brain took up a chant of "please stop hurting, please stop hurting, please stop hurting" as if I could will the hammers to stop pounding on my feet. I reached the turn around spot from the day before and felt a little bit of excitment. Then I was coming to the light to turn off the highway, and then I was making the turn into the beach and there was the dismount line.. OH GOD!! the DISMOUNT LINE! I was going to have to stop. In a panic I unclipped both feet. There was no way I was going to do something stupid now. Only I unclipped too early and I wan't going to be able to coast all the way to the line. so I pedled a few strokes with my heals to make sure I didn't accidently clip in again. And then the moment of truth, I stopped. I leaned to one side and my foot hit the pavement and... my leg held! In fact, it felt really strong! Oh yeah! I just just finished the bike!!! I swung my other leg over suprised that the shaking I had felt early was just shaking, my legs were holding me up just fine!

I had hopped to do the bike in under 2 hours. The wind and all the fiddling with my shoes and cost me time (mostly the wind), and instead it had taken me 2:10. Later I looked at my watch and found out that I had averaged over 12MPR on the way out (uphill) and under 10 on the way in (downhill). Some people out there estimated the wind was gusting up to 30MPR. It certainly felt it!

T2 was even longer then T1 over 11 minutes. I think I was just trying to put off the run as long as possable. I sat down and rewrapped my blister, put on a pair of socks, put on my brace and put other pair of socks over that, hopping that would help cushion it. Then I put on shoes, stripped off my bike shorts and put on a running skirt, and a visor and I was ready to go. Again nothing that should have taken so long. I just hung around :) I listened to one girl who was streching having just finished the race. She had been in the wave before me, had stepped on a sea urchin at the start and had had to leave the water to go to the first aid tent to have the spines removed - THEN hit the water and started her swim. Here she was, done for the day and I was only 2 thirds through.

The man on my left came in as I was changing. He had caught up to me during the bike. He ended up leaving for his run before me. I just couldn't seem to get myself out of transition.

Finally I bit the bullet and headed out. It was time to face my nemisis - the run!

I trotted through transition to the start of the run... I didin't like what I saw.

But I had faced this lava path yesterday. I knew it was coming I knew what I needed to do: walk and take it carefully. And I did. I knew the only way I was going to get through this part of the race was taking one mile at a time. And that's what I did. "Let's do mile one" I told myself, and I was on my way.

the first part of the run was along the 'resort' roads. Nice and shady, little rolling hills. There was lots of shelter from the winds and I agreed in retrospect with a lady who rolled passed me and commented "This is my favorite part of this run"

But, it was uphill - not my strength and I struggled to keep a decent pace. I just wan't happening. I had wanted to run/walk 15 minute miles but my pacing was closer to 17 - dang!

I kept at it. The first water stop came into view and I congratulated myself for making it 1/6th of the way. I grabbed tepid water and continued on my way. We were climbing out of the trees and shelter now. It was getting windier and hotter. I could feel the waves of heat coming off the ashfault and I knew that I had better start taking in more then water on the run. I'm a sweater and I would need all the electrolites I could get later on. I kept chugging on other runners slowly picking me off one by one. At Mile two I hit the turn off for the 'back' portion of the run. I congratulated myself for making it 2/3rds of the way and had a gatoraid and a water, then kept on going. Mile 2 to 3 was a bad spot. the wind was horrible, there was not a spot of shade and the view none existant. The only 'good' thing about it was now I was seeing runners on the 'back' part of thier 'out and back'. Almost everyone I saw shouted encouragement and I shouted it right back. I was running 1% of the time now and just wishing the whole thing would be over. But I was walking - I didn't have my head down, I was trudging. I was focused ahead, swingining my arms, jogging when I felt I had 1/2 a shred of energy. Finally I hit the waterstop and turn around... 1/2 way!!! horray!

I turned around and found myself facing a down hill with the wind at my back.. YES! the next mile was still hot and windy but I ran more and now I was seeing all the folks who were behind me. I shouted encoragement to them as they passed. I hit the turn off from the road and the mile four water stop and was greated with a hug cheer from the volenteers and the offer of ICE!

"Do you want Ice in your bra?"

Never did I ever imagine being so happy to hear such a suggestion! "YES!!"

I dumped ice down my tri top, drank down a gateraide, sipped water to get the 'yuck' taiste out of my mouth and then dumped the rest of the water on my head, and I was off.

the next mile was all through the hotel grounds and it was - wierd. On the first leg it was ok... just a sidewalk through big grass lawn. Then a turn with an ocean view - nice. Then just as the crowds started to get thick the race route diverted down the side of the cliff.. WTF? Oh - there's a trail here. I single track dirt - OMG I HAVE TO RUN ON THIS trail!?

I picked my way along the dirt trail just praying I didn't fall off. My pace had slowed to an absolute CRAWL.. At one point the 775 people who had ran the trail before me had caused it to break down completely and there was nothing left of it. I just scrambled by and hoped for the best. At last I saw the end and I was up on the hotel sidewalks again. But now I was in the heart of the hotel. I straighted my skirt and did my best to set a decent pace. I wanted to look like I belonged in this race when I passed all these people. Frankly 1/2 of them wern't even paying attention. As I ran I had to dodge through hotel guests and at one point had to push a little boy as he turned around and almost ran smack into me! There were a few guests who were cheering the runners as the went past and I appreciated that. But man that pool looked good! wouldn't it be nice to stop... NO!

Soon after the run route left the hotel and dropped into the beach. I was at mile 5, the last water stop! I grabbed more ice and put it down my top, grabbed a gateraide and water, dumped water on my head and then turned to do the last mile. A girl I had cheered earlier had caught up with me, we turned to each other and assured each other, "last mile!". "This is the last push" she told me

I nodded, and she asked, "Do you have any children?"

"Yes, three"

"Me too. Remember in delivery, when you gave that last push before the baby was born? That what this is, the last push"

I thought about that for a split second. and then shrugged, "All of my children were born in less time then this race is taking me...." was all I said before watching her back dissapear in front of me.

And then I faced the beach. Yes, the lava run at the begining had been bad, and the hike up the hill into the wind had been too, but this... this was sadistic.

This was like the lava run at the begining, but someone had mixed it white bits of coral in with the lava. Nice... There was no running this last mile for me. I was almost defeated. I was having to pick my way along unstable footing with shakey legs. The black lava rock was collecting the heat and then the white coral would refect it back up at you. I did the onlything I could do, put one foot in front of the other. I could hear the celebration at the finish line now, but it did nothing for me. I just wanted to stop moving! My watch told me I had hit mile six and I felt something new under my feet... Sand! Oh yeah it's not rocks... oh crap it's sand!!!

My shoes sunk into the soft white stuff and every step seemed to drag the energy out of me. I could hear the cheering. There were a few spectators out this far and they were starting to cheer for me specifically. I picked up my head and tried raising my feet higher. "Your doing great!" I heard. "Keep going, you're almost there!" "It gets better as you get closer, the sand is packed tighter" was the one that finally got me moving.

"It gets better..." I clug to that statement in my head. I was running now, lifting my feet high to clear the sand, focusing on my breath. Breath in one two, woosh out one two... "Just keep moving your arms - your feet have no choice but to follow" I kept thinking.

And then I was in the chute and people were yelling and asking for high fives and I started smiling... I did it! I did it!

The funny thing - I wasn't as elaited as I had expected to be. I was tired and most of all just GLAD it was over!

My coach was the first person to hug me, my husband the second...

I had to wait to get my race metal but I got my TNT 'tri' pin. I couldn't seem to get enough water, but was too hot/winded/tired to eat. And I was certainly too tired to walk back up to the hotel just yet.

I sat in the shade, watching the awards. Three people from our team were in the top three of thier class, and two of those were first. That was pretty awesome.

In all - it was a great experiance and now that it's over - I can't wait to do it again!

My coach gave me my finisher's medal at the after party, and I caught up with my 'last mile buddy'. I thanked her for her words out there. An awesome day overall.

We interupt this race report to bring you...

2009-04-08T11:58:00.001-07:00

Here's a video from Chris McCormick's Lavaman

I also found his race report here:

http://xcelsportsgroup.typepad.com/chris_mccormack/2009/04/lavaman-triathlon.html

Now if you watch this you should know that I was just heading out for my bike when he was coming back in, and I probably hitting the turn around as he was finishing the race... notice the flags flapping around the finish?

There's also great vido on the 'laval rock' run that's the begining of the race.

I also love him asking for 'time' on the bike - and for how far back a specific person was. It's nice to know that even a guy who can wipe out the course record by 3:00 Minutes in the worse conditions of the running of the race still has his moments of concers - just like the rest of us.

And the dude wasn't even rushing the finish! Stopping to high-five and every thing!

Thought hubby got a great photo of him finishing....

Race Report – Lavaman 2009 – Part Three – Saturday, Prerace

2009-04-08T09:52:00.000-07:00

I woke up Saturday morning feeling incredibly well rested. Given that I normally don’t sleep well in hotels, this was a nice change. Hubby and I got ourselves up and around, and decided to go in search of some breakfast, and find some food to bring back for race day morning. About a mile’s walk and we found a Subway serving breakfast sandwiches (not bad) and wonder of wonders a market. I picked up some bagels, cream cheese and bananas for race day and happily headed back to the Hotel.

We were supposed to meet at the race start at 9:00AM for a lecture by a famous Ironman guy, but I figured 20 minutes was plenty of time to walk back to the hotel, change, and walk to the race start. After all, I had been told that the race start was ‘right by the hotel’. Uh yeah. The race start was actually ‘right by’ the shopping center we had been at. I was a little shocked when I had been expecting everyone to be up at the hotel and instead I started seeing them walking and riding toward and past me! I called to one of my teammates, “where are you guys going?” and was told “We have a swim workout at 9:00”

Whaaaaaaaa!?!? I thought the practice was at 10:00!! And why are you riding past me!? You mean the start is behind me!?

The stress that I managed to shake off during the night came roaring back to full force! I was going to be at least 20 minutes late for our workout!

The walk back to the hotel, to the room and then back to the swim start was not a pleasant one. All I could seem to focus on was how everything about this race seemed to be going wrong, from my various aches, pains and injuries, to my bike breakdown and now timing and scheduling. It felt like the universe was trying to tell me “Don’t do this race!”

“But,” I kept telling the universe, “I don’t have a choice! I can’t quit now! People gave money, they expect me to be here, to finish this thing!”

When I found the start area I dropped my bike with everyone else’s, and looked for my team. A short search found them not in the water, but gathered around listening to a lecture. Whew! At least I had one thing correct, the practice swim wasn’t until 10:00, I hadn’t missed it! I had missed the first half of the lecture though. I was a little bummed about that because what I did catch was really good. Dave Scott is a fantastic speaker and had excellent advice for everyone.

Once he was finished we got ready for our first swim in Hawaii. I think everyone felt pretty good about it. All the practice swims in the SF Aquatic park when it was 50 degrees and lake Del Valle when it was just at 60 had made us pretty confident in the water. The announcement that the water temp in Hawaii was a ‘cold’ 77 made us all laugh. And even from the shore we could see how clear the water was.

We hit the water joyfully after a few ‘new tips from Coach about sighting in clear water (much easier than the 0’ foot visibility in the Aquatic Park) me, armed with my Hawaii celebration swim cap.

It’s ok, you can say it, I’m a dork. What can I say, I used to be a synchronized swimmer and I just couldn’t pass up this retro cap when I found it. What better place to wear it then Hawaii!? Although, later I would regret my little flight of fancy.

The swim coarse was still set up for the kids lavaman from earlier that day so coach told us jut to follow it - a simple out and back, swim out 7.5 minutes and back 7.5.

And so we were off. First thing off the bat, I turned my head to take a breath and got a full face full of water. ICK! Nothing like swimming with salt water lodged in the back of your throat. Luckily, I'm a strong enough swimmer that a little 'spray' in the face didn't bother me mentally, but physically it was a new challenge to overcome. I soon found a good head position that managed to block most of spray and let me get clean breathes. I took coaches advice and sited landmarks along the bottom of the ocean so I didn't have to waste time and energy looking forward as often and just swam. Ok - swam and did some sight seeing. I stopped twice on the way out to check out sea turtles swimming below me.

I felt a little bad about it until I caught up with one of the faster swimmers on our team, also hanging out checkout out the sealife. It made me feel as if I was doing the right thing, using this time to accustom myself to the water, but also using it as a time to relax my mind - and that's exactly what it was doing.

Finally I focused on my swimming, put my head down and pushed a little. I was a little surprised as how much I got out of myself. All my open water swims before had been in a wetsuit, something I hate. Without the wetsuit I found open water swimming a joy. I didn't want to stop! I was a little disappointed and suprised to look up and find myself facing a wall a swimmers. Apparently the lead swimmers had waited for everyone before turning around and heading back to shore - it was one of the best 'team' moments of the year so far.

As a group we made it out last the little black and white post out there...

It was great pracrice because when we all looked at the 'real' course the next morning the swim that we had done on this day was almost exactly the second part of the course, it helped alot when rounding the corner to swim back out, to know that "Hey, I did this swim yesterday, piece of cake!"

The swim back to shore was a little more focused for me. I paused, but didn't stop when I found some turtles, but for the most part I focused on form, on what was working and what wasn't, and just enjoying the feeling of swimming without walls. I was bummed but elated to finally hit the shore, the swim was deffinatly going to be, MY GAME.

Later hubby told me that Dave Scott had also been swimming with us! He said he looked great in the water and honestly still looks pretty good in a speedo!

I know people who would like to look like this in a speedo now - never mind at 55...

And then it was off to change and ride our bikes!

I threw on a pair of bike shorts, my TNT shirt, socks and bike shoes and I was ready to roll. But first, the moment of truth... my back tire. It 'felt' ok - I walked it over to coach and he verified, it had held air overnight! yay!! A little 'top up' of my front tire and I was off!

Now it was time to face the deamon. We had felt the wind all day, but how was it going to effect the bike?!

The ride on the side streets wasn't too bad, but as I approached the highway it could feel the wind start to take my front wheel. The worse part is it seemed to be really catching on my areo bars! When I finally hit the turn to the highway I couldn't believe how bad the wind was, I actally had to face my tire into the wind, opposite the way I was turning, to make the corner! Once I made the turn though everything was alright. The tail wind made the hills feel like NOTHING. I coasted up one hill and then another. Even though I was enjoying 'flying' with the wind, I KNEW I wouldn't like going back. I found a turn around spot and headed back to our temporary transition, and as expected the wind HIT. It was like trying to plow up a hill only you couldn't look forward to reaching the top. I've never had to pedal in lowest gear DOWNHILL before. And to top it all off - I didn't get to use my areo bars once - all they did was act like a wind catcher and keep trying to flip my front tire the wrong way. It was such a relief get back into the more sheltered roads.

As I came into transition I carefully unclipped both feet. I had a history of bad falls at practice when only unclipping one foot so I had developed the habit of being ready on both sides. I slowed and got read to make a left turn toward my stuff when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. One of the other bikers was coming up fast on my left! I braked to avoid a crash and then coasted to my spot. I joked about 'not using my blinkers' to the others around me and then leaned to the left preparing to dismount only to discover... my left foot was still clipped!!! apparently when I had braked I had clipped my shoe back in without realizing it!

Hubby said later that it was a pretty 'graceful' fall. I pretty much rolled to the ground and managed to not bang myself up too bad. The worse of my injuries was a road rash on my left leg.

(what's left of my rash today - 11 days later)

I had certaily crashed harder during practice. Still it hurt the pride a little to go down like that, in front of everyone.

I waved off everyone's concern, put on my ankle wrap and running shoes. The ankle wrap (more like a brace) was my 'secret weapon' against the tendonitis in my foot. I had worn it a few times while walking and found it really helped to midigate the pain. I had yet to run with it though and was a little nervous about what I would discover. The run was a big question for me still. I was still having trouble just walking from my office to the bathroom some days - how would I handle 6 miles!?

So off I went, with my lumbering run/walk testing the brace, the wind the heat and wondering how I was going to do this tomorrow.

The run was just 10 minutes - 5 out and five back but it told me a lot. The brace was doing it's job. It was managing the pain and I wasn't limping. The run on the lavarocks that was the start of the run course, wasn't going to be easy. I'm a poor runner at best. I don't lift my feet high and I have trouble with uneven surfaces. Plus my ankle is in a brace. So imagine a path, and on this path someone had taken rocks the size of fists and smaller, and they've covered the entire path with it. Then, they roughed them up so they grip each other (and your shoe) a little better, but if you do happen to stumble and fall you're going to be a MESS... yeah - it became apparent to me that even if I had the energy, there was no way I was running the first bit of the run course. But that was fine, I usually had rubber legs after the bike anyway and the excuse to walk would be welcome :)

The overall feeling after our short practice!? I was going to make it - I could do this! Only an act of God could stop me now! :)

After changing up in the room it was time to pick up our race packets. I went through the various 'stations' picking up my envelope, t-shirt and the like. As I walked away, bag in hand it fianlly hit me. I was doing this! I was a 'competator' I was a triathlete. My three year dream of toeing the starting line was finally coming true. I stood there choked up for a reason I couldn't really explain. I have no idea why that was the most emotional point in the entire weekend, but it was. And I rellish the feeling of pride still.

I spent a lot of time relaxing after that. Hit to pool for the first recreational swimming in 5 months and enjoyed being on 'vacation' It felt good. Went to the race meeting and it ended up being a lot of fun. I'm sure in a year I'll be sick of pre-race meetings, but for a newbie like me - it was great to have.

Then it was the Team in Training pasta dinner. Good friends, good company and another lecture by Dave Scott.

After that I hit the room, packed all my stuff for the next day and amazingly enough, fell right to sleep!

Race Report - Lavaman 09 Part Two – Friday, Prerace

2009-04-07T13:41:00.000-07:00

Our flight for Hawaii was leaving early on Friday, so that meant an early morning for us. Luckily I had made hotel reservations next to the airport for Thursday so we didn’t have to get up at the butt crack of dawn – just slightly after J I had been up late the night before, dying my hair – purple. It hadn’t turned out the way I wanted so I got up extra early to do another layer of purple before checking out, and moving out. For some reason my hair not turning out was really stressing me out, as if it was phofetic as to how the weekend would go.

There were a lot of firsts here, first Triathlon, first time in Hawaii, and because I didn’t know what to expect I had packed a LOT of stuff: one large suitcase with my clothes in it, one smaller case with a lot of ‘backup’ tri gear and a carry-on with all my race gear. Yes, three suitcases just for me, plus my laptop bag. (I can laugh now). Hubby also had two cases, one for his clothes and one for his camera gear. He was my ‘official photographer’ for the entire weekend and was bringing a LOT of stuff along.

Thanks to ParkSleepRide we got an easy shuttle to the airport in plenty of time. The wait in line, check in, only to wait in line, have your boarding pass checked , then wait in line to go through security was so annoying! Even though I wasn’t late for my plane I found my patients were wearing really thin. Looking back it was probably all race nerves and PMS.

We found our terminal, found the team and chilled ‘til it was time to board.

I haven’t had an experience like the trip to Hawaii since…High School Band… Heh. Yeah it was a big plane with a lot of people on it, but knowing 56 of the other passengers was really cool. We laughed and chatted between the isles, took pictures and tried not to be too annoying to the people on the plane. The best part was when we landed and the flight attendant read a statement from our team manager. There where hoots, hollers and cheers from everyone on the team as she read our team fundraising total, than a captain lead ‘GO TEAM!’

I have to say my first impression of Kona was a little – disappointed. The airport is basically situated in a desert, and everything was brown or black and very dreary and dry looking, not at ALL what I was expecting. The drive to the hotel on the bus was interesting because it was along the bike course. We were all pretty stunned to be driving down… HILLS! HUH!? I thought Lavaman was FLAT!? What was also very noticeable was the wind. You could see how hard it was blowing by looking at the short grass that was growing between the lava piles. I tried to ignore the rout and just stay in the moment. I was on a bus with a bunch of friends in Hawaii – the bike course is what it is, and I don’t have to think about it ‘til Sunday.

Check-in was smooth and the Hotel stunning. We actually managed to get our room even though we were early. We were amazed to find that we had to ride a TRAM to get to it. You could walk to the room but it was a good 10 minute trot… We chose the tram given the number of bags we were carrying. There would be plenty of time to discover the hotel on foot later (and boy was there).

After settling we walked to grab some food with a few team members, walked to the far end of the hotel to look it over, shopped in some of the shops and then walked back to our room to change and pick up my bike pedals and seat. Then a walk back to the center of the hotel to the bike pickup.

The bikes were a welcome site. We hadn’t seen them in weeks and it was good to get our hands back on them again. Most people were planning a short ride after pickup and had come dressed appropriately – I was just planning to get my ‘stuff’ back on it. I found my bike easy enough, pulled it away from the rack and suddenly had a sick feeling in my stomach… my back tire was flat! Probably the only thing I didn’t have in my suitcases back in the room was new rubber (I had tubes but not tires!) I got my seat and peddles put back on and then presented the disaster to my coach. I was livid; angry at the bike shop guy for telling me the tire was safe to put back on; angry at myself for listening to him instead of buying a new tire like I was planning and angry at the world for ‘Why is this happening to me!’ The one thing, baring a broken limb, that could keep me from finishing this race was a bike issue like this! Coach calmed me down, took a look at the tire, pulled a few more pieces of debris from it, and told me to come by his room later and he would take a closer look and fix everything up for me. “If it is your tire we’ll either get a new one at the expo tomorrow or someone will drive you into town to pick one up”

I tried to calm myself with those words but it wasn’t helping. My husband and I made quite the procession back to our room. He was carrying my bike, sans one back tire, and I was carrying rim, tire and deflated tube. I stopped counting how many times we heard “Hey, you lost your back tire!”

To top it all off, I was hurting – BAD. My foot felt like someone was shoving an icepick into the side with every step I took! My stress levels were at DEFCOM 1

Later in my room I checked the tube. Sure enough it had a slice in the side. I caught up with the coach later and he took a closer look at the tire, proclaimed it fit to ride on and we put the new tube in. He assured me that if there were any problems on tomorrow’s practice ride we would find a replacement tire.

I wasn’t very mollified.

Back in my room I sorted through my tri gear for the 100^th time. I had to figure out what to wear for our training the next day that wouldn’t interfere with what I was planning to wear for race day. Basically I was fretting. Silly things seemed the end of the world. Do I wear my tri suit for practice – if I do will it dry in time for race day? And so forth.

Needless to say I was exhausted by the time I fell asleep at 8:00PM – Hawaii time.

Race Report – Lavaman 2009 – Part One, the drama of preparation

2009-04-07T10:11:00.000-07:00

So – I’m going to start this report with a little summary of the 5 months leading into the race, just so you get some idea of where I’m coming from.

Our second week of training we had a ‘marker set’. It seemed simple enough, see how fast you can run 2 miles (8 laps) around the track. Sure, no problem! Only I’m a beginning runner and 2 miles was a LONG run for me, and this was early in the season. I finished the 2 miles in just over 30 minutes, but a muscle on the inside of my calf was burning! My legs were never really the same again. I struggled the rest of the season with tightness and pain in my calves. Sometimes it was so bad I couldn’t even run for the prescribed 2-3 minutes. I kept going though, doing stretches, icing after runs, just about anything and everything I could think of. I would try resting, not running for a week or so and the pain would get better, but would come back almost as soon as I started to run again.

On top of this I was fighting with an old shoulder injury. Pain and numbness especially after swimming and sometimes after biking, that steadily got worse as the season progressed. The shoulder pain had caused my neck to seize up and I couldn’t turn my head to look over my left shoulder.

Then came a Saturday when after a swim and run, when I was in particular pain, the team had a chiropractor come to speak. Luckily for me, he wasn’t only a chiropractor, but also certified in ART (Active Release Therapy). After his talk he offered to do some quick exams for people – I was second in line.

That day the Dr worked on my neck so that I could at least look out my car window, but he found a more than just a stiff neck! It seems that my ‘shoulder injury’ that I had fought with for so many years was also a popped rib! He made me an appointment for an office visit on the spot (at a discount).

My visits with Dr Burg changed everything about my training. He popped my rib, and worked on all the tight muscles in my shoulder. Not only did that give me back my range of motion in my arm and neck, but wonder of wonders – eliminated the need for the inhaler that I had been on for over a year! He found a light muscle in my back, that after he worked on, I found I could run better, easier and actually get down over the handlebars on my back correctly. And – he worked on the tight muscle in my calves and made it so I could run again!

And so, out I went, back to the trails running! I was so excited – then the long runs started – 45, 50 and finally 60 minutes! That’s when ‘it’ happened. The day after my 60 minute run, I got up to walk across the room and found my right foot wouldn’t flatten against the floor! I rubbed it, walked it stretched it and got it to ‘flatten’ but then the pain set in. My dreams of Lavaman were starting to crumble again. I could barely walk across the room how was I going to go 6 miles! I visited my miracle worker Dr Burg. He made sure I didn’t have a stress fracture, but couldn’t cure my pain. Tendinitis! One month until Lavaman and I was back to a routine of rest, ice, heat and limp. I knew there was no way to eliminate the pain before the race, but I was hoping to at least manage it.

Then came the day of our last bike ride before we shipped our bikes over to Hawaii, I pulled my bike out the night before to check it over, only to discover that the back tire was flat… again. (This was the third time). I went through the motions of changing it, but while checking the tire for particles was horrified to find metal fibers embedded in it! I assumed the rubber was giving out and part of the ‘steal wall’ was poking through. That meant no early bike ride for me, I needed to do some shopping.

The next morning we loaded my bike on to the back of the FJ and headed down the road. About half way to our destination I heard a small ‘bump’ and looked out my back window to see my back wheel rolling down the road! There was no recovering it. While I had started out the morning needing a tire now I needed a whole rear wheel assembly! And my bike was shipping to HI the next day. The remainder of that morning was spent in high stress, finding a shop that had the wheel parts I need, getting them assembled and put on my bike. When the guy at the bike shop looked over the tire that had caused this whole ‘emergency,’ he declared it fit for use. The metal slivers were something I had picked up off the road and weren’t from the tire itself. He removed a few and finally my bike was whole again! Too bad I wasn’t.

An Awesome video

2009-04-05T21:55:00.000-07:00

This guy came by the Lavaman and shot a bunch of video... It's a great protrayal of the race, and I ended up being in it for a split second! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANd5YQJ7rf4

I'm Back!!

2009-04-03T15:26:00.000-07:00

Just got in from Hawaii this morning! What a trip!

The first and best news - I finished the Lavaman!

I finished in less then 5 hours, and wonder of all wonders I wasn't last! :) As I had expected my best event was the swim - I was pleased to find myself in the middle of the pack :) and I did the 1 mile swim (and the run to transition) in 39:32.

My transitions were LONG - but they were intentionally long. I took my time and made sure I was ready before heading out - T1 = 10:46

Unfortunately, terrible headwinds made the bike a torture session. They said after these were the worse conditions they had ever had for Lavaman. I had planned on the bike taking 2 hours and with the conditions was actually pleased to come in at 2:10:54

Again I made a slow transition. I really do think I was trying to put off the inevitable - that 6 mile run. T2 - 11:36 I promise a more detailed race report when I've had more then 4 hours sleep :) but let's just say my plan to keep a 15 min/mile pace went out the window and I was just happy to 'crawl' in at 1:46:23

Total time: 4:59:11

I did it!

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2009-03-19T14:23:00.001-07:00

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Finally Ready!

2009-03-16T22:15:00.000-07:00

Today the finally piece of my triathlon fell into place...

What I'm wearing :)

This has been in the top three or four of things I've been worried about. Why you ask? (or maybe you don't)

Well I'm not what you might call your standard size triathlete. Some races call me an 'Athena' but to put it bluntly - I'm closer to two Athenas. (Men you can ignore this next bit). There was also the question of how to contain 'the girls'. Most standard suggestions (wear tri shorts and a swim top) just wouldn't cut it for me. I cannot run without major support. It's dangerous and painful. But -it was near imposable to get a sports bra on while wet... not to mention that from what I've been told there is no covered transition areas at Lavama.

Then I found that while swimming in a standard suit - when I really got good rotation going - certain parts couldn't keep up and were trying to escape from the sides. So, my first 'modification' to standard tri gear was to start wearing a sports bra under my suit. I've been doing that for a while now and I couldn't imagine trying to swim with any kind of speed without it now.

So my thought was, swim in a standard suit, with a sports bra and then throw on bike shorts and a top for the bike/run. Yeah that thought lasted 1/2 a second. There's no way I could sit a bike saddle with a standard suit on. I had enough trouble with bike shorts! Ok then - bike shorts under the suit, suit comes off and a top over the bra... eh yeah. Probably would work except there's no way I'm going to run around in HI in just bike shorts. I'm sorry, I just can't subject the world to that. So, what to do? And then there was the issue I found during our sprint tri, when the bike shorts were wet and then I biked/ran in them - the chafed along the seams of the padding - so I had started to wear another layer under them.

The straw that finally broke the camels back (or broke open the camel's wallet) was when I went to swim last week and discovered that my suit has gone a little... limp. eh almost no elasticity left! It was going to have to be replaced before the race... what to do? what to do?

Well I broke down and got a once piece tri suit! It arrived today and I LOVE IT!!

The plan is this - tri suit and sports bra for the swim. (and swim cap a goggles -duh)

T1 = an athletic skort over the tri suit ( to preserve my modesty) and my TNT tri top. Socks and bike shoes, helmet, gloves, and my watter bladder.

T2 = a quick change to running shoes

And that's all

With my trisuit I also picked up a race belt and timing chip band - I'm so ready!!

Thank you Team Estrogen for getting me my stuff so quickly and for having such a great size selection!

By the way - check back here in six months or so - I plan on needing a much smaller tri suit :P

Sexy New Handlebars

2009-03-14T23:20:00.001-07:00

Oh what a day!

2009-03-14T22:26:00.000-07:00

I made some changes to my bike today. Not sure how smart that was considering we're shipping them to Hawaii tomorrow and I won't see it or ride it again until the day before we race.

One change -- well I didn't have much of choice.

We had a team ride today and so last night I started checking my bike and noticed the back tire was flat. Ok - no problem. I started changing the tire and as I was taught, checked the tire for debris before putting the new tube in. What I found wan't good. It looked like some of the metal of the tire was showing little particles of steal were poking out... ahhhhh new tire! There was no way to get a new tire before our team ride so other plans were made. Those included getting up this morning - loading our bikes on the back of the FJ and heading to the bike store. The plan was, once we got a new tire for me, we would do my training ride together (hubby and I). Fine, no problem, until...

As I'm driving along, I hear a light 'thump' on the back of the FJ. I knew 'something had fallen'. I just knew it. I check the side view mirror and see a bike tire rolling down the median. CRAP!! Hubby had put my empty rim back on the back of my bike, but hadn't looked the chain around, and hadn't (apparently) tightened it enough! After pulling over, exchanged info with the woman who had been behind us (and gotten her car scratched) we headed back to the bike shop, but this time needing an entire bike wheel assembly -- and I was supposed to be shipping my bike to HI tomorrow!

Luckily the bike shop had everything I needed, new rim, gear assembly etc. They were really great, helping me make sure everything fit, and even assembling it for me putting on the tube and tire etc. Of course while I'm there waiting for my wheel to be fixed I start browsing. Ooooo handlebar tape. I need new tape cause I totally screwed up the stuff on my bike by falling a few times. I found some snazzy red and black stuff that made me happy just looking at it.

And -- areobars -- I've wanted them since I got a road bike! And even more after the long ride last week. So, I got a pair.

I know - changes like this right before a race - not always a great idea, but I did run around the neighborhood and my trainer with the new gear and mmmm I liked my bike before, but I luuuuve it now! :)

Look out Hawaii Here I come!

A new day

2009-03-12T09:17:00.000-07:00

I'm done feeling sorry for myself. Time to move on and focus on the training - which is what I've wanted to do all along :)

Did a two mile run last night, pushing to get just a little faster by doing some intervals for the last half. Honestly though I'm more worried about endurance then speed. The 4.5 miles I've done during training is the logest I've ever run and the though of running 6 is still very overwhelming. I'm just going to focus on keeping my feet moving :)

Tonight's a bike ride followed by a run. An unusual mid week brick - but nothing too strenuous. Two weeks 'til we leave for HI!! woo hoo!

Disheartened

2009-03-11T15:27:00.000-07:00

Well, Friday is my fundraising deadline and I'm still short $2500 of my fundraising minimum.

I've had to make some serious decisions:

I could walk out on my commitment. Not a nice thing to do, but in these economic times, and with two of our credit cards having slashed our credit limits to what we owed... The training has been rough through all of this. I'm not what one would call an athlete, but I still had this dream to complete a triathlon. It was bad enough that I would be walking out on a commitment to people who seriously need the support and caring, but I would be walking out on myself as well. Then there was the fact that I had already spent $1500 of my own money on the trip to HI. Money that was non-refundable...

So today took out a personal loan. I'll be meeting my commitment, going to HI and finishing my triathon. I can honestly say it's been one of the best and worst times in my life. There will be other triathlons (I've several lined up this year) and I will do other things for charity... but I will never try to do something of this scale again.

Thank You!

2009-03-06T11:53:00.000-08:00

First, thank you to everyone who came out to the party last night - it was a BLAST and there were some fabulous singers!

Second, thank you to all the people who donated items for my raffle. It was a huge success!

Last but not least, thank you to everyone who donated at the event and/or bought raffle tickets. You raised almost $800 in the battle against blood cancers.

100% of the money donated will be going to the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. Since its founding in 1949, LLS has invested more then $600 million in research specifically targeting leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma. They believe that innovations in blood cancer research hold the keys to curing all cancers. Treatments such as chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation, originally developed for leukemia, are now standard treatments for many cancers. LLS also offers support groups, financial aid, information and advocacy programs for patients and their family.

Your support is crucial to their success, thank you again!

Shawn

Thank You Red and White Fleet

2009-03-02T22:50:00.000-08:00

The Red and White Fleet has donated to my fundraising raffle!

The have given me a voucher good for one bay cruise for two people!

about the Red and White Fleet:

Founded in 1892, the family-owned Red and White Fleet is legendary for its breathtaking San Francisco Cruises. Sail under the Golden Gate and around Alcatraz aboard our 1-hr Golden Gate Bay Cruise – a San Francisco original narrated in 8 languages. Or enjoy amazing sunsets and appetizers aboard our relaxed 2-hr California Sunset Cruise. Our new 90-min SF Explorer Cruise is an amazing way to discover San Francisco's unique natural history, architecture, and Native American culture on a sailing route that promises spectacular views! All of Red and White Fleet's cruises depart from Pier 43½ in the heart of Fisherman's Wharf.

Find more at their website here:

http://www.redandwhite.com/

Mark the Date! - March 5th!

2009-03-02T08:54:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to let everyone know - that if you're in the San Francisco Bay area (or even if you aren't) - your invited to the Party at the Mint in San Francisco this Thursday- March 5th! We're starting at 5:30 and we'll 'officially' go until 8:00PM. There will be a karaoke contest for those who wish to participate. Or you can just hang out and support a good cause.

Also - I'm selling Raffle tickets for all the prizes I've been announcing below. $5 each or 5 for $20. If you want to be entered into the raffle, but won't see in me in person before the event - let me know and I'll give you your tickets 'virtually'!

Last, but not least, you're always welcome to make a donation via credit card at my fundraising site - http://pages.teamintraining.org/sf/lavatri09/smuellerboddy

I still need $3500 to meet my fundraising minimum - so anything you can do to help is greatly appreciated!

Thank You - Dr Burg!

2009-02-28T22:00:00.000-08:00

Dr Burg of Berkeley Chiropractor has made a donation to my fundraising raffle:

2 gift certificates for an initial visit.

About Dr Burg:

Dr. Richard Burg is a licensed Chiropractor serving the Berkeley community

Dr. Richard Burg has been freeing people from pain in his clinic in Berkeley, CA. As a Chiropractor with experience, Dr. Burg is committed to promoting the health and well being of his patients.
Dr. Burg uses a "whole person approach". This approach to wellness means looking for underlying causes of any disturbance or disruption (which may or may not be causing symptoms at the time) and make whatever interventions and lifestyle adjustments that would optimize the conditions for normal function. Using this unique approach, Dr. Burg is able to help you to accelerate and/or maintain your journey to good health.

Dr Burg is my Chirpractor and I can't say enough good things about him, between his chiropractic adjustments (I had a popped rib) and ART therapy he's improved my day to day life and my training 100%. Take a look at his website.

http://www.drrichardburg.com/index.php

Thank You - Bombshell Betty!!

2009-02-28T21:37:00.000-08:00

Bombshell Betty has donated to my fundraising raffle:

2 - $20 gift certificates for Burlesquercise classes and a half off certificate for a pinup workshop worth $125!

About Bombshell Betty and Burlesquercise...

Bombshell Betty is a burlesque obsessed entrepreneur and innovator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She leapt headlong into the burlesque life in 2000 when she founded her own go-go/burlesque troupe, touring regularly across the US, Canada and Europe. Some performance highlights include headlining at the House of Blues at the Mandalay Bay Casino Resort in Las Vegas, touring across Europe for “The Russ Meyer Night” with the ladies from “Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!”, performing and teaching at Teaseorama (the world's first and biggest burlesque convention), performing at the pre-party for theSF MOMA CX "Modern Ball", opening for Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver, BC, and performing at various festivals across Europe.
In March, 2004, Betty started teaching the incredibly popular Burlesquercise!® dance classes, and also teaches private classes, Pinup Modeling Workshops, Costuming Workshops, and promotes special workshops for guest instructors, including Cancan, Musical Theater, Striptease, and more! Many performers in the San Francisco burlesque scene and also the international scne got their start through Bombshell Betty’s classes, and established performers also take the classes to learn new moves and polish up their stage presentation.

Bombshell Betty is a co-founder of the clown burlesque troupe “Twist My Balloons!”, a member of“Bottoms Up! Burlesque”, performs with an ever-changing ensemble of her students, “Bombshell Betty’s Burlesqueteers,” and produces variety and burlesque shows in the Bay Area as well as working on other new and unusual burlesque projects, including the "Intro to Burlesquercise!" DVD released in December 2006.

Three years after starting the Burlesquercise!® dance classes, Bombshell Betty has set up shop at “Bombshell Betty's”, a variety and burlesque dance studio and community space. She’s always got something new up her sleeve (or *ahem* tucked into her garter), so stay tuned for more wild and wacky antics!

I've taken classes from Betty - and they are great! check out her website...

http://www.bombshellbetty.net/

Thank You - ABC Seafood!

2009-02-27T15:42:00.000-08:00

ABC Seafood Restaurant has made a donation to my fundraising raffle:

a $50 gift certificate

ABC Seafood - Truly Authentic Hong Kong dining experience!

http://www.abcseafoodrestaurant.com/

Thank you - Tommy T's!

2009-02-27T15:32:00.000-08:00

Tommy T's Comedy Steakhouse has made a donation toward my furndraising raffle:

10 $30 Gift Certificates for Tickets!

Check out the shows here:

http://www.tommyts.com/index.html

Thank you - Weidley Chiropractic!

2009-02-27T15:29:00.000-08:00

Weidley Chiropractic Has made a donation toward my fundraising raffle:

A Complimentary first visit package

More about them:

Weidley Chiropractic provides patient-centered care, rehabilitation, and education to persons involved in sports or lifestyle injuries, chronic and acute back and neck pain sufferers, and residents of our community injured in motor vehicle accidents.

From its convenient location on Union Street in the Marina/Cow Hollow neighborhood of San Francisco, patients can expect a high-level service in an upscale "boutique" environment with a spa-like feel.

Our mission is to educate, adjust, and rehabilitate our patients to optimal health through natural chiropractic care

You can check them out online at:

http://www.chirosf.com/

Thank You - Lombardi Sports!

2009-02-27T15:25:00.000-08:00

Lombardi Sports has made donation toward my fundraising event!

20% off coupons for every person who attends!

More about Lombardi Sports:

LOMBARDI SPORTS has been family owned and operated since we began selling biking, skiing and camping equipment in 1948. In other words, we've been the start and finish line for athletes all over the Bay Area for 53 years. Each department is a self-sufficient unit, full of devoted folks who have the answers you're looking for.
By cramming over 50,000 square feet full of the best equipment, apparel and expertise on Earth, we've become the area's premiere athletic retailer. So whatever you're looking for, chances are you're about to find it at LOMBARDI SPORTS. For 55 years the community has been an extension of the Lombardi Sports family. Customers have looked to us for knowledge on how to train, where to train and for deals on top of the line equipment for all of their sports needs. Our management and sales team are active participants in every sport and activity that we carry equipment for and will assist you with all of your shopping needs.

You can check out thier online store too!

https://www.lombardisports.com/

Thank You - Serenity MedSpa

2009-02-27T13:45:00.000-08:00

Serenity MedSpa has made a donation to my raffle:

10 - $100 gift certificates!

about Serenity Med Spa

What distinguishes Serenity MedSpa from other spas? In addition to luxuriously nourishing spa services, Serenity MedSpa also offers a full suite of cosmetic laser and dermatologic procedures that refine and reveal your ultimate natural beauty.
Drs. Lisa and David Kang, owners and operators of Serenity MedSpa, utilize their knowledge of the medical field to carefully select the latest and most innovative cosmetic lasers and dermatologic procedures.
Drs. Kang and Kang understand that the best applications of cosmetic laser and dermatologic procedures take your individual skin condition and facial or body structure into consideration. They take pride in personally performing medical spa procedures, and have turned their application of these technologies into a fine art to ensure you receive the highest quality results delivered with the utmost concern for safety and comfort.
Find your Serenity in the knowledge that you are placing your care in the skillful and soothing hands of experienced surgeons that customize treatment courses specific to your own unique needs.

http://www.serenitymedspa.com/

Thank You - Vinyl Room

2009-02-27T13:43:00.000-08:00

The Vinyl Room has made a donation to my fundraising raffle!

A $50 gift certificate

About The Vinyl Room:

The Vinyl Room, lounge and nightclub, stays true to its slogan "Mixing music & culture" with its sleek decor and artwork to the tunes that the DJs play on the turntables. DJs live music and special events are featured almost every night of the week. The Vinyl Room as a little bit of everything for everyone ranging from reggae, hip-hop (vintage & classics) house, and rock to eighties. The walls are adorned with artwork, which rotates every few months, from local Bay Area artists that includes paintings, photography, mixed media and various other works. Come in, sit on one of our comfy couches or groove to some of the tunes from your favorite DJ and see what the buzz about the Vinyl Room is all about.

Certainly a place I want to go check out! Find out more at:

http://www.vinyl-room.com/main.html