Chasing My Joy

My journey to becoming an Ultra Runner and Ironman

Holy Crap Colorado!

You would think I would be used to it but now, I have lived in Colorado for almost three years now. But I just can’t get used to the crazy weather here. It was over 60 degrees yesterday and this morning we woke to poring snow with 2-5 inches accumulation.

I am hoping that we are getting all of this snow out of the way now so March will be nice a warm, wishful thinking I know.

It is supposed to warm up again for this weekend, so i hope this will all melt by then.

I have a 60 mile ride on the schedule for Saturday and would really like to not spend 4 hours on my trainer.

I am a wussy about riding in the cold, won’t go out in anything lower than 40 degrees. I know I could get better gear and be more comfortable but I am just too cheap. I also won’t run in anything less than 10 degrees, I know some people will head out in almost anything but it just hurts too much and I wold rather head inside to the treadmill or trainer.

What are your boundaries, or are you hard core and will go outside in just about anything?


CTERman Virtual Triathlon

Jason from Cook Train Eat Race is hosting a virtual triathlon to support Shape up America.
From his website: I partnered with Shape Up America last year to help raise funds for the non-profit which is committed to raising awareness of obesity as a health issue and to providing responsible information on healthy weight management. As a person who believes that the health of America is jeopardized it is a welcome sight to see an organization take on such a personal subject and try to help.
While the challenge started on February 13 you can still sign up late and participate. I am excited to participate for the great prizes but mostly because I think it’s a great cause.
I will complete the 140.6 triathlon tomorrow, and I kinda bummed it’s going to be over so quickly.
Anyone else participating in CTERman virtual triathlon? Any other fun challenges out there?


Snowman Stampede 10 mile Race Recap

On Saturday Cory and I ran the Snowman Stampede 10 mile race. This is the third and final race of the winter distance series, you can read about the first two here: Frostey’s Frozen 5 miler and Rudolph’s Revenge 5k 2010 I did race Rudolph’s in 2011 but failed to write a recap.
These races are well run but getting a bit boring for me. I train a lot along the Platte River Trail and have raced this course six times now. Next year may need a different off season focus. But this years 10 miler went ok, I made a few mistakes in the race that I hope to learn from for more important future races. I am happy that all these little races are over and that I have nothing shorter than a half marathon (or sprint tri) on the schedule until the off season!
I was still a little sick but wanted to beat my only other 10 mile time of 1:35:56 for a PR, I really wanted to run it with 9:15 mm or less, I would have loved to come in under 1:30 but wasn’t sure that could happen since I am still a little sick and didn’t taper at all for this race. I came in at 1:32:57, according to my garmin the course was a little long, 10.23 miles, leaving me at 9:05 mm. Not quite my A goal but still a PR.
My big mistake was not taking a gel, I had some with me but left them at the start in my jacket. I didn’t have any pockets so decided not to take one because, 10 miles isn’t that far, right? Lesson learned, 10 miles isn’t that far, but I still bonked in that last 3 miles. I had to argue with myself not to stop and walk, I was tired and empty. I think a gel would have solved this issue at mile 7. So next time, I will take gels, more than I think I need, just in case.
Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of the event. Cory and I were both racing solo and neither wanted to carry the camera. To be honest I didn’t even think about bringing it with us, these races are tune ups and just really don’t seem like that big of a deal, but I do wish we had some photos. Cory got a PR as well with 1:12:27 almost 2 minutes off last years race. It must be all those long slow runs he does with me that is making him so fast 😉
This week is a focus on recovery so happily no crazy two-a-day work outs. I will be back later to report the weeks workouts but something that I have finally figured out is that when coach gives us “recovery weeks” he only means the work week is recovery, the weekend is still smashfest fun…..
What is your favorite distance to race?
Mine has to be the half marathon, feels like a big event without totally wiping you out. I also really like the half ironman.
Hope you are enjoying your Presidents Day!


Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

It’s been a while since I have updated, whoops, many things are to blame. Work, family and sickness got in the way but I am ready to get back to regularly scheduled programing.

I would love to say that while my blog has been quite that I have been hitting all of my workouts. Sadly that is not the case, I caught a terrible head cold that without rest turned into an even worse chest cold. I pushed through with training while most of my symptoms were in my head but when it moved to my lungs I couldn’t do anything without horrible coughing fits. I ended up having to take a full four days off training. While I know that it’s not the end of the world, I don’t feel great about it and those four days were torture. I have been back at training since last Wednesday, with lots of biking, some running and a little swimming. I am still a little under the weather but am back at it full steam. My hope is to get all my workouts in as planned this week and race well on Saturday at my 10 miler.

My general plan to get over colds is always the same and includes:

  • Get at least 8 hours of sleep
  • Drink 96+ oz of water a day
  • Take vitamins and drink Emergen-C
  • Drink green tea
  • Eat whole healthy foods

What are you go to strategies to get over colds? I would love to hear your list!

Week 15 of IM CDA looks like this:

Monday Rest day
Tuesday am: 8 mile Interval Run
pm: 3050 yd swim (how romantic….)
Wednesday am: 75 min spin class
pm: 60 min pilates
Thursday am: 7 mile steady state run
pm: 2900 yd swim
Friday am: 90 min spin
pm: strength training or yoga
Saturday 10 mile race with 2 mile warm up and 2 mile cool down
pm: 2.4 mile swim
Sunday double brick: Bike 25 miles with a short transition to running 2 miles. Repeat twice, maintaining high level of effort.
pm: strength training

Weekly Totals:

Swim: 6.2 miles 3.5 hours
Bike: 100 miles 6 hours
Run: 31 miles 5 hours
Strength or yoga 3 hours

137.2 miles and 17.5 hours

Did you notice the romantic valentines day spent on the treadmill and in the pool? What are your plans?

City Ten Miler

This morning Cory and I were about to head out the door to drive to trail to get our 10 mile run in wen I had the weirdest thought. I wanted to run in the city. I always want to run on trails, get out of town, and run somewhere new. I think it’s a bit funny that I wanted to live right in Denver but I am always trying to get out of town when running or riding. But this morning we laced up our shoes and headed out into our own neighborhood for once. It was fun to take a little tour of downtown Denver on foot.

We ran past the art museum

we ran along the Cherry Creek Path before heading back home

Conference Center

and back past the art museum. We ran an 8 mile loop before stopping quickly at home to pick up Winston for the last 2 miles.

It’s nice to take the little monster out to get his exercise too.
Overall it was a good run, my legs felt good and felt mostly light and easy. The best part was it was confidence building. We have been riding many 50+ mile rides and running miles in the double digits without difficulty a lot recently. I feel like I could complete a half ironman at this point in my training. I know that I couldn’t do it fast but I think I could do it. Now I just need to work on merging speed and endurance before my race in April
Do you have confidence building workouts?
Big training plans for tomorrow?
I will be riding 53 miles of big hills then a 30 minute transition run, hopefully it goes well!


Week 12 Ironman Coeur d’Alene Training

Yesterday I woke to howling winds, mid thirty degree weather and a three hour ride on my training schedule. Normally this would have been an obvious choice to jump on my trainer and enjoy a few movies while pedaling away. The problem was that I am (already) sick of working out inside and knew I wouldn’t be able to really push myself and get a good workout in. I talked my husband into heading to REI to buy toe covers
These things really did help keep my feet fairly warm. We left for our ride from REI and rode down to Chatfield Reservoir.
The first half of the ride was really fun and it was only breezy.
The second half was honestly miserable, it was very gusty. It was difficult to keep my bike up right, I was scared about being pushed off the path a couple times. But I was happy to get it done!
This weeks focus is recovery so workouts are much fewer than normal and this week, I’ll take it!
Monday Rest day
Tuesday am: 60 min Interval Run pm: 60 min strength training
Wednesday am: 120 min spin class and 60 min pilates
Thursday 2700m swim
Friday 60 min easy yoga or pilates
Saturday 35-45 mile hill bike workout, I really hope the weather holds so we can be outside and 30 min transition run
Sunday 10 mile trail run, hopefully on a trail
Do you take easy or recovery weeks while training?
I never have in the past but now I am trying to incorporate them into my training. It’s very important to me to avoid injuries if at all possible in 2012!


Frosty’s Frozen Five Miler Race Report and Chia Winners

This morning Cory and I headed down to Littleton CO for a five mile race.
Last year Cory and I signed up for the Winter Distance Series as well. Todays race was the second of the three races you can read about previous races here Rudolf’s Revenge 5k 2010, Frostey’s Frozen Five Mile 2011, Snowman Stampede 2011. We ran Rudolf’s Revenge 5k in December but I don’t think I wrote a race report on it (fail!)
I HATE racing shorter distances so I always question why I sign up for them but I had a really good time today. It was not too cold in the low 40s and it was a small race with about 600 people participating in the 5 mile portion.
I was a little sad because in December my parents were with us and mom ran the 5k, she is still working her way up to 5 miles and signed up for the 5 mile portion of the Boulder Spring Half but wasn’t ready yet today.
So it was just Cory and I, fun but definitely not as fun as when more family is there. Given that we were both racing we didn’t bring a camera along.
These pictures are from last year when Cory ran and I cheered because I had the flu. The course was the same just a little less snow this year.
Both cory and I got PR’s today Cory ran it in 34:03 and I finished in 43:07. My splits were pretty even, even the two miles that I couldn’t get my lap button to work!
My average pace was actually faster than last months 5k and I was rocking a cold this week. I hope this means that all the speed work is finally doing something for me.
Earlier today I used Random.org to choose the Chia winners:
First up was #17 Ashley!
and #11 Kate
Congrats ladies, please email me your address to bethcn at gmail dot com and I will send you your Chia Seeds!


Losing Weight While Training

Many people have the flawed belief that if you are training for an endurance event (half marathon, marathon, triathlon, etc) that you can eat whatever you want and still lose weight. THIS IS NOT TRUE, it is far from it! A lot of people I know in real life and in blogger world have gained weight while training for these events. Tina, Julie and Monica have all talked about gaining weight while training for endurance events. I often find that when I am in high volume training I maintain. There are many reasons that I think that this happens but these are just my opinions, I am not a nutritionist or fitness expert.

1. There is less time to focus on nutrition and food choices. After a 4 hour training session it’s easy to just grab whatever food is closest

2. You are hungry ALL the time! You may burn more calories but it seems like your appetite grows more than you burn


3. Endurance training isn’t the best way to rev up your metabolism and burn calories. I think interval training, HIIT, etc are better exercises if you are just looking to burn calories.

In the Book Racing Weight, Matt Fitzgerald suggests that you not try to lose weight while training because you need to be eating enough calories to get through all your workouts not keeping a calorie deficit that you need to lose weight.

Where am I going with all of this? I decided that even though I knew all of this, I still wanted to try to get closer to my ideal racing weight while training for my ironman. And since we started training I have taken off 14 pounds, I am happy about this and have about 10 more pounds to go to get to my “Race Weight”. The last 10 pounds will come off slowly but I am ok with that, I don’t want it to compromise my training. Also I am now and was even at my highest weight in the healthy weight range for my height, I just would like to be leaner (specifically getting down to 16% body fat, I am about 21% now) while putting in so many miles.

Here is how I have lost the weight so far and hope to continue to lose weight this way as I go:

1. Focus on the types of food I eat. I think I have a good idea of what healthy foods are and I try to fill up on them.

2. EAT! If I get too hungry I usually eat things I shouldn’t so I allow myself to eat a lot, I just try to eat fruits, vegetables and lean meats.

3. Plan ahead. If I don’t plan what my next meal will be BEFORE a big workout then inevitably I eat unhealthy foods if I have a plan before hand than I almost always stick to it.

4. Don’t listen to others. I sometimes get crap from friends or coworkers about how much I work out and how I must be able to eat anything. Sometimes they give me a hard time if I turn down junk food. But I know it’s not true that I can eat whatever I want so the the longer I stick to my guns the less crap they seem to give me.

For me it’s that simple and that difficult to lose weight while training.

Have you gained weight while training for an endurance event? Do you have any tips?

Speaking of healthy foods, enter to win my Chia giveaway!


Week 11 Ironman Training and My First Giveaway

I hope everyone is enjoying their Monday so far! I am excited to host my first giveaway ever!

Because I am an Ambassador for FitFluential, I was sent a shipment of Chia Seeds and I would like to share them with you.

So two lucky readers will get a bag of black and a bag of white chia seeds to try out.

The contest is easy to enter, you get an entry for each of the following (be sure that you make each entry a separate comment)
1. Follow my blog and leave a comment that you follow

2. Follow FitFluential on Twitter OR like FitFluential on Facebook and leave a comment

3. Mention this giveaway on your blog or twitter.
Giveaway will close on Saturday January 21st at noon (Mountain Standard Time) and I will announce the winners that evening. I will use a random number generator to select the winners, good luck!

Week 11 Ironman Training

Monday 60 min yoga

Tuesday am: Distance swim 2900 yds

pm: Interval Run 6 miles

Wednesday am: 90 min spin class

pm: 60 min strength training

Thursday am: 60 min progression Run

pm: Speed Swim workout

Friday am: Strength training

pm: 2 hr 15 min time in the saddle ride

Saturday: Frotey’s Frozen Five Mile Race with 5 easy miles later in the day to add some distance.

Sunday am: 3 hour bike ride on rolling terrain

pm: Strength session

Yesterday I finished my first “ironman” for my gym’s ironman competition. It’s funny that I easily finish the swim and run portion in a week but the bike portion takes me almost two weeks to complete. Last week I competed over 14 hours of workouts and over 11 miles, it scares me that this is MUCH less than I will do in one day! Makes it more real what I am training for and I am grateful I have six months to get my body ready for it!

Run For the Hills!

After freaking out earlier this week about what I got myself into with the RAGE half ironman, I decided to do something about it. On my schedule this weekend I had a 90 minute trail run and a 3 hour bike ride, perfect, Boulder here I come!

Yesterday Cory and I headed to the Mesa Trail near the Flatirons. It wasn’t too snowy on the trail so the was a plus.

*These photos are from last winter when we ran the same trail, I forgot my camera yesterday, whoops!

I really like this trail it’s challenging and the views are breathtaking the whole way.

After our run we came home watched the olympic marathon trials. I loved watching it but was heart broken for both the female and male 4th place finishers. I had weight training on the schedule too so I got in 45 minutes before heading to my parents house to eat lots of yummy food and watch the Bronco game. The game wasn’t fun to watch (for us) but they put in a good season and I hope they come back even stronger next fall.

Today we are heading back to my parents house (hope they don’t get sick of us!) for our first transition workout of the year. We are going to ride out to Boulder to Old Stage for some hills and get a good 53 miles in.

From MapMyRide.com
When we are done we have a fast transition to a 30 minute run. My parents’ community has great running trails so their house is the perfect place to transition.

I am so excited to get my new Kestrel out on the road for the first time today!

What are your plans for the day?


→←