Chasing My Joy

My journey to becoming an Ultra Runner and Ironman

TWEET!

I finally jumped on the twitter bandwagon.

I have resisted it for a while now but the turning point came while following all the Kona action. I can follow Chrissie and Miranda on a day basis? Score! Plus many of my favorite bloggers have twitter accounts. I have a lot to learn about how to use twitter and what it’s all about. Any tips? What’s your favorite thing about twitter?

In other news I was given the green light by my physical therapist to run longer and do speed work as long as I don’t have stabbing pain. I am elated and can’t wait to get back to hours spent on the trails.

Unfortunately the trails will have to wait until next weekend since I will be traveling all weekend. It’s going to be a long weekend and nothing is going to get done other than driving my grandma’s car out to Colorado. Cory and I fly out of Denver to Portland tomorrow morning. We arrive in Portland at 11am and will head directly to my grandma’s house where we will help her with a few projects and try to get on the road by 2 or 3 pm. We will drive straight through about 20 hours and be back in Colorado by mid day on Sunday. So no big trail run or bike ride this weekend (or laundry or grocery shopping, etc) Next week will be a long week. Hoping for good weather!

What are you up to this weekend?


October Recap and November Goals

Quick Bailey Update: Bailey is doing well today, she loves her canned food, and has not had diarrhea or blood in her stool today. I am a very happy dog mommy so far.

October Recap:

October was a very busy month, and I have to admit that I LIED back on the first of October! I said I wasn’t going to race at all in October and ended up doing two. Both were just for fun and very memorable. I took first in my age group Running with the Buffalos 5k and lost ten pounds of sweat running the Denver Gorilla Run

There was a lot of seasonal fun had as well with a Oktoberfest train ride

Pumpkin patchin’

and lots of swim, bike, run and eating!

I wish that I had kept track of my workouts better, I have no totals to share so that leads me to my Goals for November:

  1. Keep track of workouts better. I am participating in the Holiday Booty Buster Challenge and the Pile on the Miles so I need to keep track!
  2. Run at least 70 miles
  3. Swim for at least 12 hours
  4. Bike for at least 20 hours
  5. Do my PT exercises every night
  6. Do abs and arms exercises three times a week
  7. Eat healthy (except on Thanksgiving, on that day anything goes!)

These are as always ambitious goals for me, we’ll see how it goes!

Workout today was spin this morning and hopefully a snowy 6 mile run later.

What are your goals for November?


Two trips to the Hospital

Our poor baby boxer Bailey was very sick today


By the time I got home from work today she had bloody diarrhea (sorry if that’s TMI). She was acting perky but I have never seen her do that before so I packed her into the car and rushed her to the vet. They think that she has an infection and will be fine as long as she takes her antibiotics and eats bland foods. They also gave me probiotics to help her tummy. We left with our meds and instructions to keep an eye on her, looks like either Cory or I will be working from home tomorrow.


Please send healthy happy thoughts to Bailey, she really is the sweetest most sensitive boxer you will ever meet.

The other trip to the hospital was much less dramatic and for a scheduled appointment to see a respiratory specialist. I was “diagnosed” with sports induced asthma about 15 years ago. I use quotes because I told my doctor at the time that I was having trouble breathing while running, he listened to my lungs, said they sounded fine and sent me home with an inhaler. Over the years complained that the inhalers didn’t help I was given different medications, told I was doing it wrong and was sent off. After enduring this again with my current doctor I took it upon myself to seek out a specialist. National Jewish is the best respiratory hospital in the nation and is just down the street from me. I had my first appointment yesterday and they tested my lung function (not under stress) and listened to me about my symptoms and struggles over the years. The lung capacity test showed that I have great lung function, better than most people my age, height etc. and this did not support a asthma diagnosis. The doctor thinks I actually have Vocal Cord Dysfunction. The site says:

The vocal cords are located at the top of the windpipe (trachea) and vibrate from exhaled air to produce noise and voice. Breathing causes the vocal cords to open, allowing air to flow through the windpipe (trachea) and into the lungs. With VCD, the vocal cords close together, or constrict, during inhalation or exhalation. This leaves only a small opening for air to flow through the windpipe and causes asthma-like symptoms .

I won’t know for sure until I go back at the end of the month for a laryngoscopy and a lung function test while under stress (i.e. while running on a treadmill). They also want to test me for allergies and told me that my nose was partially blocked and wasn’t taking in enough air. To help my nose I was given a sinus rinse.

I am NOT a fan of this thing. I will spare you pictures of me using it, but it gives me a headache. I was also given a steroid nasal spray that should help me breath through my nose.


I am happy to finally feel like there may be some progress on my breathing difficulties but man I better be really fast when all is said and done. This is a lot of time, money and effort for this little hobby of mine!

What do you put up with to keep on running?


Denver Gorilla Run Race Report

The Denver Gorilla Run was so much fun! Over a thousand people showed up in costume to support Mountain Gorilla Conservation. As Cory and I got ready our dogs didn’t know what to do about the giant apes in their house.

It’s almost a requirement to dress up your gorilla and people were very creative. There was the full cast of the Wizard of Oz

And some very hairy beer wenches.

Although not caught on camera there were MANY people in tighty whities.

I have to admit that running in a gorilla suit was pretty miserable, next year I will either walk or seriously modify the gorilla suit.

On Sunday Cory and I road 50 miles from my parents house out to Boulder and back, it was nice and not too windy. We finished off the day with a swim at my parents club. The pool is SO nice and makes me dread having to go to 24 hour fitness.

This week will be a little off because we are flying out to Portland and driving my grandmas car to Colorado for her. That means no time for big workouts this weekend, Boo!

Monday: 45 min of PT exercises and abs

Tuesday: am 60 min swim workout (2700 meters) pm 6 mile run and PT exercises

Wednesday: 90 min spin and 45 min of PT exercises and abs

Thursday: 60 min swim workout, 2 mile recovery run with Pug and PT

Friday: 5 mile tempo run and 45 min of PT exercises and abs

Saturday: nothing =(
Sunday: Hopefully a two mile walk when we get home to stretch our legs.

Total: approximately 9 hours

What are your plans for the week?

Happy Halloween!

Gorilla Run

Tomorrow Cory and I will be participating in the Denver Gorilla Run. This is a super fun event where your registration gets you a full gorilla suit!


Check out the bananas on bicycles, too funny!

I am not sure about running in a gorilla mask but I am sure that the cause it great and it will be a good time!
The Denver Gorilla Run is a charity fun run with a difference. Everyone who takes part wears a full gorilla costume – from fluffy head to furry toe – and helps raise funds for the Mountain Gorilla Conservation Fund, the international charity working to save the world’s last remaining mountain gorillas and keeping Dian Fossey’s dream alive for the past 26 years.

This cause is near and dear to my heart, Mountain gorillas are critically endangered and in need of help! From the race website you can read more about Mountain Gorillas and what the Mountain Gorilla Conservation Fund is doing to help:

In 1987, only 248 Mountain Gorillas lived in the wild. Because of projects coordinated by the Mountain Gorilla Conservation Fund, there are now about 790 living in the wild. The Mountain Gorilla Conservation Fund is dedicated to ensuring the future of the Mountain Gorillas of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. By providing a partnership of business, wildlife conservation, and community development, MGCF addresses the single biggest challenge facing preservation of these animals today; how do we help communities in developing areas grow and prosper without destroying precious habitat or the Mountain Gorillas, who call it home.

Source

If you live in the Denver area you can still sign up! It’s going to be so much fun, but if you don’t feel like running in a gorilla suit you can watch all the gorillas run and join the silverback after party between 17th and 18th at Wynkoop.

What’s not to love here? This event combines my favorite things, running, conservation and beer….it’s going to be a good day.

Getting it done – in the pool

We ended up losing power at our house last night after Denver’s first snow storm of the year took out many of the trees in our neighborhood. We live in a historic part of Denver so many of the trees are 100+ years old and tend to lose branches under heavy snow. We had a few come down around our house but luckily nothing major. We were lucky but we ended up going out to dinner instead of trying to cook on the grill and eat in the dark. By the time we got home the power was back on but it was late. Normally I would let this throw off my plan but I got up and headed to the pool as planned this morning. It wasn’t a great swim but we got it done with my poor husband listening to me whine. Our workout looked like this:

Warm up:
500 free
200 kick
100 free

Drills:
5×100 drills (all front quadrant)

Main set:
10×100

Cool down:
100 whatever style you like

Total: 2400

This was a bit of a change from what we normally do so that was nice. What wasn’t nice is that I got a flu shot yesterday and my arm hurt the entire time.

On another note I am disappointed that I can’t find a half marathon in Colorado in December or January. Last year Cory and I ran the Huge Ass Half in Oregon and had a great time.

I am toying with the idea of just running my own self supported trail half marathon near new years (love to make that a tradition). The HAH was self supported it was just a group of Central Oregon ultra runners who like to get together and run, they marked the course told people when to show up and that was about it.

So I am thinking about doing it this year for just Cory and I on New Year’s day, that is unless anyone wants to join us =)
Now jump over to Blond Ponytail to enter her giveaway for compression shorts, and Tall Mom on the Run for a gear.com give away!

15 hour training week – here goes!

I realized I haven’t been good about posting my plan for the week or reporting back about what actually got done. Last spring/summer I always missed one or two scheduled workouts. This fall I am determined not to let that happen as often. The mantra is “just get it done”.

So this week’s schedule looks like:

Monday: 45 min of PT exercises and abs
Tuesday: 6 mile run and 60 min of PT exercises
Wednesday: 90 min spin and 45 min of PT exercises and abs
Thursday: 60 min pool workout, 2 mile recovery run with Pug (don’t want him getting too rolly polly) and PT!
Friday: 5 mile tempo run and 45 min of PT exercises and abs

Saturday: 40-50 mile bike ride and 45 min of PT exercises and abs

Sunday: 7 mile trail run and a recovery swim and PT

Total hours planned: approx. 15 hours (and this feel like a lot, how will I survive ironman training?)

Here is how last week went:
Monday: Rest Done!

Tuesday: 60 min. strength Done
Wednesday: 90 min spin Done

Thursday: 5 mile run finish with plyos run done, no ploys but I did do my PT

Friday: 60 min pool workout Done – so nice the pook was empty

Saturday: 6 mile trail run (this will be so nice, it’s been a long time since I have been out on the trails) Turned into a 4 mile run, I wasn’t feeling well =(

Sunday: 40-50 mile bike ride 40 miles done, felt great and added a bonus swim!


Overall hours: 12.5 hours – this is including 30-45 min of PT exercises everyday

Overall I am pleased about how things are progressing but can’t wait until I can start working on speed!!

At work today we had a health fair, I love this kind of stuff and wasted over an hour talking to different booths. I tried a foot bath thing that is supposed to pull out your toxins, the lady said I had a lot of inflammation and way too much caffeine. Now I am the biggest skeptic of this kind of stuff but I do have a bit of a coffee addiction: Also I have read about giving up caffeine while training for big events but nothing conclusive. I found this on the RICE website, full article can be found here.

Despite considerable research in this area, the role of caffeine as a performance enhancing drug is still controversial. Some of the data are conflicting, which is in part due to how the experimental studies were designed and what methods were used. However, there is general agreement in a few areas: Caffeine does not appear to benefit short term, high intensity exercise (eg. sprinting)Caffeine can enhance performance in endurance sports. Glycogen is the principal fuel for muscles and exhaustion occurs when it is depleted. A secondary fuel, which is much more abundant, is fat. As long as there is still glycogen available, working muscles can utilize fat. Caffeine mobilizes fat stores and encourages working muscles to use fat as a fuel. This delays the depletion of muscle glycogen and allows for a prolongation of exercise. The critical time period in glycogen sparing appears to occur during the first 15 minutes of exercise, where caffeine has been shown to decrease glycogen utilization by as much as 50%.

So what’s your take? Do/would you give up caffeine?

Six miles in the rain and yummy food

A storm is rolling into denver that promises to dump 3 to 10 inches of snow before tomorrow night. Weird given that this was my view down my street this morning:


At about 4:30 it started to rain and has been raining lightly all night. Cory got home fairly early tonight so we grabbed our headlamps and rain jackets before heading out the door. I am SO excited that we got in six miles and I had NO knee pain, I felt strong (not to be confused with fast) and happy to be running in the rain, it felt just like home.

For dinner tonight Cory cooked up some pulled pork in the slow cooker for the first time. I decided I would do my part by trying out a new recipe for Butternut Squash Cheesy bake. Sounds good and supposed to be good for you. Here are the stats:

PER SERVING (1/4th of casserole): 101 calories, 1g fat, 457mg sodium, 20g carbs, 3g fiber, 5g sugars, 4g protein

The original recipe can be found here from Hungry Girl. I used it as a base and put my own spin on it.

Ingredients:
1 butternut squash
2 wedges The Laughing Cow cheese, Light Original Swiss
2 wedges The Laughing Cow cheese, Garlic and Herb
1 diced onions
1/4 cup fat-free liquid egg substitute (like Egg Beaters Original)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. garlic Salt
1/8 tsp. pepper

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cut squash in half, remove seeds and rub with a little bit of oil. Place in shallow baking pan and bake at 350 degrees until soft (usually about 30-45 minutes). Remove from oven and allow squash to cool. Use a spoon to peel skin away and place in a bowl. Set aside. Place onion (and next time I would add garlic too) in a pan with a little oil and cook until lightly caramelized. Set aside. Place all other ingredients except for the onions in the bowl with the squash.


Use an immersion mixer to blend until thoroughly mixed (but not liquefied) you can also use a blender but be very carful as it will be hot. Stir in the onions. Transfer squash mixture to a small casserole dish sprayed with nonstick spray.


Place in the oven, and bake for 35 – 40 minutes (until edges begin to brown).


We think both are winners, the squash is a nice change from our normal baked sweet potato. But that plate needs some greens stat!

Have you tried a great recipe lately? Care to share, I love trying new foods!


Swimming

I do swim, I swear I do. I realized recently that I talk a lot bout running, a bit about biking and not at all about swimming. It may show up once in a while in my weekly plans but that’s about it. The issue is that I really don’t like swimming in a pool, it feels so repetitive and BORING. But I loved swimming at my moms club with the clean pool and giant windows showing views of the front range. I am going to be swimming there as much as possible (too bad it s 30 minutes north of us). Next time I will bring my camera and take pictures and hopefully video.

I have not been swimming a lot but I have been swimming enough to need a new swimsuit, the old nike is falling apart. I have my eye on two suits from Splish:

I love the elephant with the peanuts on the back.

I also think that pink skulls are super cute but Cory does not like this one.

Which one would you buy?

I have to share this video it makes me laugh every time. Happy Tuesday everyone, I am off to physical therapy.

Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge

Have you seen Run to the Finish’s HBBC this year? I am joining for the first time this year and really excited about it. I love these kind of challenges and it comes at the perfect time of year.

Amanda has some great prizes lined up, I have never won a blogger giveaway so my fingers are crossed. Here is a list stolen from RttF’s blog:

Here is a small sampling….
Oakley workout pants and top
Iron Sport Works medal hanger
Be Present Tank Top
CEP Compression shorts
Ryder Sunglasses
GU
RazzyRoo headband
WrightSocks
Lululemon water bottle
SaltStick tablets
McDavid USA Compression gear
GirlZGear
IceTagID
Stonehouse Farms 27 all-natural sauces
Sahale Nuts
Lundenburg Farms grain bowls
Annie’s Homegrown
Once Again Nut Butters

To even things out Amanda set up levels that you self select, I really struggled with deciding what level I am here are her descriptions:

Builders: Maybe you just started training for your first 5k, you are just getting in to the habit of working out..OR you are building your body the majority of the time through yoga and weights. These activities are wonderful but it is hard to earn the same number of points as someone with a 20 mile run.

Doers : You have a training plan that you have been committed to for awhile. Maybe you are trying for your first half marathon, first sprint tri, or just overall increasing your weekly workouts to keep off the holiday fudge.

Advanced : If you are training for a half ironman, ironman, your umpteenth marathon, practice yoga twice daily and run and kick box… let’s be honest you know who you are. If you are active nearly every day in some way shape or form you fall in to the Advanced group…you Type A people should be pleased.

I am not currently training for a marathon or triathlon but I am not trying for my first half marathon either. What would you consider yourself? Have you joined the HBBC or do you plan to?

Cory and I had a great day yesterday, we got in a nice three hour bike ride, I felt strong and we averaged higher than 16 MPH for 40 miles (that is good for me) without pushing too hard. We then headed up to my parents house where we joined my mom at their “club” for a swim. I wish I had my camera with me, it was the nicest pool I have ever swam in. I loved it, and didn’t want to leave. After swimming we headed back to my parents house for dinner and watched the Broncos beat the Dolphins. Perfect end to a great weekend.

What’s your perfect Sunday evening?


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