We didn’t train at all this weekend and it was such a weird feeling. This is supposed to be a recovery week but I don’t think doing nothing was really the best thing. Normally I would blame it on being lazy because I love being lazy , but not this week. We are hosting six people for Thanksgiving and there was just too much cleaning, shopping and cooking that had to be done. We also shopped for and bought a new couch as well as sold our old ones this weekend.

It’s amazing how much time it takes to exercise on the weekend. We spend about four hours actually moving but it’s all the other time that adds up. We normally try to run somewhere other than right around our house because we get sick of it fast so there is driving time. There is also digesting time because I refuse to go out without two cups of coffee and a cliff bar. Afterwards we have to cool down, stretch, roll on the foam roller, possibly take an ice bath and shower. This process can add up to six hours each day! We just didn’t have time for that this weekend. As our training hours ramp up I think I will need to find ways to trim down the extra time possibly so that I have extra nap time =) At least my legs will be fresh for the turkey day 10k I am running on Thursday.

Things on my mind this week:
• Need to finish my Christmas list
• Need to start my Christmas shopping list
• Need to make an agenda for when my parents are in town for Christmas
• Need to decorate for Christmas

Can you tell I get excited for Christmas, it really is my favorite time of the year and I can’t wait to get started!

Workout: 5.1 mile run (1 mile warm up and cool down with a 3.1 mile race pace run) and an easy mile swim

Had a good workout this morning. Last week I fell apart at the gym trying to do a tempo run. I couldn’t make it a full 3 miles at 8:45 mm (I know, I am really slow, I am working on it). I don’t know if it was because I skipped my weight lifting class on Wednesday so I had fresher legs or if it was just a better day, but this morning it went much better. After my warm up I set the treadmill on 8:45mm and was feeling good at 2.5 miles so I sped up to 8 mm to finish my set. I know it’s not a ground speed record but it’s good for me =). Swim felt great after running hard, the gym was surprisingly muggy this morning (yuck). I am hoping to do my first ever indoor ride on a trainer tomorrow. Cory and I have one now but we would like two so we can ride at the same time. Does anyone have any suggestions on what kind of trainers to get, or not get?

I am so glad it’s almost the weekend and next week is a two day work week!

I am here, alive and…training. A lot has happened since I stopped blogging. I didn’t mean to stop I was traveling for work and had no time and then I was traveling for my birthday and just, got out of the habit. It didn’t help that two people who worked for me left and we haven’t hired anyone yet. But enough of the excuses I want to be better at blogging because I really want to record the journey that Cory(hubby) and I are starting. While I was MIA We signed up for a halfiron man, I am beyond excited. We also signed up for a marathon in May, I love this marathon and have wanted to do it ever since I wanted my brother finish it two years ago (have I mentioned that I am the only one in my family that hasn’t completed multiple marathons?). So far our race list for winter/spring looks like this:

December 4th: Pueblo’s Rock Canyon Half Marathon (maybe)
December 18th: Rudolph’s Revenge 5K
January 1st: Bad Ass Half Marathon
January 15th: Frosty’s Frozen 5 Miles
February 19th: Snowman Stampede 10 Miles
May 1st: Colorado Marathon!!
June 4th: Boulder Sunrise Olympic triathlon
June 25th: Pacific Crest Half ironman
October 2nd: The Bear Chase Race 50K

We obviously need some races between June and October but we will figure those out later.

The last few months I haven’t just been sitting around, I have (mostly) healed from my knee injury and am now focusing on training for a couple half marathons that are coming up. My training plan looks something like this:

Sunday:
Long Run (10+ miles)
Monday:
am: Lift Class
pm: Yoga
Tuesday:
am: swim
pm: Interval Run
Wednesday:
am: Lift Class
pm: recovery Swim/run
Thursday:
am: Spin
pm: Yoga
Friday:
Race pace or tempo run and swim
Saturday:
Long bike ride (30+ miles)

There are a few issues with it, I am only riding twice a week and one of those is a spin class and I am only running 3 maybe four times a week. When we start training for the marathon I would like to be running at least 4 to 5 times a week. I would also like to be swimming and biking 3 times a week each. I just can’t seem to make it all fit and have a recovery day that Cory keeps reminding me that we need. Stay tuned for our half ironman/marathon plan starting in January.

Yesterday the hubs and I joined the Rocky Mountain Triathlon Club, I am excited to meet other Coloradans that do triathlons and learn a lot more about training and racing. On a more exciting note, registration for Pacific Crest Half Ironman is open for 2011. We plan to sign up this weekend, I am so excited to commit to this race! My knee is holding up so far, I ran 3 miles yesterday with only minor pain and this morning I went to a weight training class with no knee pain at all. I stopped going to weight training class in June when triathlon training ramped way up and I just didn’t have time to go, and I didn’t want to be sore for y long runs and bike rides. But man, I paid for it this morning! I was shaking half way through the class, I will be sore tomorrow!

The last few weeks have been busy, including a trip to Oregon and a two week visit by my parents. (my dog Bailey and I running on the beach)

It’s been nice getting back to routine, although I leave Saturday for two weeks out of town. I hope to get better about posting almost everyday so I can have a good log of the build up and training for Pac Crest.

And now back to work with Alex

I decided that after 3 weeks of NO running that I should take my damaged knee out for a test run. I planned to go only 2 miles and run really slow. At about a mile and three quarters I was getting excited, I didn’t have any pain until that point and in my head I was planning a comeback marathon in November or December. Somehow my body must have known my devious plans because suddenly I got a shooting pain in my knee that brought me to a walk, I walked for a minute and was able to start running again but I was so disappointed. Not even two miles…..really? I guess I will set my sights on something a little more realistic. Like a 5 mile trail run in early October.

Given that I have just now decided when I will start racing again and how far it will be, that means that I don’t have a training plan and haven’t had one in a while. I HATE not having a plan. I am flailing a bit right now trying to figure out a plan. I don’t have another triathlon planned until next year so I don’t have a lot of motivation to ride my bike or swim. So one of my tasks for the weekend is to sit down with my husband and write out a training plan for September. I would like to run the 5 mile race in under 45 minutes. I want to work on my speed this fall so when half ironman training starts in December I will be ready to start adding miles on.

Another goal of mine was to really start eating healthier so it will be easier on my body when training really starts to ramp up this winter. This may prove to be difficult given that I will be traveling for almost 3 weeks out of September. This is NOT the norm for my job, I rarely ever travel, although I will now in my new position. I know that many athletes travel for their day jobs and find time to train and eat well on the road, I am not one of those people. Once off my daily routine I tend to let everything go, don’t exercise and eat anything in sight. I really don’t want to do that this time, mostly given that I will be traveling for such a long period of time (I don’t want to come back 10 lbs heavier)! SO I really need to figure out how to keep some normality on these trips (which include, Houston, NYC and Vail).

Wish me luck, Happy September everyone!

I am staring down my 30th birthday and it’s affecting me in a way I wouldn’t have thought it would. I am not worried about getting older in fact I look forward to it. I feel like 30 has been a long time coming. I am married, own my second home and have my dream job (although it is turning out to be much more demanding and stressful than I thought it would be). Given all of these things you would think I would already feel like a grown up, but I don’t. It’s the little things that bother me and make me feel like I am living like a teenager. With my birthday looming I feel a lot of internal pressure to figure these things out. Mostly it’s balance that I think I need to figure out. I can’t seem to train for races with consistency AND keep my house from being a mess. I can’t seem to take my job seriously without letting my friendships lag, or take care of my yard and be a responsible pet owner, etc. etc. etc. I feel like I can’t ever get it all done without being exhausted and overstressed, I can’t even imagine trying to do all this AND have kids! How do people do it? How does everyone else fit it all in?

Ok, enough pity partying for me, back to work!

Workout: 60 min spin class

Does spin class count for speed work on a bike? I know it’s not the exact same, but I hate trying to do sprints on the road! I really enjoyed my spin class this morning, mostly because I like the instructor and the music she plays. My knee held up ok, I didn’t feel like I could push it as hard as I wanted to and it hurt a bit but no stabbing pain so that’s a plus. I will ice it and see how it feels for the rest of the day. Here’s hoping that I can get back on the training without any setbacks!

I have decided to take one more week off of running and start running next week. I decided I wanted to have something to train for and started looking innocently for a 5 or 10k to run at the end of September. As I was looking at the list of races I found a race on my birthday that I would LOVE to run. Problem is it’s a half marathon…..can I be ready to run a half in a month, off an injury??? I guess we will see, runners world just published an article about a last minute marathon that also listed a last minute half training plan. I would love to do it but also want my knee to heal. I guess I will have to wait and see how the training goes.

Link to the race

For the last 5 weeks my right knee just hasn’t felt normal, it feels week during normal activities and I got a stabbing pain when I would run. I was convinced I would heal with just a bit of time off, so I took a week off and then competed in a the Loveland Lake triathlon. The run is only a 5k so it didn’t hurt too bad. The next week I ran 13 miles on a treadmill, it hurt but I was determined to keep up with marathon training. The next week I ran 15 miles but it took me over 3 hours because of all of the stopping and walking. Finally last week I went to the doctor to talk about the pain that wouldn’t go away. My general practice doctor thinks it’s a torn meniscus and recommended that I see an Orthopedic surgeon. I was able to see an ortho the next day, the guy was an a** and he thinks it may be a deep knee bruise with a *slight* tear in the meniscus. I have been instructed to not do any “loading” activities (aka running) for 4 to 6 weeks and then I can only slowly start back into running IF I have no pain. If I do have pain after 6 weeks of rest then it’s surgery time.

I am devastated, so much time off of training, so many planned races missed….it sucks, and honestly I am pretty depressed about it. I can still swim and bike (as long as it doesn’t hurt) but I love to run, I am a runner who just also does triathlons. I am tempted to sit around for this time getting fat and feeling sorry for myself, that would be easier to do, but I would rather do something productive during this forced downtime. So my plan is to work on my swim and bike fitness as much as I can and try to get closer to “training weight” so come spring I can get down to “race weight”easily. So in an effort to use this time productively here are my goals:

1. lose 8 to 10 lbs
2. swim, bike, do yoga or lift weights 6 days a week
3. Ice and take vitamins everyday

This race report is SUPER belated since it was in JUNE!! But I want to post it anyway so I have it for future reference. This was my first ever triathlon, I had the best time, I loved it, I am hooked. I want to point out that the goals for this year is not to be competitive. This year is mostly to figure stuff out, like what gear we need, how to transition effectively, how to fuel on long training days, etc. We haven’t done any speed work most of our training has been dedicated to just being able to go the distance. Next year I hope to be more of a intermediate athlete and incorporate speed work into my training and get faster!

This was fine on the way in since it was all downhill and it was a nice little warm up before the race.

This race is funny because you can’t park near the race start. According to the race website:
There is no parking at the Rock Cliff Recreation area. The park simply does not have adequate parking for the large number of athletes and spectators participating in this event. You will need to proceed to the Town of Francis and park in the two lots that we have designated. Athletes will need to park and ride their bikes down into the Rock Cliff Recreation area. It will be important to pack your wetsuit, and gear into a backpack that you can take down with you.

This was fine on the way in since it was all downhill and it was a nice little warm up before the race. Both T1 and T2 were in the same place, that was nice for a first timer!

Swim: This was the worst part of the race for me, we started 30 minutes late because they had to clear a lot of debris from the course. Apparently there had been a lot of rain so there were a lot logs in the reservoir. The water was also REALLY cold. I am not sure if it was because of the temperature or because I went out way to fast but half way to the first buoy I just couldn’t get enough air, I felt like my wetsuit was choking me. My heart rate was racing and I was starting to panic. I seriously considered swimming to a kayak and giving up less than 5 minutes into the race. I slowed WAY down rounded the first buoy and felt like I could keep going, after rounding the second buoy I felt way more comfortable and could finally pick of the pace a bit. Needless to say I put up a pretty sad swim time but I am happy that I pushed through it and kept going!

Swim time: 18:26

T1: un-remarkable, hoping to get faster 2:26

Bike: My favorite part of the race, it was beautiful, I remembered to push myself but I still came off the bike with plenty of strength to run. I think my average MPH was around 17, I was happy with that since I just took up cycling 2 months ago.

Bike time: 51:49

T2: I would love to get this under 60 sec. 1:31

Run: felt ok, but was VERY hot, again, would like to be faster!

Run time: 26:19

Overall: 140:29 5th in my AG

Ahhhhhh……done