On Saturday Cory and I tackled our second triple brick of the season. This one was longer than our last, with a 20 mile bike ride immediately followed by a three mile run. Repeat that three times and you have a pretty tough workout, especially when the wind really picks up by the third set.

We are lucky that my mom and dad will puppy sit and let Cory and I swim bike and run around their picturesque neighborhood.

It was overcast on Saturday but still in the mid 70s so it was great conditions for a workout (except for that wind)

The first set was fairly easy, it was nice to break up the workout into smaller chunks.

Multiple bricks are a nice way to work on running off the bike. We tried to run hard for the first mile and half off the bike then finish the last mile and a half easy.

Second set was a little harder but I still felt strong.

It was nice to run around a little lake, tempting to try some open water swimming!

Third set was much harder, I need some more TITS (time in the saddle) as I was sore on the bike. I rode my road bike this weekend as riding my tt bike is still very uncomfortable, good thing I have a retul fit on Friday!

I was happy to be done after out third set and even happier to enjoy a BBQ with my family.

Do you do multi-bricks?

We have been experiencing crazy warm weather lately. I know many people have been getting really weird/horrible weather, and while I have enjoyed our unseasonably warm weather and getting my workouts done outside, I am nervous about what it will mean for our spring/summer.

We are cooling down for a few days but then back to warm, nice weather. And while the warm weather makes training easier it does remind me that we are getting closer to Ironman Coeur d’Alene, just 97 short days away. It makes me nervous, will I be ready in time?!?!? I sure hope so.

In the mean time I am enjoying the spring flowers

and new strappy sandals.

We completed our 20/3 triple brick this weekend and enjoyed catching up sleep, but more on that later. This week has a focus on recovery before we head into a new phase of our training. We are moving from base building phase:

The BASE BUILDING PHASE is used to build the aerobic capacity. Although longer duration workouts at slower pace and intensity are predominant, there will be some training that will test your anaerobic base. Specific emphasis will be placed upon each discipline (swim, bike, or run). Depending upon when you begin your training schedule and your level of fitness, the Base Building Phase generally makes up the bulk of your training schedule

to Capacity Building Phase:

The CAPACITY BUILDING PHASE emphasizes developing your anaerobic capacity and increasing your lactate threshold level. Although you will have long aerobic sessions, speed and intensity will increase. Your weekly training hours will increase and 2 a day workouts will become a daily routine. Bricks and transition workouts will also become a regular part of your training during this phase. Your workouts will be more challenging and focusing on race pace.

So more intensity and time training. Wish us luck! I haven’t seen a schedule yet but I am curious for what it will be like.

What is your weather like? Are you looking forward to spring?

Unfortunately this weekends plans were thrown off course. Cory and I had planned to drive down to Salida Saturday morning for the Run Through Time Half Marathon Trail Race. I was excited for this race and while I knew it would be hard, I was excited for the challenge and to see how I would do in this type of race.

Friday night we drove up to my parents house to drop our dogs off for some puppy sitting.

Even though we weren’t leaving until morning, I don’t think my mom and dad would appreciate us dropping off our dogs at 4 am.

After dropping off the “kids” we grabbed some sandwiches from a little shop near my parent’s house to eat on the way home. We got home and headed to bed early since we had an early wake up call. I will save you the gory details but Cory spent most of the night up very sick. Poor thing ate something that his body wasn’t happy about. We discussed what to do about the race. Cory understandably said he wasn’t up for running, while I was fine I didn’t want to have to drive six hours by myself to run (or have Cory drive me while sick) after losing a lot of sleep myself. We made the difficult decision to miss the race and DNS. These things happen but it was a bummer. The really sad thing was that by 7am when we got up Cory was feeling completely better but there wasn’t enough time to get to Salida for the start.

The good news was Cory was feeling good enough to get some training in and it was BEAUTIFUL out so we grabbed our bikes and rode a nice 60 miles out around Boulder.

On Sunday we made up for missing our half marathon by running 15.5 miles along one of my favorite paths.

I can’t wait for the trees to get their leaves, I am ready for spring! The weather has been so warm that I ran in a tank and got a slight sun burn. I would have liked to head to a hillier trail but we were limited on time so kept in simple.

After our run we had a lot of errands to run but an iced coffee made it painless.

Have you had to DNS a race?

How was your weekend?

Cory and I are trying to finalize our plans for this Saturday’s Half Marathon. We will be running the Run Through Time trail half marathon in Salida, Colorado. In my great planning for this race I didn’t realize it was 150 miles away from Denver, whoops! Looks like we will be taking off on Friday and staying the night in Salida. I am excited though because I have never been there before and it sounds like it’s beautiful.

I am a bit nervous about how difficult the course will be, it’s mostly technical trail, very hilly and sometimes covered in snow. This is my first official trail race as well, I am trying to get used to racing on trails so that I can complete a ultra later this year, but I am just SO SLOW on trails that I am not sure I will make the time cut offs. I am hoping this race will teach me a lot and hopefully build some confidence.

2 mile course is 100% dry. The half marathon course was 95% dry as of 3/4 a.m. There are some hard packed snowy spots on an uphill in the half marathon from mile 8-8.5. This may be muddy race day. The marathon is ~80% dry as of 3/3. Marathoners will very likely encounter sections of mud and a little hard packed snow and some ice between miles 5-7. Miles 13.5-19 are 60% snow, with some ice spots in the marathon. This snow was ~2” deep untracked on packed tire tracks on 3/3. Marathoners follow the half marathon route to the finish for the last 6.3 miles, so marathoners will encounter a snowy uphill with mud at mile 21-21.5.

Have you ever done a long distance trail race? Any advice for a beginner?

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?

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.

This is not a triathlon/running/training type post. You have been warned.

I think of myself as generally a nice person. I HATE when people feel bad, I do everything in my power to not hurt people’s feelings. But I think I play into gossip way more than I should. I feel that it is easy for most people to be pulled into negative gossip, especially if it’s under the guise of concern. It’s easy for concern to degrade into a complain fest and have a negative spiral.

Lately I have been paying attention to the actions of people that I really look up to and I have noticed how they don’t get involved when gossip starts, shut it down and only have nice constructive things to say. I want to exhibit those qualities too and think that it must have a positive effect on your mental health not to participate in a negative activity.
So the plan is to do my best to not gossip, and to try my best to shut it down when others try to involve me for the rest of the month. Why the rest of the month? It’s not really a scientific choice, saying for the rest of my life seems unrealistic and like I am setting myself up for failure. I wanted a short enough time period that wasn’t overwhelming but was long enouph that I would be able to hopefully see a difference in how I feel. I know I won’t be perfect but the goal is to be conscious of what I am saying about others and what I am participating in.
What do think about gossip? Harmless, Hurtful, don’t care?
We will return to our regularly scheduled Triathlon blogging tomorrow. Happy Friday the 13th all!

Living in Denver means that sometimes you just aren’t going to be able to easily workout outside. Most of the time we have beautiful weather here but this week isn’t cooperating with me.

I am more than happy to run in the snow

But I have a bike two hour hill workout on the schedule tomorrow. I don’t like to bike in the cold let alone ice and snow. I was really hoping to get the new steed out on the roads tomorrow but it’s not going to happen. I am a little sick of my trainer so decided to head to the gym to spin on my own for an hour then take a spin class. The cherry on top will be a yoga class when I am done. While not what I wanted to do I am accepting it and looking forward to it a bit.

What are your thoughts? Is working out inside as good as outside?

This morning was a bit rough, I was lazy and slept in almost every day while on vacation so this morning when the alarm at 4:20 am I was not very happy about it. But I drug myself out of bed and to the gym where it was about twice as busy as normal. I don’t mind the newbies too much and hope that their new year’s resolutions stick! I was happy to find an open treadmill and bust out 5 miles of intervals.

One of the things I am trying to get better about is taking supplements. I am asking a lot of my body so I want to make sure I am giving it everything it needs. Here are the supplements I currently take:

• Glucosamine for joint health
• Fish Oil
• Vitamin D
• Vitamin B complex
• Multivitamin
• Iron (Not everyday)

I am curious about some of the supplements specific to endurance athletes like beta-alanin (you can read about it here) or some of the other sport specific supplements (some are listed here). But by nature I am skeptical, do the supplements really help with anything or am I just paying for really expensive pee.

All of this came from watching a video of someone running the Devils Mountain 50k that I want to run in September. The video was to advertise Extreme Endurance supplements and it got me thinking.

What do you think? Have you taken any port specific supplements? If so do they help?