"I get by with a little help from my friends..." that's the theme of this IM training plan! Had a great run yesterday with some of my favorite people to run with: Jenny, Lynne, Marshall (fellow IM contender), and Dan. Oh yeah, Zoey and Kylee too. We ran about 75 mins on Saturday and I felt really good. This time last year I was running 90 mins handily so I want to bump it back up there again soon.

Had a pretty good training week. Here's a recap:

Monday: Walked the Bolder Boulder 10k with my kiddo's. No, it's not really training but hey, we had fun with the kids.

Tuesday: Ran a 5 mile tempo run in the morning - felt great. Swam with Master's group at 5:15 at Centennial (love that 50-meter pool!). The weather was cold and rainy and I'm pleased as punch that I got my wimpy butt in that pool! And to top it off, I did most of the workout, which included a 600 m warm-up and then EIGHT 150's. My arms were dead! But I did it - woo hoo!

Wednesday - Was supposed to ride but had some unexpected stuff come up at home (our exchange student had a major crisis - too long to write) and I was sore from Tuesday so I bailed. Can't do that too often! I did lift weights, however.

Thursday: 5 mile run AM and 1000 yd swim PM at the Rec Center (due to rain)

Friday: nada

Saturday: see above

Sunday: 2 hr solo bike ride, with hills. I felt like I could have easily rode a few more hours.

I must mention the nightmare I had last night....dreamt that I was in Florida for the Ironman and the night before the event, I realized that I had forgotten to pick up my packet...that I didn't have my race numbers or any of the stuff I was supposed to have. Major panic! I also dreamt that I hadn't eaten and that I was supposed to start the race (although I didn't have my race numbers) and I was frantic....horrible feeling...woke up stressed out. I hate those kinds of dreams!

Hoping to get another good training week in coming up this week...but need to bike on Weds for sure.

Lucky ride

Today I got in a nice 110 min ride but it almost didn't happen. Went to church this morning so couldn't ride until after lunch. The clouds were rolling in and by the time I got rolling, they were looking pretty ominous. I rode as quickly as I could out west, frequently looking back over my shoulder to see how fast they were moving.

They looked pretty serious so I decided to just do a quick loop around 83rd Avenue and back on 10th but when I came back to 59th Ave, they didn't look so bad so I headed back out to 83rd. I really wanted to ride to Windsor and back but originally didn't think I would make it before it started raining.

I ended up heading out on O street and went halfway to Windsor before I noticed that rain clouds were moving in from the west as well. Turned around and rode fast all the way home. It wasn't the ride I wanted but at least I got it in!

Pelican Fest Triathlon (aka, Windsor Triathlon)

Yesterday was the Pelican Fest Triathlon in Windsor. I have never done a triathlon in such cold, rainy weather. I don't know what the air temperature was but I know the lake temp was too damn cold!

And I thought I had gotten past the fear of open water swimming. Even standing on the beach waiting for my wave to start, I felt fairly calm and relaxed. But something weird happened when the siren went off for my wave.

I ran into the water with everyone else and started wading out to start swimming. I don't know why but I started panicking. My heart was racing and I had thoughts of "I can't do this". Everyone else was plunging in and swimming....I waded there for half a minute or so thinking I was going to have a heart attack! I'm embarrassed to even write this. I looked back at the beach and thought "I don't have to do this race. It's only Windsor...." I looked for the people in the kayaks for help. And then I just started swimming.

This happened at Boulder Peak last year too. It's an awful, icky feeling. Last year I was able to pull it together fairly quickly but yesterday it took longer to calm down, maybe because of the cold water. But ironically, after about 200 - 300 yards or so, I felt fine. I got into a rhythm and just focused on my form. I noticed that the water was really clean and I liked that a lot.

I did think a lot about the IM while I was swimming, thinking that I had a long way to go to be ready for 2.4 miles of swimming.

The bike was fast and easy. Kurt took my aero bars off the night before because they were too loose and needed some adjusting. I thought it wouldn't really matter, it was only 10 miles but unfortunately, it DID matter. I missed them terribly and I felt "naked" without them. I also think it slowed me down a bit.

The run was great. I felt the strongest on that part of it, although I could tell i didn't have as much energy as I usually do. But it was fine.

Luckily, it didn't start raining until after we were done. I'm just glad I did it, that I didn't bail on the swim. Chalk it up to gaining experience in open water and what can go wrong. Hopefully, it won't happen again.

To blog or not to blog...

I started the official IM training plan last week (although I haven't followed it exactly) but haven't posted because my laptop's LCD went out and I'm stuck using the big desktop computer which I hate. Plus, I'm trying to decide whether to continue this blog or not. Well, for now, I'll write a short synopsis of the last week, starting with tonight.

Today is Weds and since choir/church on Weds nights is finally over (yay!), I can finally do track. However, after tonight, I don't think I will! I wasn't sure if I should anyway but now I know I won't - I'm too darn slow!

Seriously, I've run track with Doug Bell's team on Weds nights for almost 20 years now. I think I I was one of the "originals"; a small group of us started running on Weds nights at Heath Junior High back in the early 90's. I used to love it and was fairly decent at it. But now, I've slowed down so much that it's painful to go. The frustrating thing is that everyone else, it seems, are doing just fine. They don't seem to have slowed as much as I have.

Anyway, my plan doesn't jive well with track so I think I'll bypass it this year.

On Monday of this week I did my first open-water swim of the season (Windsor). Lynne and I drove out there and met a group at the dock: Jim, Todd, Kevin, John, Marcie, and Stacy. It was fun. I was nervous but excited to be there. The water was not as cold as i expected it to be (which was a pleasant surprise) and although I struggled quite a bit the first 100 meters or so, I ended up doing fine. I swam around the island and felt pretty good.

I do need to loosen my wetsuit as it felt too tight. I had to stop and site about every 5 strokes. I went pretty slow but I made it and was REALLY happy about that.

On Sunday, I did the Community Classic Bicycle Tour (62 miles), which I've done every year for the last 3 years. Great weather and fun ride. I started off with Lynne and Marshall and Charlie Zucker - MISTAKE! They are really fun people but way too fast for me. I had a hard time staying up with them from the get-go. But we had a fun time - had a pinch flat before we even started but Kurt got it fixed pretty quickly.

On Tuesday I ran about 5 miles and felt great. I'm trying to not do too much since I'm signed up for the Windsor Tri this Saturday.

More soon....