Thursday, September 30, 2010

Rollar Coaster

My emotions seem to have been on one lately!

I think it's only natural when you train for an Ironman. There's just so much that goes into it; so much planning, training, thinking, wishing.....throw in a few injuries that scare the heck out of you and wa la! You're on cloud nine one day and cryin' in your beer the next.

Today was a cloud nine day. I ran 5 miles for the 2nd time this week and had relatively no pain in my hip or heel. There was the usual twinge in my hip but today it was not bad at all. The heel didn't hurt one iota. I'm not sure I say this yet but maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to run most of the marathon after all!

Yesterday I had to miss Master's swim because the kids and I went up to RMNP. But I got my butt out of bed in time to do a very hard 45 min Spinerval workout. Felt good about that. Wendy said I should only swim twice a week anyway (but that makes me a little nervous so I've been swimming 3x/week anyway).

Planning to swim at the lake tomorrow with the group at 4:30. Looking forward to a great weekend!

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Riding Utah

If I ever had to move away from Colorado, I know where I would go: Ogden, Utah (see photos below). Wow, what a great place to live, in terms of recreational opportunities. Lots of scenic roads for cycling or running, lakes to swim in, and mountains within 30 minutes.


Julie and I set out at 9:15 AM (which we realized later was too late, we should've left at 8:00).  Headed up some country roads that gradually wound their way up, up, and up. We rode 20 miles that way and then turned around and flew back to the car. Our plan was to ride 80 miles by doing several 20 or 30 mile loops.

We grabbed a quick snack and potty break at the car and then headed back out on another loop. By then, it was pretty warm and there was more traffic. But still not too bad. We headed up to Pineview Reservoir and up around a monastery. The weather was picture-perfect: warm, dry, and not a cloud in the sky!

The views were just breathtaking. The trees were in full foliage and were just breathtaking. I wanted to stop and take pictures every bend we rode around!  Julie is a fast cyclist and I had a hard time keeping up with her so picture-taking was not going to happen very often!

Since Kurt was doing the Xterra triathlon at Snow Basin and was expecting to be done between 1:00 and 2:00, we had to stop at 1:30 which was exactly 70 miles. Because we rode hard most of the way, I didn't mind too much that we didn't get 80 miles. Plus, my training plan called for 5 hours and definitely got that in.

Here are a few pic's but they don't do the area justice!



Saturday, September 25, 2010

Crossing My Fingers

So I ran 5 big fat miles yesterday - woo hoo!  First run in 9 days and it felt oh so good. I started very, very slow and actually ended up walking at first because I'm in Ogden, Utah, right now and who would ever guess it's a mini San Francisco here with all the steeper-than-you-know-what hills. We're staying with friends and it's pretty much straight up or down when you go out their front door.

Anyway, I ran/walked down the hill very fast and then started jogging. Yes, I'm going to use the J-word here. Real runners never use the J-word because none of us ever jog. Noooooo, we RUN. Jogging is for sissies. Any real runners reading this can relate to the cringe they feel when someone (who is not a runner) says to them "oh, I saw you jogging this morning". Ugh.

But I truly was jogging. It was probably a 12-min pace. Yep, that was me. Trot, trot, trot, trot. Smiling at the real runners who were wizzing by me. I could see the look on their faces, so serious and so focused. That's been me all of these years and it was kind of interesting looking at runners from a jogger's perspective. Part of me was happy for them and part of me wanted to trip them.

Anyway, I ran 5 luxurious miles and yes, my hip did hurt the whole way but it was fairly small on the pain scale. In other words, it was bearable. My heel didn't hurt at all. Its so nice to have only one of your injuries hurt at a time. Thank you, body,for picking just one yesterday!

My husband, Kurt, is doing an Xterra triathlon today at Snow Basin, near Ogden. More on that later. I'm riding 80 miles with my friend, Julie, who is also a dietitian and an injured runner. She's had to stop running completely because of another type of injury. Misery loves company, eh?

Seriously, I'm psyched to ride with her today.She has an 80 mile route planned for us. I've gotta get going so will write more and post pic's later.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Take the Good with the Bad

Recap of the last few days:

Sunday
Had one of the best swims I've ever had! I went out with Brenda to this new lake we found recently in Water Valley. Sarah and Kevin, the other IM'ers, were there too. We swam a route that we thought was 2 miles. I went slow and steady and had no trouble finishing the route (which we later found out was 2.05 miles!). The water was colder than I expected but even that didn't bother me too much. So glad we did that - HUGE confidence builder.

Monday
Totally off - woo hoo!

Tuesday
Took the kids to my mom's house and went on an, shall we say, an "eventful" bike ride. Took the kids to my moms house and left from there. Rode south of Johnstown and was having a great time when I had to make a pit-stop. Pulled off near a corn field, leaned my bike up against the corn, and went in the corn to pee.

All is well until I see a truck pull up near my bike. Crap!  I start panicking because I didn't want the person in the truck to see me yet I also didn't want Mr. Truck-dude to take my bike either!  I crouched there breathing heavily trying to figure out what to do. He wasn't leaving. What was he doing????  I decided to walk out and get my bike and if he said anything to me, I'd just laugh it off and say I had to use the "facilities" (hoping he would have a sense of humor). But then his truck slowly started to roll on by...thank God!

Then, when I came out of the corn field, I heard more trucks - there were several large trucks that passed me before I stopped at the cornfield - and now there was a long line of them coming. Darn it - I chose this road because it was a "quiet country road" (not!) and i didn't really want to ride back yet. But all I could see were big red trucks coming down the road so I turned around and went back.

As I'm heading back to Milliken, a deer comes flying out of nowhwere and darts across the road. Fortunately I was looking ahead at the time and saw him in plenty of time to slow down. Not too far down the road, a ground hog runs out in front of me. Geez!

At this point, I knew I needed to speed up if I wanted to make this ride worth all the trouble. So I tucked in tight to the aero position and cruised along at a pretty good clip. Yay - I love riding like that!  I turned left at 257 just chompin at the bit to ride up Mad Russian hill. Feeling esp good, I flew up that hill faster than I've ever rode it. I thought seriously about going back down and charging back up it again but just kept going. I managed to keep a pretty fast pace all the way back to Greeley (need to get a computer on my bike so I know what speed I'm going!).

Then, on west 10th, I passed a car that obviously had smashed into a tree. There was no way the driver could have survived that accident and sure enough, I found out later he didn't. Pretty sad.

Not long after passing the car, I flatted - first time in years. Fortunately, I was less than a mile from my mom's house so I walked my bike back to the car. I needed to get the kids and run errands - will fix flat later.

Today, I swam Master's and felt pretty good. Was almost able to stay up with Sarah and Natalie but not quite. That's ok, I can tell I'm faster than last year so that's all I care about right now.

The one thing in the back of my mind all of this time was running. When will I get to run again?  My hip is better but my heel was hurting really bad today and I haven't run since Saturday and even then, it was only for a few miles. I am literally hobbling around the house, most of the time with an ice pack on my hip.

Tonight I am feeling very discouraged. I'm glad that my swimming and biking are going well - thank God for that - but I'm really down about not being able to run. I will try on Friday and maybe it will work out. But right now it hurts to even walk. And it's not just the Ironman that worries me, it's the fact that I may not be able to run at all in the future. I don't want to "awfulize" but it's hard not to when you can't walk without severe pain.

I just miss it. I've been running for 20+ years and it's hard to not do something that has been a part of your daily routine for all these years, something that makes you feel good and something you can do with friends.

I'm tired of the pain too. I can see why people get hooked on pain relievers. My heel and hip hurt a lot and I'm tired of cringing with every step I take.

Well, tomorrow is another day and maybe things will be better. I'm planning on a Spinerval ride early in the morning and then we're driving to Ogden, Utah, for Kurt's Xterra triathlon Saturday. One of my best friends lives in Ogden and it will do me good to hang out with her for awhile. I'm planning to run there on Friday so hopefully I'll have some good news to report when I get back!  We're also planning to ride 80 miles when on Saturday and that will be nice.

Too tired to think....more later.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Plan B

So, today I ran for the first time since Weds and although my hip hurt a little as I moved around, I thought it would be ok but it wasn't. It hurt so bad that I walked most of the way home.

I tried running on grass but it didn't seem to matter. And I guess that make sense; this is not an impact-related injury. It's a strain of some sort and the pain is caused from the swaying of my left leg going forward and backward (if that makes sense), not when my foot hits the ground.

I kept running for awhile hoping (and praying) that the pain would subside but it just got worse. I decided to bag the run and go home.

So, the plan is to lay off running for a week. I'll swim and bike (thank God!) but forego any running. I'll ice my hip everyday and keep taking Celebrex.

Not to worry...it could be much worse. I'll walk the IM marathon if I have to. At least I will probably have a good swim and bike!  Hopefully by then it will be better and I'll be able to run most of the way. We'll see.

Tomorrow our plan calls for a 2-3 hr ride and I decided that this would be a good time to go to church. Katerina has a girlfriend over to spend the night tonight who goes to our church and I can take all 3 kids to church tomorrow. They just started a new Sunday school program and it would be nice for them to go to that. So, I'm going to ride earlier than our pre-planned ride at 8:00 and ride from my house. I doubt if Sarah and Brenda will want to go earlier (esp as cold as it is today!) and to change locations so I'll just go alone. Or maybe Colleen can go with me. Either way, 2 hrs is not bad to ride by yourself.

Ok, chin up and keep on truckin!

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Gotta Keep on Truckin'

That's my motto these days.

I've had a number of aches and pains lately (both mentally and physically) but at this point, I just gotta keep on truckin'. I can almost see the finish line at this point and I'm going for broke.

Today my hip pain is back with a vengeance - it hasn't hurt this bad in months. I swam and ran this morning (about 2000 yards at Master's and then a 6 mile run). Somewhere along the way I must have aggravated that muscle again because it hurts so bad I can hardly walk. I'm icing it as we speak. I guess the good news is that my heel didn't hurt so we're back to the hip thing again.

But.... I gotta keep on truckin'.

I've been wrestling with some personal issues lately, as we all do from time to time. But it's nothing I can't handle and with my re-newed focus on the finishing this Ironman, I'm feeling pretty good. The journey has been different than I expected but that's the way it goes.

Tomorrow I'm doing Spinervals and I need to get up early and get them done before the kids get up, or at least have most of it done by the time they get up. I like Spinervals - they're an extremely hard workout and I always sweat a ton when I do them.

Then Friday is a long swim, Sat is "only" a 10 mile run, and Sunday is "only" a 2-3 hr bike ride - woo hoo!  I get a little overwhelmed when I think about the training ahead of me in October - the really high mileage weeks - so for now, I'll enjoy this recovery week and just keep on truckin....

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Big Miles

This is going to sound strange but we're into the big miles now and I didn't even realize it until I sat down to write this entry. Last weekend, I ran 14 miles on Saturday and rode 81 miles on Sunday....almost without a blink of an eye.

The big surprise for me, though, was how well the run went. I've been struggling so long with my running and for the first time, I could go the distance without too much trouble. I went very slow and was not able to keep up with the group (except for Marshall, who I ended up running with), but two good things happened: I didn't really care AND I felt fine. YAY!

We all started as a group but after dropping a gu packet and going back to get it, I fell behind. Then I had to dash into some bushes to you-know-what and fell even further behind. Everyone but Marshall kept going so we just ran together the rest of the way. That was fine because I'm not sure I could keep up with them anyway!

But there was something very different about this run. Usually at around mile 8 or so, I start getting the "I can't make it" feeling. Mile 8 came and went and I was happily chatting with Marshall about kids and sports and to be honest, didn't even notice that we passed mile 8. Then mile 10 came and then mile 12...lo and behold, I wanted to keep going!

We ran to Jo Jo where Marshall needed to stop to watch Allie do a time trial. My kids were playing soccer at 9:00 at Monfort and originally I was going to run back to WOW, get the truck and drive to my mom's who lives down the street from WOW, shower, and drive to Monfort to watch the games (long story on why that was the plan).

But it was 8:40 when we reached Jo Jo so I had to make a decision....I decided to just run to Monfort and watch the games before showering. The problem with doing that is that I'm super sweaty and I hate sitting/standing for an hour in sweaty clothes but more importantly, I need to re-fuel for my big ride the next day and I wouldn't have any food or drink to do that.

So I stood in the street for a few mins to decide what to do....go back, shower, eat/drink, drive to game and be late....or run to Monfort, be sweaty, thirsty, and hungry but watch both kids' games from start to finish. The kids won out and off to Monfort I went.

(Funny side note - I was so tired that I accidentally ran down the wrong street while trying to take a shortcut and ended up having to backtrack to the main street that leads to Monfort. I've lived in Greeley 22 years and know my way around...oops!)

But Sunday was the bright spot of the weekend. I had the best ride of my life. I rode with Sarah, Brenda, and Todd. We rode 81 miles on a new route that Todd took us on and I felt fantastic. I have never felt stronger in my life. We started at our usual pace and I felt good but didn't feel particularly strong at that point but it got better as the ride went on, to the point where I was hammering the hills at the end.

I honestly don't know where the energy came from. I felt like I couldn't slow down. I passed Sarah and Brenda a few times, hoping they would stay on my wheel and then we could take turns drafting on each other but either they slowed down or I sped up because before long, I was way ahead. I felt a little bad about it but since Todd was way ahead of us as well, I decided to just ride up with him and then wait for them.

One thing I will point out is that I would never leave one person behind. That is one rule of group cycling that I learned a long time ago. Its ok for one person to go ahead of two people but two people shouldn't leave one person behind, unless that one person said to go ahead. So I went on knowing that they were together.

I also knew that they were wanting to stay in zone two, which is a lower intensity, and that they were going to run after the ride, so they didn't want to push too hard. That is very smart if you are wanting to run afterwards (plus, Sarah was having an off-day and her legs were tired - I've been there many times!). But I was not planning on running after the ride (per advice from Wendy and Kurt) so I was free to push as hard as I wanted. And I did!

So, all in all it was a superb weekend and I'm amazed that I ran and rode a total of 95 miles. I really believe that nutrition played a big role in how well I felt on both days and I will write more about that soon (in case anyone ever reads this blog and wants to know more!).

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Another Epic Ride

What a day. We rode 75 miles and most of it was in temps above 90 degrees. Rode to Carter Lake and back and had a major headwind for part of it. The good news is that we also had a tailwind on the way home so we flew for a good long way. But the heat was intense!

Then, we ran 2 miles when we got off our bikes. We were all dead and VERY thirsty. I rode well today but the run was brutal. I could hardly finish.

Have more to say about yesterday and today but I'm leaving town for 4 days - will write more later. Hope to get in a good ride and run while I'm gone!

Back in the Game

Today I ran 13 miles, which is only the 2nd time I've run that far since the Ironman. It felt great to be running that far again and the best news is that my heel didn't hurt AT ALL!

I've been doing long runs on weekends for 24 years now (wow, even I can't believe that!). I ran my first marathon in 1987 and I've been doing long runs on the weekends ever since.

I've run through every type of weather - extreme heat and extreme cold. I've run in happy times and sad times, down country roads and along busy highways. And over the years, I managed to finish 12 marathons.

So today was like a trip down memory lane - running long with my friends. The only difference was - I was much slower!  I've really lost a lot of my speed over the years but my friends haven't. But it was ok - I was just glad to be running long again.

I have more to say ....to be continued!

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Major Milestone

Today I did something I've never done before: I completed the entire Master's swim workout. Yep, 3000 yards!  To most triathletes, that's nothing. To me, that's HUGE.

I've always had to stop the workout early for two reasons: one, I had to be home by 7:15 to get my kids ready for school (last year), and two, I physically could not do the entire workout.

So, today I just kept plugging away and hadn't even thought about doing the whole workout. I did the main set and felt fine so I thought I'll do the smaller stuff at the end of the workout. Did that and got out. There was still a 200 warm down but I thought I'd done enough but as I was toweling off, I asked Richard how many yards the whole workout had in it, and he said "well, if you do the warm down, it's 3000".

I swirled around and said "what???"  He calmly said "3000".  Last year, I did 1500 at the most and that's what i did all summer too. I had always admired people who could swim that much and didn't really think it was in my grasp so I just settled with my piddly little 1500 yards.

I threw off my towel, dove back in, and swam the 200 yards. I couldn't leave with that elusive goal within my reach!  And I just wanted to say that those magic words "I swam 3000 yards"!

It's kind of like running your first half-marathon or marathon. I feel like I accomplished something and although 3000 yards is nothing for many triathletes, it's a big deal to me and I'm super pumped about it (can you tell!).

I was on such a high when I left that I went home and ran 40 mins on pure adrenaline!  I ran on the grass over at UNC and felt great. I really do feel like I've achieved a higher fitness level lately. I really hope it pays off at the IM too!

Yesterday I biked 30-some miles on my own. Had a nice time. Rode out to Windsor, Crossroads Blvd, and back. Tomorrow I'm doing Spinervals. Friday is a lake swim and the weekend is the usual run on Sat, bike on Sun.

Life is good!