Running in the Moment

Off on the run and I felt GOOD.  Like ‘woah’ good.  My legs felt fresh and ready to go and my first mile was at 8:27 and felt effortless.  I immediately thought of how things went at the Illinois Half Marathon and how I blew up at mile 7 so I was trying to monitor my heart rate and exertion so that this time I wouldn’t blow up.  

First mile done and feeling good!

Mile 2 was close to the same pace and mile 3.  Oh my.  This could go really well or really bad…but I felt so good I didn’t want to slow down.  I did walk the aid stations which helped, and also the since the temps were high 70’s also was a HUGE help.  If it had been in the 90’s I really doubt I would have had the same run.

Still going…

…and going

I saw JMR several times on the course which was awesome – I love that guy, he was an awesome sherpa and photog….he took *awesome* photos.

Headed out for the second loop.

There isn’t too much to report on the run…in retrospect I think that maybe I could have pushed it harder but at the time, mentally, I didn’t want to… I guess I really need to work on mental toughness, because once I hit mile 8, I was really struggling.

Yeah…was starting to finally feel it.

But… as the miles went by I was able to see what time on the run I might finish (at this point I had no idea what total race time was), and thought 2 hours sounded awesome in my mind since my last half I did the run in 2:10.  I had slowed down at parts during the last five miles but kept telling myself ‘if you keep doing x:xx, you can still finish until 2 hours’ so I kept pushing and moving.  

Nearing the finish…

Before I knew it I was .5 miles away…and I wanted to walk…but I kept moving….and then I heard the announcer and the finished line and kicked it in overdrive, like, moving my ass as fast as it could and passed two people.

The final kick to the finish!

 I thought I was hauling butt, however after seeing the video JMR took, I look like I’m out for a Sunday jog, oh well 🙂

Overall I finished the swim three minutes faster than my best swim, my bike was definitely not a PR (darn those hills and my also still being very cautious on the bike since the crash), and the run was a huge pr.  Total time it was 6:00:59…PR compared to 6:07 at Redman in 2012.  I so would have hauled ass in transition if I had known I was that close to breaking 6 hours!!  Lesson learned, keep moving because you never know what can happen!

Happy with a new PR

Overall I LOVED this race, not just because I had a PR but because of how well it was run and how AWESOME the roads were.  I’m sorry OKC but your roads are downright dangerous, these roads were paved and marked well and I really appreciated that!

I might just have to come back to do this race again 🙂  Until then….onto IMLOU training…:)

After I crossed the mount I clipped one foot in, hopped on the seat and was off.  Oh man.  I was off.  I felt the cool air hitting my wet tri kit and felt a flash of exactly how I felt during the beginning of the bike at Redman.  It made my stomach churn.  I talked myself out of it and just told myself ‘You have to keep going’.  3 miles in, I still felt anxious and wanted to get off my bike and I just kept saying ‘You have to keep going.  Get settled in.  You will feel better’.  Honestly, I wanted to cry, but I knew I had to do this and crying was just dumb at this point….I needed to get past this.  So on I went.  And on I went.  And before I knew it I had passed mile 5 and after that I had a slight smile on my face thinking ‘Well, I made it farther than I did at Redman’….and then I hit mile 18… and felt even better.  Yes, it was a tough course – there were hills, there was wind but hell…. I wasn’t laying on the concrete…I was pretty darn happy as each mile ticked by and felt my energy surging throughout the ride.

At mile 35 I had another male racer say ‘Yeah STL!’ as he passed and shortly after another female racer say ‘I like your bike!’ who had a Cannondale Slice also, and later I was just chatting it up with another guy about the darn hill we were climbing….and with those small little things, they were such reminders as to why I love this sport so much. It’s an individual sport, but there is still so much camaraderie.

I also wasn’t as timid on the down hills as I usually am, which is HUGE for me.  I only braked once and even then it wasn’t for too long.  It wasn’t until after the race that I saw on my Garmin file but I hit 35 mph on downhills twice that day.  Probably a record for me.  Let’s just say I really felt comfortable on the course. 🙂

When I came back into the campground I felt on. top. of. the. world.  I was going to get to finish this race!!  I flew into t2…chatted it up a tiny bit with the girl next to me and decided I would use the port a potty instead of holding it during the run (ordinarily I would NEVER waste time using the porta potty).  Then I was off on the run!

Cruising into T2

Bike: 3:12:34

On to the swim! After JMR and I hung out for a while, plus an additional 15 minutes (they pushed all waves back 15 minutes, I guess because traffic was so bad getting into the park), then I finally lined up with my wave around 7ish (the first wave went off at 6:30).  I chatted nervously with my tri club buddy until we waded into the water and let me tell you… I was nervous.  The last time I did this distance I was so innocent about the day’s events and didn’t know what could lie ahead of me.  I know that sounds negative, but that’s kind of how I approached the day.  Grateful and Cautious.  Two of the words that kept coming into my thoughts throughout the day.  Also ‘treat this as a training day’ was constantly in my head to keep the stress at bay.  The goal was to finish.

Cue the unflattering pic in a wetsuit 🙂

Treading water and waiting to hear the gun go off!

Before I knew it, the gun went off and we were swimming.  Oh boy!  What to expect….I didn’t know!  I really dislike swimming in the local open water swims because I find the water kind of gross, so I hadn’t done an open water swim since Redman last Sept. Yipes.  Plus, I did get a bit panicky last year in my wetsuit, so I didn’t know what to expect.  Except.  Nothing…. nothing at all. I got into a groove with my strokes and that was it.  One, two three….breathe… one two three….breathe and before I knew it I was at the turn around.  Wow. Ok.  This was going well!

As I kept going I did start to feel a bit tired/warm (I was wearing my full sleeved wetsuit) and was ready to be done…but also not.  The thought of getting on the bike filled me with a heavy feeling in my stomach, not dread but, not excitement either.  For a moment I wished I could just keep swimming instead (and I NEVER feel that way, lol)..

Before I knew it I was up on the bank, climbing out of the water and having helpers get me out of my wetsuit.  I picked up my walk towards transition but it was by no means a run (JMR took a video of me and oh my…I look like an old lady taking a stroll in the park).  After getting socks and shoes on and of course helmet, I was on my way on the bike.  Yikes.

Moving slowly…

I’m going to do this! Maybe… yeah…maybe…

Swim: 39:48

I’m alive.  Really, I am 🙂  Most of my time has just taken a non-training focused approach since my last post so updating my blog wasn’t a high priority. I have been tasked with a life-sucking project at work that makes me want to cry every day, but I am trying to push through that, which honestly is taking waaay more strength than it does to discipline myself to train 1-2x a day.  It really is tough.  I guess I should say at least I have a job!

So aside from that challenge I am working on getting back on the bike OUTSIDE.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Since the crash last September I haven’t ridden a bike outside since two weekends ago.  Yes, I know I have a half-Ironman in seven weeks, yes I know. (oh boy, deep breaths…I’m not falling behind, I’m not falling behind).

So I gathered up my courage which included my my credit card receipts (yeah, I paid $725 for an Ironman, plus a brand new tri-bike last year which was waaaay more pricey), and ventured out on a closed trail two weekends ago.  The first 20 minutes were scary…as in my legs were so darn shaky, that when I unclipped, I almost toppled over, but after an hour things seemed pretty ok. I was alive, I was moving.  I ran into some tri club friends a few miles into my ride which helped ease my nerves as well 🙂  However, (a big HOWEVER) in my haste to get ready and NOT freak out, I completely forgot about sunscreen…something very important when you’re outside in the sun for an hour or longer (or when you’re pale as all get out like me)…so when I got home all victorious that I rode for two hours, I was awarded with a really nice sunburn.  Argh (Mom, I know you’re cringing as I typed that.  sorry).

First and only burn of the year…I swear!!!

This past weekend I bit the bullet again and met up with some of my closest lady friends and rode with them for 2.5 hours.  Honestly if they hadn’t been there, the ride wouldn’t have happened.  I am much slower than them (boo, hiss) due to the fact that I haven’t ridden outside much (and that they are awesome anyways), but they waited for me at big intersections and were very positive.  I love these ladies.

Hooray for ride #2!!  Yes, please ignore the sticker on my helmet. I had no idea it was still on it.

So this week is somewhat an easy week aside from my half and JMR’s FULL MARATHON!!  I am so so so pumped about his race.  This guy has worked his butt off and has run his 20 milers around a 9 min pace (what??), so I see a great race in the future.  Regardless of how he does, I am super impressed about his discipline during this really crappy winter we had during training.

Well, that’s about it…stay tuned for the race recap and after that…I promise to do better weekly recaps of workouts.

Oh! I did do…..*drumroll* over 10 hours of training last week!  Not super huge but not shabby and getting closer to respectable Ironman training weeks 🙂 (ok, well, in the beginning of Ironman training…not peak weeks)

Off to bed!

Last week was a tough one, not nearly as tough as my workouts are going to get, but tough enough for now 🙂 My legs were pretty darn tired Sunday night. Just a quick update, nothing too exciting going on with training….

My workouts during the week were more of the usual…

Tues: 45 min trainer ride

Wed: 45 min run/ 2000m swim (due to work that one got pushed to Saturday)

Thurs: 1 hr trainer followed by 2 mi run

Friday: 5 mile run

Saturday was a busy day – I had a 1:30 ride followed by 2 mi run (+ the missing swim from Saturday).  That night JMR and I were also invited last minute to attend to a Black Tie Charity Gala because my aunt had an extra spot at her table!  I was excited to go, because JMR and I were going a couple of months ago, but plans changed.  We had to rush to a nearby tux shop on Friday evening – thank goodness they had his size and we able to have it ready by Saturday.

After we both got our workouts in for the day (JMR is still training for the full Illinois marathon in April, so he ran 18 yesterday. Ouch!) We lounged on a couch for a bit and then got ready.  We had a great time and managed to stay out way later than I thought we would…almost 11:45 (come on folks, that’s late for me….I am a 9p bedtime kind of gal these days)!

(I should have a picture of JMR and I all dressed up soon!  Somehow the picture we took never got sent to my email)

Although sadly I woke up to ice / snow covering the ground and a Facebook post stating that my gym was closed for the day.  Boo Hiss.  I had a tough workout yesterday, but I was antsy to get moving and wasn’t in the mood to have a rest day.  I quickly text my coach to ask what she thought I should do since swimming and running were both out (no way I was going to risk running outside and slip on the ice) and so she gave me a trainer workout as well as instructions to do some core after.

The trainer workout kicked my butt!  I’m not sure if it was because I rode for 1:30 the day before combined with running (plus, I’m riding in tri shorts, less padding…trying to get used to my saddle faster…so…it’s a tad more painful) or because I didn’t eat breakfast before, but regardless I was absolutely spent by the end of my hour on the trainer.

I am horrible at taking ‘selfie’s’…however I knew you were dying to see a pic of me in action on the trainer…since that’s where I spent most of my time this week/weekend (stupid snow!)

As for the rest of the day… it was spent hanging out on the couch and in the kitchen while the weather was icky.  I did manage to rush to the store early in the morning because I realized I had no food (we’re talking just eggs, a banana and a sweet potato.  Sad stuff), and picked up ingredients for a slow cooker roast as well as some other ingredients to cook up for the week.  The roast turned out pretty well, I had leftovers yesterday for lunch!

Yesterday was a rest day, but today I have….you guessed it….a trainer ride!  25 more weeks until IMLOU!

As of yesterday, IMLOU is 26 weeks away!  That sounds far but really, considering I still have some serious work to get my base built back up again (my training volume has been in the 5-6 hour range…really really low, mostly due to a hamstring strain in January and missing an entire week when I was in Cancun), it isn’t that far away….

The past few weeks have been filled with the usual suspects….work, training, a little volunteering at races and too much eating 🙂  It doesn’t help that JMR got me a ton of chocolate for Valentine’s day and we did a 5k race on the 15th, ‘Run for the Chocolate’ (we also ran it last year) where we got even more chocolate.  Also, at the finish they had cookies, pretzels and other treats to dip into individual little containers of chocolate.  Oh lordy.

When I first saw the arrangement JMR surprised me with I didn’t even notice the flowers…all I saw was chocolate, whoops!

So along with ramping up my training volume this week (a whopping 8.5 hours, ha), I’m also cleaning up my eating.  It does help knowing that I will be in Florida in a little over three weeks, so I do have some incentive!

A typical evening snack

I also have a new addition to my family of kitchen appliances….Henrietta the Hen, an egg cooker!  Yes, I realize how lazy that sounds when I have a perfectly good pot that I can boil eggs in, however my old egg cooker was so easy, no waiting for boiling water and it cooked eggs in half the time it takes in a pot (it boiled 4 eggs in 6 minutes).  I usually make them before work in the morning so anything that can help me to sleep in a little longer is a win in my book.  So when it died last week (it was 14 years old) I searched for a replacement and couldn’t resist one that looked as cute as Henrietta.

Sadly she is not as much of rockstar as my old egg cooker when it comes to boiling eggs….there was a little false advertising on the website and the ‘cooks eggs in 6 minutes’ only applies to poaching 4 eggs, it takes 13 minutes to hard boil 4. Bummer.  At least she’s cute looking, and for $20 I figured it was worth it to keep since it still is faster than waiting for water to boil and then cooking the eggs for 12 minutes.  So much thought and effort over hard boiled eggs!

I promise my next post won’t be all about chocolate and eggs, I will probably have much more to say about training since my volume is definitely increasing!  I also plan to get back into the routine of posting my weekly totals to help keep me accountable!

Wow!  It’s been well over a month since my last post, as usual time is flying and I have been busy!

After the holidays I started officially training for IMLOU and it has been met with mixed success….I’ve had some good weeks and some weeks where training was nonexistent.  I also had some pretty big events going on in January so those took priority and training took a backseat.

The first big event was my tri club’s Frozen Buns Run 5 & 10K race on January 18th, and this year I was co-race director (what did I sign up for? Kidding :)).  We started planning for this event in August and boy was it a lot for work!  It was a lot of fun though and despite having a lower number of participants this year compared to last year, it still was a big success.  One of the tasks I was in charge of was the race schwag (we typically do something different from the typical t-shirt) so I picked out these awesome stainless steel travel mugs (love them!):

Once FBR was over, I was still in go-mode as I had a baby shower I was throwing for a friend the following weekend, so most of my nights the week after the race were spent running errands for items for the party.  One of the ‘games’ we had at the shower was to guess how many m&m’s were in a jar (her theme for the baby’s room is elephants with white, purple and grey), so Friday night I was busy sorting out m&m’s to pick out the purple and white ones 🙂

I wore gloves while sorting/counting….I promise! 😉

Once the shower was over, I had a big night out with one of my good friends for her birthday.  We went to a fancy dinner at Lucas Park Grille downtown, and after dinner we were off to the City Museum!  There was one slide that everyone went down and all I could hear were screams.  I was the last of the group to approach the slide and when I looked down I couldn’t see anything.  Nothing!  Did I mention I am afraid of heights?

View from the top of the slide….yeah…I told you it was scary.

It took my friends and two twelve-year olds next to me at the top to finally coach me to go down the slide after being stuck up there for ten minutes.  When I finally went down…oh boy was it a drop – and scary!  That was the last slide I went down for the night, and decided that the bar was a bit more my style after doing lots of climbing around.

A motion shot of me getting off the evil scary slide!

The last week of January I did fit some training in….but I spent most of it in Cancun!

View from our hotel balcony

I went with three of my best girl friends that I met through the tri club over the past two years and we had an absolute blast.  Although we only had a day and a half of real sunshine since it was rainy and cold on Friday (We arrived Thursday afternoon and left late Sunday morning)…however it wouldn’t have mattered to me anyways since I spent most of the time under a huge umbrella 🙂  I burn so darn easily that I am making it my mission this year to not get burnt!  Especially while training!  Back to Cancun, the food was pretty good, we got some workouts in and the conversation was great.  No drama, nada.  Such a great group of girls, I feel so lucky to have them as my friends!

The four of us on the last night

After Cancun it’s been back to the grind this week and back on the trainer/treadmill/ and in the pool.

Ooh!  I also recently purchased a new piece of home fitness equipment, a Bosu ball!

It arrived the night before I left for Cancun, so I haven’t had a chance to use it yet, but so far I had found tons of exercises I can do on it to get a full body workout in.  I figured that I do a lot of workouts from home (riding my trainer during the week or running around my neighborhood and then tack on this short workout after) so this will help me get in strength training without having to head to the gym. Plus, I use it at PT quite a bit, so it will be nice to have one at home when I no longer need to go. Yes, you read that correctly it’s been 3 months since I had my sling off and I am STILL going to PT.  I am hoping that I will be cleared to say adios to PT after my next appointment in March.

Finally – how could I forget.. JMR also purchased his very first road bike!  A Giant Defy…pretty snazzy!  Sadly, because the weather in Saint Louis stinks this time of year, we haven’t had a chance to go ride so he could try it out, but hopefully in another month the weather will be nicer.  In the meantime, he bought a trainer tire so he can ride it inside on my trainer 🙂

Ignore the messiness surrounding the bike…

Phew!  So now that I’m all caught up…..

As of Monday….IMLOU is 30 weeks away!!  It sounds far away, but really, it isn’t since I still need a few months to build up my base before the tough training begins!

Adios!

I have been pretty busy since my last post…some running, a little spinning, cooking and lots of fun things with friends!  I’ll spare you all of the details so you aren’t reading for an hour but I’ll summarize the highlights of the past two weeks.

I had my 12 week post-op appointment on the 16th and I am cleared for all activities!  (Yes, even swimming…although I won’t be doing that any time soon :)…)  I still have to do PT but now I am working on strengthening my arm, rather than range of motion, so I’m doing free weights and several other exercises which are much more fun than my old ones.

Moving on to training….two weekends ago, JMR and I ran the first race in the Frostbite series, a five-part race series in Forest Park.  Of course that morning the skies had opened up and it was snowing like crazy!  After debating back and forth, and JMR clearing off my car, we decided to go for it and drive to the race.   When we arrived at the park I couldn’t believe how much snow we had gotten in such a short amount of time!  Fortunately the snow plows had come by and plowed the running route so we were good to go.

JMR ran the 7.4 miles at a very speedy sub 8 minute pace, while I gutted it out to hold on to a 9:30 pace.  I have some work to do to get my speed back – at least we got it done!

On the cooking front I have been making all kinds of new recipes and loving it…from Egg muffins, to meatloaf muffins (are you sensing a muffin theme?)…

Yum!

…to breakfasts with homemade sweet potato hash (I hand shredded those potatoes – love my Julienne peeler. I couldn’t figure out my food processor and didn’t want to lose a hand attempting it)

I also took a painting class with some of my girlfriends, called ‘Wine and Canvas‘, where the instructor walks you through step by step how to draw the picture on display that evening while you follow along and drink wine.

It was actually pretty stressful in the beginning for me (even with the wine, ha).  Painting is hard, especially painting straight lines!  I think I prefer sketching but it was still fun and we had a great time….although I’m not sure how I feel about my finished product….I wasn’t thinking when I picked those colors, it doesn’t go very well with my color scheme in my condo!

Yeah…my lines are definitely crooked.

JMR also surprised me with a new mini Christmas tree!  I have a pre-lit one that is six feet tall but it was so cheap you can see right through it and it just isn’t worth the work to set it up.  I was very surprised when I came home from work one night to find it all set up and decorated!

So pretty.

While I’ve been busy, busy, busy….Patrick has been busy napping.

Well, that’s about it!  Merry Christmas!

He loved wearing that light up necklace.  I kid.

Boy has time flown!  I didn’t realize it has been over a month since I’ve last posted.  After my surgery in September I have been very slowly getting back into a gym / work out routine.  Three weeks post-surgery I did a few spinning classes and also starting walking 2 miles a few times a week.  Six weeks post-surgery I was released to run and started running 3 miles 2-3 times a week with an occasional trainer ride.  I also started going to physical therapy three times a week (at 6:30a….early!) and it has immensely improved my arm/shoulder strength and flexibility.  The scar however isn’t healing great, even with putting cocoa butter with vitamin E on it, so I’m not happy about that.

My twelve-week post-op appointment is next Monday and I’m hoping to get cleared to do a few more things (free weights, yoga….swimming, eh…I’m ok with not being cleared for that yet :)) so fingers crossed.  Meanwhile, because I’m still not working out as much as I used to I have a lot more free time and have started to get more into cooking.  Boy am I learning a lot!….and building up a nice little spice collection 🙂

This past weekend I made homemade mayo because I wanted to use it during the week for tuna salad and was also making a cod dish that required mayo combined with some other spicy ingredients.  It took me THREE tries to finally get the mayo to mix correctly!  Three!!  And the recipe calls for the egg to be at room temperature before you start mixing, so I let each egg sit for an hour before adding the oil.  Ohmygoodness. After 2.5 hours and two failed tries…I may or may not have had a mini tantrum and announced to JMR that we were going out to dinner.  He couldn’t understand why I was getting so worked up over mayo and even offered to go buy mayo so I could make the dish…but I was not in the mood.  Finally on Sunday I gave it another try (this time in the food processor instead of the blender) and it worked!! Hoooray!  I will say the sauce didn’t taste as good as I thought it would after all of that effort, but at least now I know how to successfully make mayo 🙂

Third time’s a charm!

Off to a meeting and then to the gym.  I will say, getting home when it’s dark out and cold is NOT very motivating to work out…but my pants are getting tighter so it’s definitely time to get back into a routine!  Why is it so hard to keep my appetite in check during the winter?  It makes me want to just sit on the couch in warm fuzzy pj’s and eat CARBS.  Lots of Carbs.

Delicious Not Good For You Carbs!!!