Running in the Moment

Well, this week has two themes and neither has much training involved (well, not until this weekend)!

The first theme is ‘Operation Pack for Triple-T’ – during my free time this week I have been wracking my brain putting together a packing list for this weekend, which doesn’t just involve clothes like a normal vacation weekend would, it’s packing for four races (a sprint, two olympic and half-distance), which also includes the possibility of all types of weather: low 60’s and cold, high 80’s and hot and rain as well.  Ugh!  Additionally, it isn’t like I’ll be packing one item for the bike in case it rains, I have to pack several because I won’t want to wear the same smelly jacket, etc all weekend.  Fun!  I’m also kind of stressed about how all of this gear (enough for two people, since R is riding with me) + 3 people, 2 bikes, a cooler, 2 wetsuits, helmets will fit in my little car…blah!

Taken at 5a this morning, hence the lack of light in the picture. Less organized looking than usual (there is still some form of organization, it’s just hard to see in this ‘lighting’), which is just about how I feel about this race weekend.

On top of that, (as part of the pack for Triple-T theme), I am getting a trailer hitch put on my car so I can get a bike rack tray for my bikes (thank you mom and dad for my early birthday present!).

Which is awesome and a much safer way to transport bikes longer distances, but…… the hitch is getting installed today at 4p and then after that I am heading straight to the bike shop to get the bike rack tray put on.  After that R and I are packing up our gear this evening…. and then waking up early tomorrow to hit the road at 5a.

Phew.  I need to sit down and take a deep breath after typing all of that.

On to the second theme of the week ‘Operation Hip’ (isn’t is always though?) along with going back to PT Tuesday morning, doing lots of stretching and strengthening exercises, I also had an appointment Tuesday afternoon to see a therapeutic massage therapist that my coach recommended.  She does ‘adjustments’ but by only using your muscle, no popping or cracking joints around.  It was pretty interesting… I’m still a little skeptical, but here was her analysis: One leg was longer than the other and my hips were pivoted a bit, so she did all types of muscle pulling and releasing to ‘fix’ these issues.  She also said that my left hip joint was hardly mobile and that’s why my right hip was taking the brunt of things, and adjusted that as well.  I could tell a difference when I left, I felt lighter and that I was walking with better posture

Today I woke up still sore, especially my hips, so I felt a little disappointed and frustrated (and it wasn’t cheap either) but I after talking to my coach, she felt the same way for a day or two but then felt much better.  Fingers crossed that I can run part of the races this weekend!

So other than work, Triple-T and hip stuff, that’s about all that’s been going on this week.  I managed to run one mile.  Whoo!  Talk about taking a taper seriously 🙂  Back to work so I can leave at 3:30 for my trailer hitch! (I never thought I’d be so excited about getting a trailer hitch put on my car, ha)

This past weekend was a pretty busy weekend!  My legs are still sore from the ride on Saturday!  I did manage to have the longest training week so far for this year (11 hours!) and my longest bike ride ever!

Before I get into the details of my longest ride, I’ll preface it with my Friday night first.  After work I hit up the pool to swim 2000y and then went to a local karaoke bar close to my house for a work happy hour.  Swimming always seems to take longer than you would think between changing, the actual swim and then showering at the Y and once again (well, I do this at least) showering at home with my regular shampoo (I have a special anti-chlorine body wash and shampoo my sister bought my for my birthday last year).  So I showed up later than planned and figured I’d just stay a little bit longer than planned to make up for it.  All day it had been raining and the weekend forecast looked to be just about the same.  The plan for Saturday was to do Vino Fondo, a supported ride put on by a local bike company that had varying distances, 28, 56, 89 and 130 miles.  My buddy R and I were planning on doing the 89 with 10+ other tri club members, however R and I had decided we might scale back the planned 89 mile ride if it rained and even possibly not ride if it was pouring.  It was supposed to be in the 50’s which is cold just riding, add rain into the mix and it’s just miserable… I had already experienced it the weekend before and knew I didn’t want to do it for 89 miles.  So by the time I got to the happy hour, it was still pouring and I had convinced myself that the ride was not going to happen on Saturday.  So, instead of my water, I had a few beers and stayed out later than planned (late for a ride the next day, 10:30p).  Not the best prep for a long ride.

I woke up at 5a, looked outside and my stomach turned into a huge knot.  It wasn’t raining.  Not at all.  It even looked like the street was drying up.  Oh boy.  Oh dear.  So this ride is really going to happen?  With that thought, I started bustling around my condo, getting all of my gear and nutrition ready because I had to get to R’s house around 5:45a, so we could leave at 6 and arrive at the ride by 7 since it was an hour away.  I hadn’t packed anything the night before because I was just certain we wouldn’t ride, so I’m sure it was amusing to watch me scramble.  I managed to get to R’s only 10 minutes late (I had to get gas too) and a little after 6a (with some bike rack issues slowing us down) we were off and on our way to Augusta, MO to ride a HILLY 89 miles.

Hilly course!!

Once we arrived, I ran into my coach who was also riding and chatted with her for a bit and then we headed to packet pickup.  Once we had our bibs, we went to the dining area of the winery to get some eggs, sausage and potatoes, I couldn’t pass up a free breakfast!  Plus, one of the many things I love about cycling is that you can usually get away with eating anything before a ride, unlike running where I have to plan several hours before my run what I’m eating in fear of angering my stomach.  Soon we were getting our bikes, gear and nutrition ready and headed to the start.  And we were off!

One mile into the ride I noticed by gears weren’t shifting right and my chain was making a grinding sound.  Lovely.  I had changed cassettes in preparation for the huge climbs we would have to make (so I would have bigger gears to spin up the hills) and I guess the cables were off, making the gears drop and chain rub.  It was going to be a very fun ride.  About ten miles in we hit a huuuge hill.  I sighed, shifted into my small ring and prepared for a long day.  I managed to spin my way up without stopping (lots of people were walking their bikes) which I was proud of but it made me more scared of what was ahead, since this wasn’t the biggest hill. On R and I went, over more rolling hills, a misting of rain and lots of fun conversation.  We stopped at mile 22 for a bathroom break (I wasn’t sweating much at all, and with relying on liquid nutrition, that isn’t the greatest combination) and then we just kept on going, spinning up the hills and enjoying the countryside scenery.  At mile 40 we were riding single file on a busy road I had a moment to reflect on the day and how things were going, and realized I was having an absolute blast.  Even with the annoying bike gear issue, things were going really well.  My nutrition plan was working (mostly Infinite drink), my legs felt like they could keep going, and we just talked, and talked, and talked.  I was giddy!  I have never had a ride feel like this before, usually I’m stressing about keeping up with the group I’m riding with, or constantly worried about a flat or crashing, but this one was relaxed and just fun.  I honestly just felt in sync with Peaches and everything that riding had in store for me that day.  I think R has to be my new riding buddy for IMAZ!

So on we went, chatting it up, joking around, and just enjoying the day.  Finally around mile 75 I started to get sore.  Things were starting to hurt and even though I was still having fun, it began to really feel like I had biked 75 miles.  Of course that’s when the biggest hill of the ride decided to show up.  They even had timing mats to record how long it took each person to get up the hill for an additional challenge/competition.  I took a deep breath, R said “I’ll see you at the top!’ and off we went.

This is right before the last huge hill. I can’t believe I look so happy after 75 miles!

Spin, spin, spin.  Oh good lord.  You can do it.  Oh good lord.  I don’t want to topple over – scraped knees just don’t look good on an adult.  Keep going. Oh boy.  Am I moving?!  Ohhh-boooyyy.  If I pull up any harder on my bars they are going to fly off.  Just keep moving.  Oh. Ouch. Burning feeling. And then, I saw it,  the top of the darn hill.  I pedaled through the second timing mat and was relieved to have finally climbed the last big hill.  How mean to have it at the END of the race.  8 minutes and 19 seconds of brutal hill climbing.  That’s a long time….there were so many thoughts going through my head that I will spare you 😉  That’s a big hill alright.  R came hauling behind me and off we went to finish the last five miles.  Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) they had to cut out five miles from the planned distance, so the ride was only 84 miles, but it still was a PR distance for me, so I was happy and a bit relieved to just be almost done.

We finally rolled back to the winery and rode together through the finish chute, the clock read around 7 hrs and we had been riding for 6:20, wow.  Just wow.  It didn’t feel that long!  I didn’t think we had stopped for 40 minutes, but I guess that time adds up over a long day!  When we had dropped our bikes off at the car and changed into clean (warm) clothes, we went to the finish area and there were several tri club members gathered at a table, eating and having a beer, cheering for us when we walked in!  The distance and the day for me was a big deal, but it was more of a personal achievement so I didn’t expect anyone to say anything, so  it meant so much for everyone to be congratulating and cheering for us.  I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, joining my local tri club was one of the best decisions I’ve made 🙂   Such a wonderful group of people!

After refueling with a turkey sandwich and an IPA (and water) we headed back home.  Boy was I tired and sore!  JMR and I went to dinner after I got home, and I celebrated with a big hamburger 🙂  Sunday I woke up not as sore as I thought I would be, and dragged my rump to the Y for a recovery swim. Worst swim ever, so super slow 2500y swim, but I got it in and that’s all that I cared about.  Afterwards we went to a small local mexican restaurant for lunch and then I took a nap and layed low.  Thank goodness today is a rest day, because I am STILL sore!! 😉

Well, the past week of training was so-so, I missed a swim, skipped out during my long ride on Saturday and my runs were sub-par.  Apparently my right hamstring has decided to join the party with my right hip and now my right leg is kind of a mess.  Nothing feels horrible, but lots of twinges and weird aches.  Ugh.  I have been doing my stretching but haven’t been great about all of the strengthening exercises.  I was hoping that once my hip felt better and my mileage was increasing without issues, that spending 1+ hours each day doing my strengthening exercises wasn’t necessary.  I. was. wrong.  Ugh.  More on that in a bit.

I had a very busy weekend this weekend!  Friday night I went to the baseball game with JMR, a friend and her husband.  The game was a ton of fun, although a long one, and with a stop at a bar along the way, I didn’t hit my pillow until 1a.  Boy was I testing my limits with a 5:30a wake up call for a group ride my coach had planned  Apparently I thought I was 19 again and didn’t need much sleep to function (some people can do that, I haven’t been able to for years).  5:30a rolled around and I was up, tired, but up.  I made my usual breakfast before a ride, 2 egg whites, 1 whole egg (usually an avocado as well, but the one I had wasn’t good :() and a banana, packed up my gear / bike and headed to the ride which was 40 minutes away.

Once I arrived it really hit me that I knew no one there… for some reason I thought I had checked the email list of the group that was attending and thought there were mostly females riding, but I was wrong.  There were around 10 guys riding and me and three females.  Oh great.  It was also raining.  Did I mention that?  It was 50 degrees and raining out.  Lovely.  After getting instructions for the route and workout we were off.  The plan was to ride 20 miles, run 4, ride 10, run 2, ride 5 and then run 1 mile.  Which sounded like a lot of fun, and I was looking forward to the challenge….until mile 15… it was pouring, freezing, my bike shoes were filled with water, my gloves were a soggy wet mess and water kept dripping off of my helmet and dripping/flying into my face.  We kept trucking on (I was in the back of the pack with another female and male), eventually got back to the cars and proceeded to change into running shoes, etc to head off for the run.  For a moment I was just confused.  Do I take off my cycling gloves?  It’s cold, they could help but they’re soggy? My cycling coat is pretty wet/uncomfy too – should I change?  Finally I decided to take the gloves off, swap for a (temporarily) dry long sleeved tech shirt and then headed off for the run.

.5 miles in I knew that 4 miles wasn’t in my future.  I wasn’t sure if it was the cold, or the tri running shoes with not a ton of cushioning causing the issue, but regardless, my hip and hamstring were not thrilled with this experience, so eventually I turned around at .75 miles and headed back to the parking lot.  Then I got cold. Really cold.  When I got back to the parking lot, I just could not fathom putting on my cold, wet cycling shoes, my cold, wet cycling gloves and head back out for a ride in the freezing cold rain.  I debated, and wavered, and then, I just decided to go back home.  I hate to say this, but part of me kept thinking, ‘Yes, it could rain on race day, but it sure as h*ll won’t be 50 degrees in Arizona!!’, which made me not feel as bad for being a wimp and ducking out on the rest of the ride.  At that point, it really wasn’t fun.  I didn’t want to ride solo, I didn’t want to be cold and wet anymore, and I really wanted a hot shower.  So, I put peaches back on my car bike rack, and we headed back home.  I was disappointed in myself, but also a bit relieved to be escaping the awful weather.

Once I got home I took a super duper long shower, an hour nap (I shivered the whole way on the 40 minute ride home – that’s exhausting! ;)) and then got ready for my tri club’s annual picnic.  Of course the weather was still gross when it was time for the picnic, 50 and rainy, but we still had an absolute blast.  Lots of good food, conversations (and catching up!), and a few funny games as well to add to the amusement.  Afterwards JMR and I layed low for a bit, changed into dry clothes and then grabbed dinner at a local mexican restaurant, and at 10p I was fast asleep.  Busy day!

Sunday I got up for a short run (as long as my stupid right leg could tolerate) and then got ready for brunch with my grandma for my mom’s birthday.  I probably ate enough for two people, but it was delicious 🙂  After brunch I did some laundry, cleaning, and then headed to my parents for another celebration for my mom’s birthday and another family members birthday.  Busy weekend!!

So, back to my training.  Due to my recent hip fun-ness, I talked with my coach and we’ve decided I should take the week off of running and just focus on cycling, swimming and possibly some aqua jogging (and of course stretching, foam rolling and strengthening).  I am going to REALLY make an effort this week to get up early and hit the pool before work because now that’s all I can do other than the bike.  So the theme for me this week is water.  Lots of it.  If I’m really good, six times in fact – although I will probably doing my aqua jogging workouts after my swim, so really it’s just a long @ss time in the pool, but ‘technically’ it is two workouts in the pool 🙂   Good thing I bought another suit a couple of weeks ago (and have yet to wear), because I will be needing it when my other suit isn’t dry from all of this swimming!

Off to bed!!  Patrick is as well and says goodnight!!

Now that I finally posted a race recap of the marathon relay, I feel like I can start posting again!  A few things have changed since my last post, the biggest being my next race.  So every now and then I’ve mentioned the ‘dumb’ race I signed up for in May, Triple T (a sprint on Friday, 2 Olympic tris on Saturday and a half distance on Sunday) … and a month after I signed up and then got injured, I stopped getting excited about it and started to dread it.  I attempted to start training in January rather than March (when I had originally planned to start working with my coach), although with getting sick and few other issues, my training didn’t get going until mid-February.  After my hips got better, and I was able to run and not just bike/swim, my coach has slowly been upping my mileage to help me get ready for the ‘dumb’ race.  Every time I trained all I could think about was all of the horrible hills on the bike and run and the cold water for the swim.  Was I ever going to train enough to be prepared to do an Ironman distance over the course of a weekend four months after I was able to start running again?

Finally last week it hit me, my hip started to get grumpy at the end of one of my longer runs, and I found myself thinking ‘what the heck am I doing?, there is no way I will be prepared for that distance by May 17th.  Not if I want to come to IMAZ injury free!  This wasn’t my A race, heck it wasn’t even my B race!  It was my ‘random race I signed up for because so many other club members did too”.

So I emailed my coach to get her opinion – was this race just too much too soon for me?  She replied saying that she thought that it was and as much as she would hate for me to not be able to race, she was worried about me re-injuring myself and getting sidelined again, and possibly jeopardizing IMAZ.  She did suggest that I could do the super sprint race that Friday night and one of the Olympic races Saturday morning, which sounded like a great idea. Phew!  So I’m still going down with the club, and doing two of the races, but they’re very short and manageable with my current fitness.

Now I feel like I can really focus on training for IMAZ… it really isn’t that far away if you think about it… 7 months… I still will need to keep building up a strong base (and core, and hips!) for the next few months, and then it’s *on* for the following remaining time.  It was just getting too distracting training for hills for one race and then switching it up immediately after and riding flats and WIND.  Maybe as I get more experienced and build up a stronger base in the next year or so, it won’t be a big deal, but for my first full, it was kind of annoying and made it hard to focus.  I do have several other races this summer, however they are pretty flat, windy and similar to IMAZ’s course (which is why I chose them), so my training will go nicely with those races.  So now I’m super happy to just focus on IMAZ!  I think it’s time to break out my sticker and water bottle for inspiration and motivation!

I bought these at IMAZ in November- the sticker is on my fridge, and now I”m going to use the water bottle for motivation on rides!

I got my short 3.5 mile run done this am, although the weather really stinks.  It was such a bummer to have to pull out my winter running coat for a run (39 degrees and rainy this morning. ugh).  Hopefully it will warm up again soon!  Tonight I have a 1:15hr trainer ride and then JMR is coming over for dinner 🙂

Off to a meeting!

Yesterday after work I had the best run that I’ve had in a long time.  It’s also the furthest I’ve run since the stupid hip injury, 7.1 whopping miles 🙂  My coach had me do a workout focused on speed – 1 mile warmup, 4 minutes at 5k pace, 2 minutes recovery, 4 minutes at 5k, 2 minutes recovery….etc, and thought I was going to throw up several times during the run!  And of course every time (or at least it seemed) the pace picked up for the 4 minute speed interval, I would be running up a hill.  There were downhills, but man, it seemed like a lot of sprinting up-hills.  This run was also a ‘run for time’ rather than run x number of miles, so I was surprised I managed to run 7.1 miles in 60 minutes, a 8:27 pace!  Not super speedy, but I’m slowly getting my speed back and it feels good.  My hips were a bit grumpy by the last mile, but other than that, not too bad.  I did lots of stretching afterwards and plan to foam roll tonight which should also help.

After being surprised by my overall pace and finishing feeling good (no puking occurred) I realized that this is one of the reasons why I hired a coach – not only to plan my workouts so I don’t die while trying to finish IMAZ, but to also push me so I can get stronger and improve.  I doubt myself a lot when reading what she has on my training schedule, but she knows my ability based on past workouts so I need to trust the plan and go with it.

Off to do my run (2mi)-ride (45min on trainer)-run(1mi) workout!  This warmer weather we are *finally* having seems to really help with motivation (it’s 54 and sunny out, at this point with the weather we’ve had recently, 54 is considered ‘warm’ in my book) , I think spring is finally here!  Hooray!

To compare my training to a swimming pool, I feel that since January I’ve had one foot in the pool and the other out on the deck, not ready to fully commit to jumping in.  I guess I had the mentality that because IMAZ was ‘so far away’ and Triple-t in May was ‘just for fun’ that there was no rush or pressure to be in ‘real’ training mode.  I had what? 10, 9 months?  Pfft.  Plenty of time.  Over the course of my training there were occasions where I blew off workouts because I was ‘tired’ or just plain didn’t feel like it (I may or may not have had a meltdown on my trainer….it’s too darn early in the season for meltdowns!).  However, now that my training volume is really starting to ramp up to more than just a little run, or a half hour on my trainer, I really need to get my head in the game and take it seriously.  Whether I’m ready or not, I am in training mode and need to act like it!  IMAZ is less than 8 months away!!  Still lots of time to train, but also not enough so keep treating my training like I have.  So starting this week I’m going to jump headfirst into the ‘pool’ and stop being half-in half-out attitude-wise.

I’m finally ready to dive in headfirst!

Of course this doesn’t mean that all I will be doing is working, training, eating, and sleeping – I still plan to have a life outside of all of that (although I’m sure the couple of months before the race it will be a different story), but I am going to make my workouts a priority.  When my alarm goes off at 5a to head to the pool, I won’t blow it off ‘because it’s too early’.  Or when I’m tired after work and just want to sit on the couch rather than ride my trainer (and eat oatmeal raisin cookies), I’ll get my butt on my trainer and get that workout done!

What brought all of this on (other than the fact that time is actually moving forward and the race is slowly but surely getting closer) is that this week is my first week of 10+ hours of training.  I guess it just took the double-digit number to make me realize that I am really training for an Ironman, and need to start acting like it.  I’m not flailing around in the pool or sweating up a nasty storm on my trainer for the heck of it.  I realize I will have many more weeks of 10+ hours of training, but for some reason this one feels like a milestone because it will be my first for this training cycle.  Double digits sound serious to me, last summer I only had three weeks of double-digit training weeks, and I felt super hardcore doing those 🙂

On top of the training, I am going to reaaaaalllyyy focus on eating better, which I have done a pretty good job on, but there are a few areas that I would like to improve: nighttime eating (oatmeal raisin cookies) and the weekends.   Last night I managed to cook my lunches for the rest of the week and have a plan for dinner each night as well.   Since Monday’s are my ‘rest’ day I’ve decided that will be the evening that I plan the meals for my week. I realize Sunday’s seem like they would be the most logical night to do that, but it never seems to work out for me when I try to do that, so I’m going to try out Monday evenings.  Plus, it will keep me from spending the whole night on my couch 🙂

Heading out for my 60 minute run followed by a swim!

Time for an update!!  The last time I posted was before Florida and after I got home, things have been busy!!

Florida was great – it was so nice to be in WARM weather in the SUN, unlike the nasty weather we’ve been having here.  I got almost all of my workouts in – with the help of joining a local gym to use their pool and take spin classes, as I figured it would be safer and more efficient than renting a road bike (yes, I realize that sounds crazy to join a gym for a month to only use it four days, I’m ok with that).  I also ate really good food, did a little shopping and topped it off with a little wine each night.  Oh, and of course I went to the beach.  Too bad I burn SUPER easily and had to wear long sleeves while ‘sunbathing’.

Our flight home was a little less than ideal, especially for my sister, her husband and their little baby C who were also flying with me, because we had mechanical problems and had to de-board the plane.  Most of the adults handled this situation well (I say most, you would be surprised what jerks some people can be, apparently several people on our flight failed kindergarten and didn’t learn how to wait their turn while in line), but little baby C wasn’t happy because she had been interrupted from her nap.  Once we got back on the plane (several hours later), baby C was up and awake and not super happy, but my sister and her husband did an awesome job keeping her entertained and she hardly made any noise the rest of the flight.  Phew.

Wednesday morning I work up with a Migraine, which put me out of commission for most of the day, Thursday I had lots of catching up to do at work and came home exhausted, and by Friday I was still worn out and in no mood to hop on my trainer to get my ride in.  For some reason that attitude carried over to Saturday as well.  Now, sorry, probably TMI, but it was that time of the month, and I usually am pretty tired for a day or two… yeah, excuses, excuses, so that’s partly what the issue was but it was also like I had lost of mojo after an awesome week of training in Florida.  I didn’t want to run in ugly grey, cold weather, I was over it!  Finally, but Sunday I realized I couldn’t pay someone to carry me for the entire race coming up in less than 7 weeks, and I had to get back into training.  So I hopped onto my trainer and rode for 1:30 followed by a 3 mile run in the snow, which was quite the messy run because we had just got dumped on with snow that day.

View from my deck. Good grief, it’s almost April!

Not the longest or greatest training session, but at least it was a better start from the day before.

Monday I had an easy 45min ride on the trainer and today I have a 6 mile run followed by an hour trainer ride.  Fortunately my training buddy R is going to do the run with me, so that should help make it more entertaining.

Non-training related, JMR did a great job house sitting and watching both dogs.  Jackson did have several accidents in the kitchen, but that was to be expected, and Patrick did great also – a few mishaps after I got back from Florida, one including bringing in a dead mouse (ugh, I shrieked so loud when I saw him coming in with a tail hanging out of his mouth).

The dead mouse…in the trashcan, where it belongs. Not in Patrick’s mouth.

Both dogs are alive and the house didn’t burn down, JMR said he would consider it a success if both of those things didn’t happen.

Off to grab lunch before a meeting!

Just a quick post before I head to warmer weather – I am leaving for Florida in a few hours!  Hooray!  I cannot wait to run outside in a tank top and shorts and not be shivering!

Workout-wise updates, last weekend we didn’t end up riding out tri bikes due to a random rainstorm Saturday morning, but we did take our road bikes out.  It felt weird at first to actually be riding outside, but after ten minutes it felt like I had never stopped riding outside.  🙂 Naturally at the end of our 2:45 hr ride, it was warm and sunny.  Oh well, at least we got it in!  After the ride, LE, PE and I did a short run and then I headed to the pool to get in some laps.  After the pool, JMR came over and we headed out to dinner.

Sunday I was up and back at the pool swimming laps and then attempted to run 4 miles on the treadmill (it was pouring outside and didn’t feel like being in the rain 2 days in a row) but felt so super nauseous.  I did a really hard swim workout which was probably why (I am always nauseous during races when I get out of the water), and it didn’t seem to be subsiding, so instead I ended up heading home and took a nap 🙂

Monday was a rest day, and yesterday was a run-ride-run brick, consisting of a 1 mile warmup, an hour on the trainer followed by a 2 mile run.  It wasn’t until the second run that I was actually enjoying the workout, all I could keep thinking of was what to pack for my trip!  Due to my injury and also lack of willpower, not all of my summer stuff fits quite yet, so figuring out what to pack was baffling me more than it should have.

Tuesday I had PT in the morning, a 5 mile run after work, and then finished up some laundry.  Today I was supposed to swim and ride my trainer but I woke up later than planned and still needed to pack.  I hopped on my trainer for a whopping 10 minutes before freaking out that it would be time to leave and I wouldn’t have packed a thing, so I ended up packing instead.  This week will definitely be heavier on the running than swim/bike because that’s the easiest to do, but I’m hoping to swim and take a spin class since there is a Y very close to where we’re staying.

Off to the airport in a bit – wish JMR luck, he’s house sitting for my parents and watching their dog, Jackson, (who is 14 years old and consistently has accidents in the house) and Patrick.  For 10 days.  (My dad is gone 10 days, I’ll only be gone 6). Yipes.

Jackson tormenting his Santa toy.  Looking good for 14 years old 🙂

Happy Friday!  So glad the weekend is here!

I’m still on track with eating Paleo, however we did go out to eat on Saturday and Sunday, which I was also trying to avoid to try to save money this month.  However, since my last post I’ve decided that if I eat at home all week (and bring my lunch to work), eating out once or twice on the weekend is ok.  With the cold and gloomy weather we’ve been having (although today it’s super nice out!), staying cooped up at home all weekend is not a great plan.  Plus, last Saturday after a long swim, a 1.5 hour trainer ride followed by a 3 mile run….and then a few hours of running errands, the LAST thing I wanted to do was stay at home and cook a meal.  I felt that I deserved a meal out! 😉

Training has been going well this week, I had a hair appointment on Tuesday and didn’t get home until 7:30p, so I did miss a run and have been doing 2 a-days to catch up!  Wednesday I ran 5 miles in the am, followed by a 1:10 trainer ride/2mi brick that evening, Thursday morning I swam 2000y (I feel like a real swimmer now, in the 2000’s!) followed by PT and today I have a 5mi run followed by an easy 45min spin.  Not too hectic, but definitely getting more into a training routine and increasing volume.

This week has also been a big nutrition (the training type) week, as I purchased a ton of honey stinger chews and waffles for training and my Infinit arrived yesterday as well!

My plan for IMAZ (and Triple-T) is to do mostly liquid nutrition on the bike and I have heard good things about Infinit, a high calorie sports drink.  So on Sunday I logged onto their website, took the ‘nutrition quiz’ to find out what custom formula combinations would meet my needs, and ordered my formula!  I also added a little caffeine:

It arrived yesterday – and I love that it has my little custom formula on the bag!

Custom Formula!  Not the greatest pic, sorry.

Now all I need to do is actually train and use all of my fun nutrition – which is the plan for Saturday!  I am riding the MCT Trails with my tri-club buddy LE and her husband PE.  We all bought new tri-bikes over the winter and are going to try them out outside (we’ve only ridden them on the trainers inside) and hopefully will ride them without any incidents!  I’m pretty darn scared to ride my tri bike outside because it’s so much lighter, I’m in a more aggressive position and getting into and out of aero while riding seems tricky!  I don’t plan on really riding it much until after Triple-T (the course is really hilly and technical, not ideal for a tri-bike), but it doesn’t hurt to at least get out there and *hopefully* get over my fear of riding it.  My stomach is getting into knots right now just thinking about riding Lola.  I need to get over this fear!

Stay tuned to see how it goes!!