It’s been a solid week of training. Most notably, I tested out some new equipment and some things worked better than others.

On Wednesday, I completed my longest run ever-16 miles. I tried out my new amphipod (thanks, Mitch, for the recommendation) and it worked out great. Both the weight and sloshing took some getting used to, but there was no chaffing or other ill-effects. That’ll be with me on the duration for those long runs. For entertainment, I managed to stock up two episodes of Car Talk and one of Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me so the time went by quickly. I think I took it out too conservatively though, as my time was so slow that post-workout I went right out and drove the course just to make sure I didn’t add in an extra mile in my google pedometer figuring. On the bright side, it was the second time I’ve managed my nutrition well on a run and left me with quite a bit in the tank to haul myself up the 35th St. hill. I’ll work on pushing it a bit in the first half of my runs as I gain more confidence in my abilities when I’m out there for 2+ hours.

The second piece of equipment I tried out on a long workout did not fare as well. Suffice to say that I think the Scott is great, but I’ve got to do something about my seat. Ugh. I went with a slightly different Terry seat on my new steed and I think that it was a bad, bad idea. I’m going to switch out the Butterfly Ti for the Liberator Ti-Race on my next ride and will make a permenant swap if that works out better. I also may venture to buy a Liberator Race Saddle as I think that’s the closest to my old one I love dearly. Overall, it was a learning ride, not so much the “race pace” I had anticipated, but good to know that I would be so uncomfortable on a 50-miler instead of an 80-miler.

I also squared away hotel reservations for my parents for the race. They’ll be staying at a hotel right close to T2 and the finish line- yay! It’s all coming together…

I added in a link to Jen and Meg’s training blog on the roll at right. Check the fabulous mamas out when you get a chance!

Resting felt good today. I’ve been having some sharp pains and tightness in my calves/knees this past week which I think are telling me that I need to stretch more. I’m getting a massage on Sunday so that should also help to get the kinks out as I roll into this big month of training- yippee!!

Two more weeks of training are done including both my longest run and longest ride ever- yippee!

The 15 mile run was conducted back in Michigan where Alden and I traveled last weekend to attend the McCarthy family traditional outing to the East Lansing Art Fair. Molly and John came from Chicago and we had a fabulous time introducing Alden around and catching up with friends and family (pics here). I did the famed Okemos loop three times. Alden ran the first two and Molly tag-teamed in for the last lap. We got on a plane a few hours later and the cold I’d been fighting during the last week really caught up with me and made the trip home pretty miserable. I didn’t do much besides work and sleep on Monday and Tuesday I managed to slog through my planned workouts, as well.

Training went well during the latter part of the week despite lingering crud in my lungs. I met with Cheryl on Friday and we talked through the next month of training and set some goals for the 1/2 in Victoria. I’m really going to start upping mileage here in the next few weeks so I’m really glad that I have my nutrition and pre/post-workout routines well established. I have no more major travel or outside time commitments until Vineman so that will be great for honing in on what I need to do.

This weekend was great for training as well as I did a 60 mile ride with Cheryl’s training group. The weather cooperated fantastically as I added on 20 solo miles and a 30 minute run afterwards. I tried Cory’s suggestion of an ice bath post-ride which did indeed seem to help (she was even so kind as to distract me via phone during the ordeal, regaling me with the tale of her ride out near Poolesville and the planned lake swim for Sunday). Saturday finished up with an incredible meal down at Cactus and a nice walk along Alki as the sun was setting. Seattle is fabulous in the summer!

Yesterday, I attempted to re-calibrate my Nike plus ipod sensor. After 3 frustrating laps at the West Seattle track, I finally gave up. I came home to read on the discussion boards that lots of other folks have the same problems I do (my stride seems out of the “range of possibilities” for the silly thing so it keeps returning an error when I attempt to calibrate saying that I haven’t run the right distance). What a disaster this little thing has been! Besides Lance Armstrong congratulating me on my longest run ever, I can’t think of how it’s been helpful. The calibration is so far off normally that it has me running sub 8 minutes miles. All great, except I’m doing mostly 9-10 minute miles at this point. I think the work output/reward input ratio is so low that I’m throwing in the towel. I’ll just google pedometer my longer runs now and look at getting a garmin forerunner or some other more effective tool later on if I want one… So after that frustrating hiccup, I moved on to a couple of laps around Lincoln Park up and down the stairs. I’ll be doing these mid-range runs for the next few weeks on gravel/trails in preparation for Victoria.

I’ve been enjoying my rest day today starting out with sleeping in before a nice morning walk down to Caffe Ladro for a latte and scone in the beach town fog. The morning finished out with 5 batches of jam (three strawberry rhubarb, one each of apricot and raspberry). After reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle at Christmastime, I vowed that I would move in a more sustainable direction with my food consumption. Alden’s family has a long tradition of canning so we offered our raw ingredients and muscle-power in exchange for tutelage. It was my first foray into jam-making and we had a great time! And out of this, another training idea was born: I’ve been thinking about ways to get in some heat training in preparation for Vineman and so have been considering heading out to eastern Washington. I’m hoping now to combine one or two of those with the Kroll family to get some fruit that we can bring back and can/make into jam for yummy summer goodness during the winter. Do you think we can work in a couple of long, hot bricks, Cheryl?

I’m looking forward to a good week of training this week, culminating in attendance at my first run club in a month on Saturday (yay!) followed by a tempo 50 mile ride on Sunday, trying out my latest round of height adjustments on Scott.

After spending the first couple of days of last week flipping out (see previous post), I’m back on track this week. Thanks to all who helped in that endeavor including Cheryl and Emily. Family and friends were also key in reframing my race in Vancouver. I knew that they would be key for getting me through the training, but this was the first time I’d really leaned on them and they were incredible!

On to the training: I made all my workouts this week- yay! I even managed to get out on my first outdoor pre-work ride on Tuesday. If the weather cooperates, I’ll be on the road for those rides for the duration. I also used that opportunity to do my first workout of this Iron training on my new tri bike (bought it back in the fall, but only tooled around on it once post-purchase). The handlebar position felt a bit too aggressive which we had discussed it might at my fitting. Alden moved it up a bit for now and I’m hoping to get a chance to test it out tomorrow morning.

Saturday was a long ride with Cheryl’s crew and a short run afterwards. It rained on us a bit, but I felt good and strong. My legs felt decent through to the run after 65 miles- good stuff for my first bike/run brick. My nutrition continues to work well on the bike and I can really see the difference in my recovery as I’m turning around much quicker than I ever have before. All that is good as I continue to build my training.

Swimming continues to be working for me. Kick sets feel like good recovery/cross-training for my legs and fast swimming a great opportunity to push myself and get my heart rate up without all the pounding. Alden has started racing track on Friday evenings so I’ve been getting out after only an hour so I can make it out there to catch him race. I’m still getting in about 3000 yards per session which I think feels like enough for now. I think this means I should try to make my Thursday optional workout less optional and make sure I stay in for the full time Tuesdays as well. Cheryl, what do you think?

I had three solid runs this week which helped to quell my worries after Vancouver. They were short, however, and so I’m still looking forward to testing out my new run nutrition plan on my long run next Sunday.

Work was crazy this week so I am especially proud that I managed to get in all my workouts despite such a full schedule. I also relaxed a bit this week with a massage on Thursday. This is the second time I’ve been to see Angela (Orange Door Massage) who I met because she works one day a week at Valve (Alden got me a gift certificate for Christmas). I scheduled my next one in a month so I won’t even have to think about when to go back- it will just come!

My training calendar says “recovery week” so I’m looking forward to a bit of a respite. We’re off to Michigan for the weekend which should be fun and relaxing as well. I’ll look forward to posting next week all about my trip, the long run nutrition and how Scott is working out with the higher handlebar position!

Well, it was a good week of training (note the word training, not racing). I saw Cheryl and Emily a couple of days before we took off for Vancouver on Saturday to fine-tune my running and nutrition plans. All was going well- it rained on the way up there, but cleared up in time for our walks around town getting packets and finding dinner. We were a formidable force with 21 runners and spectators! I stuck with my nutrition plan, had some yummy chicken pasta for dinner and got up at 4 am for my english muffin breakfast.

I’d raced in Vancouver twice before and so wasn’t nervous about getting there or finishing. The day dawned beautiful and clear. We had 3 newbies in the group who decided to stick with me for the first few miles since my 1:50 finish last year seemed like a good beginning goal. I started out well, despite a 9:45 first mile spent dodging way too many people seeded too fast! The first 6 miles I averaged 8:40ish miles which felt good. Then my legs just stopped. All my friends left me behind and I was left to slog through 10 minute miles chasing the 2:00 pacer bunny. (See the gory details in the comments section of my completed workouts spreadsheet link to the right.) Ugh. I felt heavy and without energy. It would have been a disappointing training run, but I was all the more upset because it was a race. And a race in which I have done significantly better the last two years. The rest of my crew raced fabulously well which was great for them. Alden easily achieved his goal of finishing and managed to go an incredibly fast time as well. We finished out the weekend with a return to Stanley Park to check out the beluga whales before the train trip back to Seattle.

In retrospect, I think I could have managed my expectations better. I did 3 doubles the week before the race so maybe thinking I could run near to my best time wasn’t realistic. I also realized that I’ve got to get my head in the game (or out of the game) if I’m going to be mentally prepared for my Ironman. As I got more and more tired, I got more and more upset. I questioned my body a lot- thinking a lot about the extra 10 pounds I’ve put on since I started this training and wondering how I’ll ever finish a full Ironman when I feel this crappy in a 1/2 marathon. All not so helpful as I was trying to put one tired foot in front of the other. I’m feeling pretty discouraged, even a day later.

So there it is, folks. My first real downer of a post. Thoughts? Suggestions? Reframes?

Well, another couple weeks of training are completed- \o/ The training phase of putting my head down and plowing (what Cheryl is calling Build 1) has begun!Just over a week ago, I managed to survive the hail/snow/sleet and get my long ride in. This last week, my 10-mile run wasn’t awesome and I think I need some more help managing my nutrition on those long runs as it felt similar to my 14-miler the week before- yucky. It’s good that I’m seeing Emily on Thursday so I can get some help putting that all together.

The biggest accomplishment for me this week was going on my longest bike ride ever- 71 miles! I’m really proud of how I’m doing managing my nutrition on the bike as I felt pretty decent all the way until the end. It was a gorgeous day and I went out on Saturday morning with Cheryl’s training crew which provided pacing to help keep me focused and pushing as well as good company and conversation. I’ll definitely continue on riding with them.

I headed out to the Velodrome yesterday morning as Alden was doing a track workout and ran from there along the Sammamish River Trail. Despite having done my longest ride ever the day before, I felt really strong which gave me good confidence that I’m putting things together to make it to Vineman strong and fabulous!

I’ve also been doing lots of behind-the-scenes work. I registered for Flying Wheels in June and STP (will be modified to Seattle-to-Kelso) and squared away ferry and lodging reservations for the New Balance Victoria Half. I’ve also been shopping for good food with which to stock our fridge and shelves. Carbs are still hard for me, but I’m thinking good thoughts about how much energy they give me and that is helping them go down easier.This next week will be exciting- I’m off with the Run Club crew to Vancouver for the 1/2 marathon, but not before the track pre-season gets underway on Friday. Alden’s been putting in awesome fixie and running workouts in addition to lifting to get himself ready so I’m looking forward to watching him put it all together to race. For my part, I’m now adding in extra workouts and bricks to my training regimen. Look for a report back on all the excitement next week!

I’m back in town after a few weeks of travel.  Cory posted a nice summary of our trip to DC on the 35 & dry blog here. She also put up pictures. Molly and I went a sister PR of 2:00:56. It was a wonderful weekend to catch up with friends from my time in DC and spend some time with my sister.

I came back a day later than expected due to bad weather in Minneapolis which made the work week before I left for Cabo even shorter than expected. I did manage to get in all my scheduled workouts except lifting on Tuesday morning, although my run on Wednesday was shorter than I should have gone due to work time constraints.

I left for Cabo frazzled and sleep-deprived. Good thing it was such a relaxing trip! The weather was awesome and we spent most of our time napping and laying by the pool. It wasn’t a very typical vacation for us as it didn’t involve much in the way of adventure, but served as a good opportunity to rest and rejuvenate while spending good time with Alden’s co-workers.

We returned separately and later than expected on Saturday (thanks, American Airlines!).  That was, however, in plenty of time to get in my long ride yesterday. I underestimated the distance by a bit, but felt good about getting out there on a long ride.

This week, I’m looking forward to getting back into routines. I’ve got a big presentation at work tomorrow evening that I spend a big hunk of my Sunday free time working on and will consume most of my non-therapy time today and tonight. After that, work should calm down a bit for me. In tri-related news, I meet with Emily, my food guru, this evening and Cheryl, my coach extraordinaire, on Friday which should help me to settle back in. Yippee for being home in Seattle!

Another week of training done!

The week of workouts went well until yesterday when it was raining sideways during my scheduled ride time. With the Y closed for Easter and the limited workout window due to family gatherings, my 55-mile ride turned into an hour nap. Sometimes life gets in the way of training and I’m just trying to breathe about it. I did then go ahead and run this morning as I took yesterday as my rest day. My new AT for running seems spot on so yay!
I completed my last long run before the National Half in DC next weekend. I’m getting excited to see Molly, friends and run around my old ‘hood. It should be a blast!

I saw a fantabulous woman (Emily Edison from Momentum Nutrition & Fitness) for a sport/performance nutrition consultation on Thursday. She had great positive energy and challenged me to make some really good changes in my eating to better fuel my body. What I’m working on for now:

1. Bookending my workouts with food. That means thinking about fueling before, during and after I work out. I was particularly bad at the pre-workout food intake in the mornings.
2. Boosting up my snacks to at least two foods and my meals to at least three. That means adding in food to both my morning snack and lunch to help me be less grrry at the end of the day.

So far so good! I’m meeting with her again after we’re back from Mexico to check in.

I’m feeling good and energized for my triple Tuesday as I’ve come to affectionately call it. Alden showed me it was possible with his triple today (lift, run, swim) so I’m on for tomorrow!

Although it’s been almost 2 weeks since my last post, that doesn’t mean that I’ve fallen off the training bandwagon. Indeed, it means that I’ve been doing lots of other behind-the-scenes stuff!

Cheryl and I met last weekend to go over plans for my second month of training. Geesh, time really flies! We decided that all is good for now except my pesky running AT threshold which we were convinced is a skosh low. So we planned that I should re-test (the right way, this time) on Saturday to confirm. We went over my weightlifting routine at the Y and I’ve modified some to focus on quad strength while keeping the rest working on endurance. We’re sticking with this workout plan for the next month and will try to find room for a third run each week starting next time around.

This week was good for training. I made all my workouts except my Friday am lifting. For some reason, I had a really tough night of sleep (or lack thereof) on Thursday and didn’t settle in until about 4 am. So I wasn’t about to hop out of bed when my alarm went off at 5:30 am. Having trouble sleeping is not normal for me and I attribute it to lots of working out and not enough stretching. My body just felt achy and not happy or comfortable. I’ve been better these last couple of night which is all good.

I got a new iPod a couple of weeks ago which has been awesome. I had a first generation iPod which was clunky and only held a charge for about 45 minutes right out of the charger. Alden surprised me with a new one so I will now be able to train in style! Unfortunately, this had a cascading effect of upgrading the OS on my Mac (don’t ask). In any case, I finally got everything working well together in time for my Wednesday run. I used my Christmas-gifted Nike + iPod sport kit for this first time, as well. It was cool to see how it worked together and I’ll be able to store my workout info (distance, average mile time, etc.) in iTunes and on the nike website. I’ll try to figure that technology out this week!

I redid my AT threshold test on Saturday and came up with 158 instead of 151. I felt a bit tired, so it may still be a bit low. However, that’s a 5% increase and I hope it will feel more reasonable to me when I’m out and about. We’ll see on my planned 12 mile run on Wednesday.

If you are curious about what I’m supposed to be doing on any given day, I’ve also updated the blog here to include my planned workouts (see the link on the right). I already know I’ll be switching some stuff up this week as I have a meeting on Tuesday so I’ll be swimming tomorrow instead.
Also on the schedule this week is getting a meeting set up with Emily at Momentum 4 Health. She came and spoke to Alden’s cycling team a couple of weeks ago and I’m turning to her for help with nutrition as I ramp up my training.

I’m off to eat some more food (riding long makes me hungry!) and to thank the rain gods for holding off until I got home this afternoon.

My last week of my first month of training is done- yippee! I started a new tab in my workout google spreadsheet and am continuing down the training path. Life has been busy for me this week. So much so that the expiration of my last training workout from Cheryl came and went without much fanfare. I went with my “normal” workouts at the beginning of this week, but know I need to get in touch for a March plan and check-in meeting.

I met this last week with Antje at the Y who helped me out with my lifting technique. Turns out I’ve been doing things much too fast (read: using momentum instead of my muscles). She taught me good stuff about starting with light weight and going s-l-o-w. I’m much more sore after these last two rounds of lifting, but think I’ll reap the benefits later on.

This week I’ve also spent some time reading up on heart rate/threshold work and am starting to believe that going at 85% will be helpful in the long run (literally and figuratively). It’s becoming clearer, though, that running at a lower heart rate at Discovery Park is a challenge for me. I’ll try to keep those as my tempo or hill workouts.

I redeemed my Christmas massage gift certificate on Sunday and had a fabulous 90 minutes of relaxation. I’m thinking that I will schedule another one in a month or so and keep them up as my training intensifies. It was so great!

This was a good week of training! I switched a couple of things up from my plan which I’ll detail below, but all in all it felt like a solid week.

I attended Cheryl’s running group on Tuesday morning and got in a good interval workout. However, the most helpful part of this was feedback on my stride. I knew my quads were weak, but now I have confirmation! I’m working on this in the weight room, at home and in vivo as I walk, stand and generally move about.

I meant to ride at the gym on Wednesday instead of running long (switching my Tuesday/Wednesday/Saturday workouts around), but that didn’t work out. I didn’t pad my schedule with “waiting in line for a machine” time so had to head back to work. I’m glad that I’m a morning person as the chaos of the gym at 5 pm would definitely be too much for me on a regular basis!

Going for my long run on Saturday was difficult. It is really, really hard for me to try and get my heart rate down to 85%. My lap times at Discovery were 3-4 minutes slower than they usually are and my heart rate was still too high! I suspect that I’d have to do some jogging/walking intervals to get it down that low. I’m still working to understand and trust this hr monitor thing.

Yesterday was a gorgeous day for my long ride! My bike computer has been on the fritz and I haven’t been riding regularly since moving to West Seattle, so I headed out on what I thought would be a 35-ish mile ride around the south end of Lake Washington. Turns out it was more like 45 miles. However, I managed my nutrition well and finished strong.

I’m getting excited for my trip out to DC for the National Half Marathon. The race isn’t a focus event for me, but I’m looking forward to catching up with friends and family. It will motivate me for the training that lies ahead. Cory and John are now registered for the 1/2 and full IM (respectively) at Vineman- whoo hoo! John is organizing a soiree at the house on Sunday evening to celebrate post-race. It sounds like Molly and Alden will be able to stick around and fete with us- yay!

I’m hoping that the weather will hold for some more good outdoor training this next week. In addition to my regular training sessions, I have a weight room intro scheduled on Thursday to make sure I’m using the equipment correctly and a long massage on Sunday to encourage healing and growth in my body.