My Life According to Google

I was going to go running early this morning, but Pete ended up wanting to ride up to Bountiful and back down with some friends before work so he got the early workout slot. That's ok. I just went in and did my swim first. Here's what my plan said to do:

S:
6 x 400 even split for each at RPE 2-3

But I forgot to bring it with me, and didn't even check it before I left so I had to go off of memory. It wasn't a very good memory. I was actually thinking of Monday's swim I guess because this is what I did:

Warmup: 500

Main: 1500

Cool Down: 100 easy, 50 back

I decided to shoot for 31:00 on the 1500, and I did it in 30:40! I was pretty happy with that. I just kept imagining St. George, and how cool it would be to be among the first out of the water, instead of the very last. Ok, I just looked at swim times from 2007 and it looks like most people were under 30:00. More like 23:00. I guess I won't be among the first. But, still, 31:00 is good.

After the kids got out of school, I headed up to Sugarhouse to drop the kids off at my friend, Ann's house. They were all so excited to go play over there so that was nice not to have to pry any crying children off me when I left on my run:

R: 130 minute long run. 100 minutes at RPE 3, 30 minutes finish at RPE 5-7.

If you haven't experimented with gels and drinks, start here. Take a bottle to sip from every 20mins. Or so. Consume 1 gel at the 50 minute point. Try using sports drink for hydration and note any stomach problems after the gel. If so, switch to water in future runs.

I put on a lot of sunscreen, filled my fuel belt with power-aid, water, 2 servings of Hammer Gel, and my phone. Then I just set out for Liberty Park which is about 3 miles from Ann's house. I got there in half an hour, then I got onto the trail that goes around the park. It's a nice wood chip trail, and I thought again of St. George and how this would be good practice for it since it's a trail run. Since I don't have any trails around here with thick, burning, red sand, this will have to do. 

I felt really good the whole time. No stomach problems using the Gel and the Power-aid, though I did drink water right after the Gel since that's what I'm used to. It just seems like overkill to chase a sugary goo down with some sugary liquid when the flavors don't exactly go together. Apple Cinnamon followed by lemon anyone?

I ran around the park 3 times, then I had half an hour left so I ran back and tried to push it harder. It was hard to tell exactly how much harder I pushed it because I didn't have my heart-rate monitor on, but I didn't feel as footloose and fancy-free as I did for the beginning of my run. Not that I had been feeling totally free at the beginning because of that stupid fuel belt. It's actually Pete's so it doesn't fit me right and it was bouncing around on my waist for the first little while. This was not comfortable with the sunburn. Then I pushed it really low on my hips where it wasn't so bad, but I still didn't really like having it on. It's nice to have all that stuff with me, though. Just in case.

Anyway, the last little bit was hard, especially because Ann lives at the top of a little hill (couldn't you have bought a house a little lower down in the valley, Ann?). My knee started hurting a little at the very end, so I cut it a little short. I stopped running at 2:05 then walked a little before turning into her house to get the kids. Overall it was a really good run. I felt really good for most of it, and don't feel too beat-up now. I am icing my knees tonight just as a precaution. They don't hurt, but my training plan says "Ice your knees after every long or hard run—whether you’re injured or not." so that's what I'm doing. My ankles actually hurt more than my knees. Probably not used to running on uneven ground.

According to Google, I did exactly 11 miles. That's not really as many as I would have liked, but oh well. Let's see 11 miles in 125 minutes is slower than 11 minute miles. I need Heather to make me go faster!

Shopping Day

A BIG thank you to whoever donated $50 to Against Malaria yesterday! (Another anonymous) We are now up to 39 nets! Almost only 100 to go. I can see myself saying that when I get to mile 39 of the Ironman too!

Today was a day off from my training schedule. The thought came into my mind that I should do the swim that I missed on Monday or something, but this is what my training plan says about that:

With these long hours, don’t worry if you have to skip workouts due to fatigue or schedule conflicts—in the greater scheme, you won’t lose much at all by missing a workout here and there. Just continue on the next day and don’t reschedule missed workouts.

So, a day off is a day off.

I decided to go shopping to try and find something to wear for our family photo shoot on Saturday. I know it's a crime against womanhood, but I hate shopping! Well, I guess I would like it if I had all the time in the world to look around and try on whatever I wanted. I hate Ethan and Elle with me, though. They were either climbing up on the platforms, almost knocking mannequins down, putting jewelry on the floor, or opening the door/curtain of my changing room while I'm in the middle of changing.  If it wasn't that, they were crying about being hungry or tired or not wanting to go into another store. Ug, it was a mess, I don't know why I even attempt it.

I have also been meaning to get my hair done (for the same reason I need a new outfit), and I haven't found a place in Salt Lake yet. I've just been going to my girl in Heber who I really like, but that's just too inconvenient, and I needed to get it done before Saturday so I was keeping my eye open for a salon. There was one in the mall so I went in to see if they had any openings today. They did, and I scheduled an appointment for 3:00, thinking I'd be able to pick Mindy up from school, drop them all off somewhere, then hurry back for my appointment. 

Ethan said he was still feeling sick so I let him skip school again, even though I knew very well that he was just fine. Better safe than sorry. We went home, and Elle napped while I got all stressed out about trying to find someone to take my kids for 3 hours so I could get my hair done. After a few calls, I found someone, though, and I told her I'd meet her at the school since Mindy wouldn't have known if she were to just pick her up. She ended up being late to the school, though, so I was late heading out for my appointment. I hurried as fast as I could to get there, and rushed in. The ladies at the counter just sent me back so I went back to the salon and the girl there just looks at me like I'm crazy and asks if she can help me. I told her I had an appointment. 

"For what time?" I told her 3:00 and she said, "You're much too late. You'll have to reschedule." I looked at the clock and I was half an hour late, but reschedule?? I had scheduled 2 and a half hours. What was she going to do with 2 hours that were left, just sit there? After I went through all that trouble of getting someone to watch my kids and coming all the way back down here? I was not going to reschedule.  You'd think she would have tried to work something out with me, but she acted like that was the only option. 

I just walked out and would have left if the lady at the counter hadn't asked me what happened. I told her that they kicked me out, and she said, "What? Hold on, let me go see if we can work something out." So, she went and talked to the girl, then came and got me. She said she would start on my hair, but she might not be able to style it. I told her that was fine, I didn't care about getting it styled. I was kind of tempted to just not have her do my hair because I was so mad, but I really wanted to get it done so I went back and sat down. It took me about half an hour of sitting there trying to control my emotions, before I was back to normal and we started chatting a little. She seemed nice enough after that, and she did a good job. I was a little worried she would mess my hair up out of spite, but that was just my overactive imagination.

Well, now it's 11:00 and I still don't have a dress for the photo shoot. I really like this one, but I hate to buy something without being able to try it on. I will try one more time tomorrow, and if I don't find anything, I will order it. Any ideas on where to go to find a cute dress? Anyone have something I can just borrow? :)

Everyone Says Hi

Today was a beautiful day. I drove Mindy to school, but regretted it because it was nice enough, and we had enough time that she could have rode her bike. Ethan threw up again this morning, though, so I had Pete take the Jeep to work so I wouldn't have to wake Ethan up again after he went back to sleep. Poor kid. But he seemed totally better when he woke up at like 9 or 10. I still kept him home from school, though.

I finished painting the downstairs bathroom today! Yeah! It's so nice, and now it's just screaming for us to do the base boards and put a shower in to get it finished. Maybe we'll do something cheap and easy just to get it done. It will be nice to have a shower for guests.

Since Pete had the Jeep, I road my bike with the bike trailer to pick Mindy up. Since she didn't have her bike, this meant putting all 3 kids in the trailer on the way home. I was a little worried about this since that's not exactly what it's built for, and I didn't want to hurt my bike, or any of my kids. They all sat very nicely, though, and didn't even fight (very much) on the way home. They were all so cute just happy and talking to each other. 

It was such a nice day that when we got home, we went for a walk to the store. Well, I walked and the kids road their bikes - including Elle. She took forever. Mindy and Ethan were way ahead of us both ways. She was so excited that she can actually push the peddles to ride her little trike now that I had to let her do it. It probably won't happen again, though.

When we got home, I got dressed for my ride, then Pete got home and I set out for this workout:

Brick:
B: 120 minutes at RPE 4 followed by…
R: 60 minute recovery run at RPE 2-3
Stretch well afterwards….

I decided to ride up 800 South past the zoo and up Emigration Canyon. That is a fun ride, with quite a fun hill in the middle. Well, that is if your definition of fun is: being so steep that you have to stand up or else you'll tip over. But I thought, "Hey, it's more fun than child birth!"

I got to see an elephant as I rode past the zoo too, so that was fun.

When I got up to the canyon, there were so many people riding their bikes up, I felt like I had joined a club or something, and everyone says hi! Thinking about that, of course, I got that David Bowie song in my head. You know the one that goes, "Dooo do do do do-do-do dooo." Know what I'm talking about? Anyone?

I argued with myself for quite a while about whether I should go all the way to the top of Little Mountain or just turn around at one hour. I finally ended up turning around at an hour because I couldn't remember how long it takes to get to the top (now I'm thinking it's like 1:40), and I didn't want it to get dark or rain on me. I could see that a storm was coming my way.

I was excited for how easy the way home would be because it's almost all up hill on the way up, but the wind way WAY stronger once I turned around. It was some serious wind, and I found myself not even going very fast on the down-hills. When I got the biggest hill, though, I said, "Just try and stop me now, wind!" And it sure did try to stop me. I was pelted with dust and little rocks, and that hurts when you're going 35 mph! A little while later, I swear it even picked me up and moved me over a foot or so! At least that wasn't when I was going 35, but I still yelled out, "Woah!" Or something. There was a guy in his yard right there too, he probably was wondering what my problem was!

It was a little bit of a struggle to get home, more of a struggle than I had planned, and I ended up having to turn around and go a different way because there was a long train. Doesn't that always seem to happen? I guess that's what I get for living on the wrong side of the tracks. That and frequently seeing people being arrested - which I saw at about 3 minutes out.

Anyway, when I got home I was pretty cold so I put on some pants and my rain jacket along with my running shoes, hat and ipod. I really didn't want to go back out there and run, but running in that weather is not as bad as riding in it. My feet were numb for the first 15 minutes or so, but then I warmed up nicely, and I had a really good run. I was really glad to have my rain jacket since it started raining about half-way. I figured out that it can go all the way over the brim of my hat and it stays on there nicely, keeping my hears dry and my head warm. I was thinking how nice it would have been to have at the marathon. I need to start a list for my special needs bag for the IM:

1. Sunscreen
   
2. Extra Perpetuem
   
3. Rain Jacket
   
4. Light Jacket
   
5. gloves
   
6. Excedrin
   

What else am I going to need?

I was kind of hoping that Everyone Says Hi would come on since I'd had it in my head, but it never did. I actually don't know if it's even on there. A song that I did enjoy, however, was I Am The Greatest Man That Ever Lived by Weezer. That song is really fun to run to! I also like to play it on Rock Band. Actually I sing, but I do have to turn the mic over to Pete on one part where it gets too low for me. Anyway, I listened to that song at about 35 minutes, and I was just having fun. After that, for the rest of the run, I really felt like I could keep running forever!  It was like I hadn't even done a bike ride before-hand. This is a good sign, I think. Even though it was just a 2-hour bike ride. That used to be my long bike! Now that was a long post, and it's already 11:00! Sorry about that.

Half-day

This morning I got up at 6 and went running for 45 minutes. I tried to go at a little bit faster than usual pace. I got to the golf course in 21 minutes, so I think that was a little faster. I didn't want to waste time eating, then waiting around for it to digest before I went out, so I just took a shot of Hammer Gel before I left. After this weekend, I was a little worried it would just make me feel sick, but luckily it didn't. I actually felt really good on the run, other than being cold. It was weird because I was cold for the first 10 minutes or so, then I was fine for a while, but by the end I was cold again. I should have worn a jacket or, at least, gloves or something. My arms felt all stiff and my hands were getting numb. 

I stopped at the store on the way home to buy milk for breakfast. I had clipped a 20 onto my pants with my ipod shuffle so that came in handy even though it died on me half-way through the run.  I had planned on charging it yesterday, but when I went to wake my computer up, it was totally freaking out. Now we can't even get it to boot. What is it with me and my bad luck with computers lately? And my lack of backing stuff up. I almost lost all our pictures when my other computer died, and now this one (Well, not this one, I'm using Pete's right now) looks like it will be the same story. How sad will that be if I end up with no childhood pictures of my kids!? They're so cute too! Pete's going to try and fix it, or at least recover the data, so keep your fingers crossed.

Anyway, when I got back from my run, I was going to just run Mindy to school then go swim, but I was starting to feel a little sick again. Plus I just could not get warm! I put a jacket on, stretched by the heat vent, and had some nice warm oatmeal, but I was still cold. I ended up taking Mindy to school, and deciding to forgo swimming for the day, and take a hot bath instead. I think it was good that I got the run in considering how sick I was on Saturday. Besides, I did still do something in the water. . . 

The hot bath warmed me up, but I don't think it was good for the sunburn. I think it encouraged more peeling, therefor exposing more sensitive, damaged skin and made it more sore. Whatever the reason, it has been hurting really bad today. I have been trying to avoid moving too much amid all the cleaning that needed to be done.

I was so so lucky to be able to take a nap for an hour an a half. I set my alarm for 10 minutes before I had to pick Ethan up, and usually that's fine because I'm usually not really alseep. Today, I know I slept because I had a dream about going to the ocean and seeing dolphins swimming really close. Ah, it was nice. I hit the snooze button once before I even realized what was going on. Then I had to jump up and hurry over to get him when it went off again. Luckily, Elle was still sleeping and Pete was working from home so I could just leave her. She had a nice long nap too. It was nice.

Ha, now I'm finally looking at my training plan and this is what I was supposed to do today:

Your legs are probably a bit stiff from yesterday's hard run effort. A bit of
flushing today…
B: 45 minutes spinning at RPE 3.

S: long day
wu: 500 continuous, then 5 x 50
main: 1 x 1500, RPE 3
cd: 3 x 75, each slower than last

Looks like I didn't really get any of it right. See what happens when I don't have my computer handy? Tomorrow is going to be a hard one, I should get to bed so I have no excuses not to do it.

8 Weeks to Ironman

You wanna know something crazy? I only have 8 weeks until the Ironman! This week starts "Base 3" in my training schedule. I'm going to be putting in a LOT of hours this next month. My peek being 18 hours in a week. I'm feeling better today, but not great, I hope I'm up to working out again tomorrow.

What am I going to do with myself when this is all over? What will I do with all my time, and will I still be motivated to workout? These are the questions.

I'm thinking I'll want to keep doing triathlons, but just Sprint or Olympic distance. That way it's more just for fun and I don't have to base my whole life around it, but I'll still have something to work towards. Pete and I would both like to get back into rock climbing too. Maybe that will be a good goal. At least there are climbing gyms around here. That was one problem with St. George, though St. George has awesome outdoor climbing all over! 

It's crazy the things you miss out on when you're in a certain place. It's like how I grew up in Heber, and even worked in Park City at a ski resort, and yet, I've never been skiing. People think something is wrong with me. It has never appealed to me, though. Not enough to go through all the trouble of doing it. It's weird because skiing is what brought my mom to Utah in the first place. If I were her, I would have stayed in California! :) But it's easy to say that in my position. I'm sure glad she did come to Utah so she could find out about The Gospel and meet my dad.

We went up to Heber today for my Dad's birthday party. It sure is beautiful in that valley. It was snowing coming over the mountain, but as we came down into the valley it was all green and picturesque. If only it were feasible for us to live there! We had a great time, and everyone was sad to leave. Back to life tomorrow. See you then.

World Malaria Day

Today is World Malaria Day. What better way to observe this day then to buy a net or two for those who are in danger of catching this deadly disease? Go to Againstmalria.com/colleensironman to make your donation today! We're up to 22 nets, by the way!

Speaking of being sick, that's about all I did today.

It started at about 3 in the morning when Mindy came and stood in my doorway, then started throwing up. I felt pretty grossed out and sick cleaning up after her, and sure enough, right when I got her back into bed, it was my turn. I'd been kind of waiting for everyone else to get the flu since Ethan and Elle had it a few days ago. It's crazy how suddenly it hits you, though! Both of us spent the rest of the mourning feeling really crappy and getting rid of all the food we had in our stomaches. 

I'm so grateful that Pete was home and able to take care of the kids in the morning. He did a great job of keeping them quite and out of my room. He also took Ethan and Elle to pick up our food co-op order. I'm glad we didn't miss that again! Mindy watched Ella Enchanted 3 times in a row. I watched the second half of it with her on her 3rd time around, but then I had to go get back in bed. 

I figured this was as good an excuse as any not to go ride in the rain for 5 hours. I was a little bit relieved about that, but then when I finally ventured out of my bed at about 4pm and looked out the window, it was all dry outside! It probably would have been perfect weather for a ride! Who knows, it could have been pouring rain 30 miles away, though.  If I would have known I would be sick today, I would have done my workouts yesterday like a good girl. Oh well, I'm sure it will be fine. That long ride wasn't even scheduled for today, I was just going to do it because I'm missing a long ride to do the St. George Tri. I'll figure something out.

Around the time I got up at 4, Pete started feeling sick so we switched places laying in bed and taking care of the kids, though I still did my share of laying in bed. I had to psych myself out to go make soup for dinner. I imagined myself washing the pan, then opening the cans (luckily they were pull-tops) and dumping them in.  I did that, then laid back down while it cooked. I could hear the kids getting all excited about the soup out there too. "Mmmm, it smells so good!" "I'm so excited to eat it!" I'm glad they were excited about it. :) 

The kids were really good today, and I was so glad that Mindy was feeling better by the time Pete started feeling sick because she helped keep Elle happy. I just have the best kids! After dinner they watched more movies and I laid in bed again until it was absolutely time to get them ready for bed. Pete did most of that anyway. He even read to them in-between throwing up! My hero! I felt like such a baby and just couldn't do much for most of the day. I'm so grateful to Pete for everything he did today. He's the best husband in the world and such a good dad! 

I'm glad I'm feeling mostly better now. I think I will actually try to muster enough energy to go wash the dishes.

Non-Ironman Day

Today I spent pretty much the whole day out in the yard working on our garden. I was supposed to do an hour-long ride, but I decided to skip it. I'm going to be doing a 5-hour ride tomorrow that's not really on the schedule, so I figured it wouldn't hurt much. Plus, I just wanted to have one day where it didn't seem like every single thing I did had to do with Ironman training. That's not to say I didn't think about it a lot, or talk about it at the party we went to tonight, but at least I didn't DO anything Ironman today.

I got most of my garden planted, and discovered an old asphalt road that runs along the back of our yard - right where I wanted to put the mounds for my pumpkin, watermelon, squash and zucchini. I ended up using the dirt off the road to make my mounds, and I put them right on the edge of it, I hope that works. The good thing about it was that it was pretty easy to just scrape the weeds, along with the inch of dirt, off the asphalt. That's not to say it was an easy job. There were a lot of weeds. It took me most of the day, and I'm not done yet. But I did get almost all my plants in the ground before it started raining. It's supposed to rain for a week. I hope this is good for my little plants. 

Another fun thing that I got done today was the video I edited for Against Malaria. I sent it over, and they got it put up right away so you get to watch it. If you want. I know it's not super exciting, but it's kind of cool to see. They sent me the video and the music and I edited them together. I was so excited to be editing video that was taken in India! Here it is. (Oh, and you just have to click on the little link on the bottom left-hand side of the page that looks like a movie reel where it says "See the video.")

Blogging and Me

I started this blog, in part, to promote my race charity: Against Malaria. It has been a long road, and sometimes I've felt like it's not really worth it because people don't want to give money to someone they don't even know for a cause that is so far away. It is such a good cause, though, and you even get to see where your nets go! Just think about all those little babies with fevers and getting all shaky and weak. All because of a stupid little bug. It just makes me want to cry. And a net is just $5! (Click here to donate!)

Well, today my blogging has paid off a little bit because I got an awesome mention on one of my favorite blogs: abookaday09.blogspot.com

The author, Angie, has set the daunting goal for herself to read one whole book every day for a year. So far she has done a great job of this, and she writes about her reaction to the book every night. She is very funny, easy to read, and also informative. Go check her out.

Ok, now back to me. Me, me, ME! 

Last night was another bad one because Elle and Ethan both decided to start throwing up all over for no good reason at about 11:30. Luckily I was able to get them back to sleep after an hour or so. Poor little things. We decided, last night, that we would just keep Mindy home from school just in case. But then this morning, after we'd all slept in until half an hour after school starts, we informed her of this decision, and she just started to cry. She was so sad! Here is a girl who loves school! I hope it stays that way for her. I decided, that since she showed no signs of being sick that I could take her in. She was an hour late, but she was so happy to go!

Here was my plan for the day:

S: recovery
4 x 300 (300 easy, 300 kick, 300 easy, 300 pull)

R: 45 minutes at RPE3 run in reverse direction as yesterday.

Since Ethan and Elle were sick, even though they weren't throwing up any more, I couldn't really go to the gym with them so I thought today would just be a day off. That was a pretty dinky little swim too, would it even be worth it to go all the way to the pool for half an hour? 

Instead, I put the babies (we use this term loosely around here, Ethan's almost as big as me now!) on the couch with Max and Ruby, then painted the bathroom! Yeah! Watching hours of DIY, Flip That House, and whatever home renovation show I could find, actually did me some good. I knew how to paint along the corners so there would be a nice line between the white and the beige, and it was fun practicing that. The only bad thing was that I ran out of paint so it's not looking as nice as I would have liked with the green drywall still showing in some places. I will have to get more paint, but knowing me, it will take a good 6 months to get around to doing that. Oh well.

When it was time to pick Pete up, he called and suggested I just wear my running clothes so I could run home. This was an excellent idea. We drove a little ways so I would be farther away, then he dropped me off and I started runnig. It was a good run. It was really warm today, but it was now overcast and windy so it was nice and cool. I even thought it would start raining on me at one point. I ran for 45 minutes, and my watch was driving me crazy! Elle somehow did something to it that lowered my max or raised me min heart-rate or something because it pretty much just beeped the whole time. I'll have to get Pete to look at that. 

Anyway, I probably did . . . 4.4 miles. It's hard to know for sure because I went on the Jordan River Trail which google maps doesn't follow. Dang you google! 

It's supposed to be rainy for the next week. I planted some of my little vegetable starts, I hope they don't die! They looked pretty pathetic by the time I got them all into the garden. The rain will be good for them right? That's why I planted them today.

Where did spring go?

Last night I stayed up all night (seriously, I don't think I got to sleep until around 3) thinking about our downstairs bathroom. Yesterday I got the bedroom down there painted and it was awesome! Even with the kids "helping" me, I had a great time, and it turned out looking so nice! It looks like a room again, yeah! I've still got to get the bathroom done, though, and I found a shower base for a really good price on our local classified site, but Pete doesn't seem to think it's a good idea. I don't even know how that took all night for me to think about and worry over, but it did. I was so tired this morning, I thought I might skip training today, and maybe take a nap during Elle's nap. I knew that by the time nap time came, however, I would be wide awake and wanting to paint again so I got to work on the bathroom right away. I told Pete to go ahead and take the car, I would run to the school to pick Mindy up.  

Well, in the morning, I decided I needed to do some more mudding, so I just did that, then did a little "gardening" as we like to call it. Really it was just digging up the pretty weeds in the back yard and transplanting them in the front yard. 

I took Ethan to school in the bike trailer then Elle and I went for our ride:

B: 90 min spin at RPE 2-3

She pretty much fell asleep right away, I don't know how she does it considering how bumpy the road was. It was really hard coming back, I think the wind was helping with my strength training again. In an hour and a half I rode 15 miles and my average mph was 11. Pathetic, but anyone who's tried to pull a bike trailer will understand. It doesn't matter how fast I went, just as long as I got a good workout in, which I sure did.

When Elle woke up, I was just about done, and already on my way to see the ducks. Of course. What other reason could we possibly have to go on a bike ride?

We got home, and I had just enough time to do my hip exercises, then I traded my shoes, and got Elle into the stroller for our run:

R: 30 min at RPE 3 with strides.

It is really hard to do strides while pushing the stroller, but I tried to do them every 5 minutes. It was hot too! It was probably 80 degrees today.  Once I got going, it wasn't too bad. I also think the first 10 minutes were uphill so that made it even worse. 

I got to the school at almost exactly 30 minutes, and right on time to pick Ethan up.  He and Elle played on the playground while I stretched, then Mindy got out and we walked home. I think it would have been a nightmare trying to get Elle to stay in the stroller and have them not complain too much, but we stopped at the store on the way, and everyone got a drink so that kept them pretty happy.  It was a beautiful day, I'm glad I got to spend a good amount of time outside.

Oh, and I also bought some travel size sunscreen to put in my bike pack! No more burning for me.

Now for some cleaning, laundry, painting, and . . . do I have time to make myself a treat in there before bed? It's almost 9 now, here I go!

St. George Tri - Here I Come!

I just got an email with a promotional video for the St. George Tri. This is totally from last year. You can tell by watching the sand blow across the bike course, and in the runners faces. And watch for that helicopter circling over the swim. That was us it was watching. I kept hoping it would show the last 2 girls emerging from the water on shaky legs and hugging each other because they were so happy to be alive! But it's not in there. My heart did start racing just watching that video, though. I will be there again in 2 1/2 weeks! I'm going to tear up that course this year! (Read about last year's St. George Tri)

Swimming Rocks

Last night I put an ice pack on my knee when I went to bed for about half an hour. Then I moved it to my back which felt really good, but for some reason during the middle of the night I took it off. (Who knows why we do things in the middle of the night? Maybe it was actually bothering me to have something touching it, I don't know.) After that, I couldn't sleep because my sunburn kept hurting. Of course, this was one of the rare nights that Elle slept all night (Thank you!) and I didn't really get to enjoy it as much as I should have. Oh well, let's hope for a repeat sleep performance (on her part) tonight.

Here's a picture so you can see I'm not being a complete baby about it. When I was riding, I pictured getting just a little burn line, but it looks like more of my back was showing than I thought. This is somewhere that usually doesn't see the sun so having it totally exposed for 4.5 hours was really dumb. I guess any part of me, even the parts that are used to seeing the sun, would have been fried after that long, though. I should know this, I get sunburnt every year, and every year I say, "When will I learn?"

Moving on though, here was my plan for today:

Swim:
10 x 200 (50 Easy, 50 Build, 50 Easy, 50Hard)
250 easy

I didn't feel like swimming this morning. I was kind of in a bad mood. You know how being in pain can kind of make you in a bad mood? At least it does that to me. I knew I would be happy once I got started, though.

I couldn't get the printer to work as we were trying to leave so I had to just go off of memory for this workout, which wasn't too hard. I ended up doing 200 to warm up firs and only 100 to cool down at the end. 

My 200s weren't very consistent. They ranged from 3:45 to 4:00. It wasn't until half-way through my 7th set that I realized I wasn't counting my strokes, so I tried to be more diligent with that afterwards. I had been thinking too much about my blog, and how someone else donated to Against Malaria!! Yeah! Thank you, Heidi!  We are now up to 23 nets!

I was so distracted, in fact, that I didn't notice the people in the lanes next to me at all. Usually I kind of keep an eye on how fast they are going to compare myself to them, but I was in my own little world today. At one break in-between sets, the older man next to me all of a sudden says, "I was thinking you two were sisters." Then I notice that the girl in the lane to my other side was just leaving. He said, "You were swimming so close to each other, I thought you must be sisters." Weird. I was just like, "Nope." I don't ever know what to say to people in a situation like that. Then he said that I was going a little bit faster, though. How nice! :) 

He talked to me one more time before I left and asked me if I'd gotten to 100 laps yet. I told him, no, that I'd done about 40. He told me how he was happy to make it to 20. I told him I remembered when I couldn't do 20. He told me I was a good swimmer. It's pretty cool to start out so bad at something, then be able to see such a big improvement! I remember, when I first started, the most laps I could do in a row was 7 or 8. Then I just started adding a lap every time I went. Now here I am. Swimming is great!

60 Miles And My Back Is Burning

Literally, my back is burning. I went on my ride today, and totally lathered the sunscreen all over myself - except for my lower back where it peeks out when I bend over on my bike. I kind of forgot that part. Not smart. It's swollen, it's so burnt.

Other than that, my ride was awesome today! Here's what my training plan said:

B: 4h long bike, easy pace. In and out of aero position. Try out fuel/hydration that you plan to use during races. If weather permitting, use race clothes as well.

Weather was so permitting me to wear my race clothes today, hence the low riding shorts, and the sunburnt back. I did this last time I wore my tri shorts too. I will learn from this! The weather was perfect for riding, though! It was in the 70s so it was really warm, but the breeze was nice and cool (except when going 5 mph uphill, then it got pretty hot). 

You must be wondering, "How did you get out on a 4 hour bike ride on a Monday?" Well, I have great friends, that's how. I dropped Ethan off at school, then took Elle over to my friend Ann's house where she was so excited to play with "Little Ethan." I headed out on my ride from there at about 12:30, shooting to be back by 5. I had anther friend, Dana, pick Mindy and Ethan up from school for me. It worked out just perfectly, and I think Dana even took the kids to the movies! They couldn't tell me what the movie was called, though, so I'll have to ask her about it. She's just awesome! Thank you both for helping me out so much today, it was wonderful!

Ann lives in Sugarhouse now, so I rode from there, through downtown which was kind of fun, and up the same route as Saturday to Kaysville. I was going to see if I could get to that same park where we turned around on Saturday, but I ended up missing the turn onto Smith so I just rode until I hit 30 miles. This was at almost 2.5 hours. I stopped and got off my bike to stretch a little because I was feeling pretty sore. I took some Hammer Gel then started again. I felt so much better! It's amazing how much good some stretching can do.

The way home went so fast. The wind must have been with me again. I kept looking at my speedometer and seeing 19, and I liked that. I liked it a lot. I think 19 -20 miles an hour is the nicest speed to cruise along at. I'm going to try to do it more often.

My total distance for the day was 60.3 miles! I did it in 4:16, and my average speed was 14.5 mph. This was slower than Saturday (15.3 mph), but I felt really good at the end. Not sore at all. I'd like to go faster, but I do like feeling good after the ride when I think about having to run a marathon when I get off my bike. 

I had my recoverite and stretched at Ann's house, then went to pick up Pete and the kids. When I picked Mindy and Ethan up from Dana's, she asked me if my legs were rubbery, and I was surprised to be able to say that I felt great. I feel like I totally could have kept going. Maybe I feel so good because I didn't have to run after this ride, I don't know. I'm glad I feel good, though, that makes me feel very optimistic! The most painful thing right now is my sunburnt back. Don't let me do that again!

9 Weeks to Ironman

First of all I want to thank those of you who donated to Against Malaria recently! Thank you so much! Every little bit helps get us closer to our goal of 140.3 nets. So far we've got 15 nets. Actually 18, if you count the check from my grandma that is in the mail. Thank you, Grandma and Anonymous, whoever you may be (I have a guess, but I won't say who). I can't say thank you enough. If you haven't had the chance to donate, go a head and do it now. Even if it's just enough for one net ($5). 

I've had the opportunity to edit some video of one of their drop-off sites in India, and it's really cool to see the actual people who are getting these nets. If you go to my Against Malaria page and click on the little flag to the far right of your name, you can see where you donation went. There are no videos or anything for the ones we've done yet (that's what I'm trying to help them out with), but here are some of their videos if you want to just see some of the people who have received nets. It's pretty cool to see.

Secondly, Holy Cow! 9 weeks sounds so scary. That's still more than 2 months, though. I can get a lot done in 2 months. It's going to be fine. This week is supposed to be a rest week, but I was supposed to do a 4 hour ride today so I'm doing that tomorrow and shifting everything down a day. Here's what my plan says about this week:

Recovery week! This would be a good week to do an Olympic or 1/2IM race or run race if possible.

I'm not doing a race this week, so I'm thinking about switching this week with week 7, when I am doing a race. I don't know if I want to do that, though. Pete thinks I'm going to need this rest after such a hard biking week. Maybe I'll just switch the Saturday workouts. We'll see how I feel after tomorrow.

Today I feel a little bit sore, but more just fatigued. I realized today that we practically (minus 1 miles) did a half-Iron distance on our ride yesterday! That's exciting. I've never gone that far before!  I also realized today that my legs got sunburnt. It's a good and a bad thing that I was wearing my knickers. Good because the top of my legs would have probably been fried, and bad because now I have a tan line at the top of my calf. Everyone probably noticed it in church today, how embarrassing! Just kidding. I will have to remember my legs when I'm putting sunscreen on from now on. I also need to get a little travel-size sunscreen that I can bring with me and reapply during the ride because, even though I put spf 50 on my face before I left, my nose got a little sunburnt. I am a delicate flower, I can't be subjected to so many UV rays!

A Little Whipping

Today my "Aunt" Heather came up so we could do a long ride together and she could whip me into shape. (Ok, that's not the real reason, she just wanted to do it for fun and to get ready for Little Red Riding Hood, but she did do a little bit of very nice whipping) My training plan just says:

Bike: long bike, if using aero bars , try to get settled in and maintain aero position throughout ride. If you can't maintain same power/speed as nonaero position, make mental notes of further adjustments to make post-ride.

Run: 30 minute post ride recovery run at RPE 2

It doesn't really say how long of a long bike ride to do, but we decided to shoot for 4 hours. We went up my usual route through Bountiful and Farmington and into Kaysville. Heather really does make me push harder. Sometimes I would start just looking around at the scenery and loose focus, then I would see her just plugging away so I'd get back into it. Just like when we ran together, I thought, "I'm not going to be able to keep going at this speed, but then I end up doing it!" I'm really happy that I was able to keep up with her because she kicked my butt in the last tri we did together.

Pete mapped out this whole ride for us that ended up at Antelope Island, and I memorized like 5 streets (Shepherd, Smith, Angel, Gentile, Bluff - yep 5), but we only made it to Angel. We took a little break at a park there, used the bathroom, went down a few slides (not really, but we did think about it, just like we thought about stopping to get eclairs when we saw a sign for them, or stopping in at an open house at this really nice house, or buying a bunny, but then we decided that $10 was a little much for a bunny and kept riding), fueled up then headed back. We were really hoping the wind would be with us on the way back because we had a head-wind for a lot of the way up, but it seemed like the wind was still going against us! Is there a scientist out there who can explain to me how this can possibly happen?

Maybe the wind was really with us, though, because we made it back in an hour and a half. Our total distance was 55 miles with an average speed of 15.3 mph and our total time was 3:35. It was a good ride. We were hurting by the end of it though!

Coming home is so nice after a long ride like that. Of course, when we got home, we just changed our shoes and started running. It was really hard at first. My legs were really sore. We had pushed it pretty hard, and there are some good hills in that ride! But, after 10-15 minutes, I was feeling OK. Not great, but OK, like maybe it will be possible to keep running for 5 or 6 hours like that. Or maybe not. Ug! Heather was like, "This is going to be a hard marathon!" Too true. I will just plan on taking it slow, though, just one foot in front of the other. Anyway, we probably did 3 miles. We were doing a little faster than 10 minute miles, so that's pretty good after a hard 55 mile bike ride.

My legs are pretty sore and my knees hurt too. I've got my compression socks on. I think I'll take some Ibuprofen, get an ice pack and go to bed.

We're All Human, Aren't We?

This morning was another lazy morning, and I only got up when the kids started complaining about being hungry too much. We had oatmeal with bananas and they actually ate it all! I waited a while to let my food digest, then did my hip exersizes and headed out on my run:

Run: 1 hour, steady RPE 3-4 effort. Good stretching afterwards.

It was a good run. An hour is a nice length of time for a run. It's not too long so I don't have to hold myself back too much, and it's not too short that I don't feel like it wasm't worth it. I ran on the trail by the river, and had one guy run past me. I didn't have a problem with him passing me, but then, a few minutes later, I noticed that my heart-rate had gone up to 170. I don't really think of myself as a competitive person, but sometimes when someone passes me like that, making it look so easy, I just think, "I could go a little faster." 

What makes it so that some people are so much faster than other people? And I don't mean people who work at it versus people who just sit around all day either. I mean, some people are faster than me when they're taking it easy even if I'm going as hard as I can. We're all human, why is there such a big difference? It's not like you see one cheetah that can go 70 mph, but then see another one that can barely break 20. Pete points out that this is because a cheetah that can only run 20 mph would starve to death. Maybe this explains it.

It just makes me wonder if some aliens came and watched us humans, then wrote a paper about us, would they say, "Humans can run up to 27 mph." because a few can do that? Or would they say, "Can run up to 10 mph." which seems to be more like the average. It's just so weird that we're all human, but some can go so much faster! It's crazy. Here's an article about it.

Anyway, after my run, I had a quick half sandwich and some recoverite, then Pete dropped me off at the pool so I could swim while he took the kids to lunch. Here's what I did:

Swim: 500, 5 x 100, 400, 4 x 100, 200, 2 x 100, 100

long reps are at RPE 3, 100s are at RPE 7

My 100s were all in between 1:43 and 1:55, except for the last one which I did as a cool down. It was a good swim. It always takes me a good 10-15 minutes to get feeling good in the pool. When I first jump in and start swimming, I often think, "I need to do this for how long!?" But then I get into the rhythm of it and I feel good, like I can keep going forever. Well, maybe not forever, but you know what I mean.

Again, the guy in the lane next to me was just so fast! He was cooling down and I was doing my fast 100s and I still couldn't keep up. I'm really not competitive . . . Ok, not very competitive, but what gives? I guess it probably had to do with how trim he was and how defined his muscles were. I wonder if you can see my muscles like that (well, not exactly like that, but at all) when I'm swimming. I know my arms have gotten stronger because I had to get rid of one of my shirts that had too tight of sleeves, and I did 6 pull-ups a little while ago. That beat my record of 4 from when I was in weights in high school. I haven't tried any pull-ups lately, maybe I can even do more. I'd hate to try it and not be able to do as many, though. I'll skip it tonight.

Renovations

Today was a day off for me and the kids are still out of school (Thank goodness since we found lice on Mindy last night, eww!) so Pete decided to take the day off so we could do something fun. He went for a ride this morning which was cold, but I'm glad he was able to get out.

I spent a good part of last night and today mudding and sanding our downstairs bathroom. I've never done this before so I hope I'm not doing too terrible of a job. I must say that mudding is a perfectionists dream, or nightmare, I'm not sure which. I could sit there for hours just smoothing out the mud if my shoulders and back didn't get so sore. I'm excited to have it all fixed up and back in working order. We got the tube we needed to get the toilette working again, and I cleaned out all the debris that was in there. There is still a huge gaping hole where the shower should be, and it smells like a sewer if you unplug the drain, but we're not in a position to fix that yet. As long as we get it painted and get the toilette working, I'll be happy. For now.

As far as doing something fun, we took the kids to the pool which is always fun. 

I Spoke Too Soon!

This morning I stayed in bed until 9! I couldn't even believe it! How am I ever going to get back into school mode?

My training plan for today was:

Bike: 120 minutes with long tempo work
wu: 15 minutes RPE 3 working to 4 by end
main: 90 minutes at RPE 5-7 steady mix of aero and non
cd: 15 minutes at RPE 2-3.

It was raining all morning and I kept looking out the window, hoping it would clear up. I couldn't decide if I wanted to try and find a baby-sitter so I could ride outside or just ride on the trainer. I tried not to think about it too much and got the kitchen and the floors clean. They were needing it badly!

I was about to say, "Ok, I'm just going to call a baby-sitter so I can ride outside," when Mindy said, "It's snowing!" Sure enough, millions of big fluffy snow flakes were falling from the sky. I waited it out and we had lunch, then I looked and it had stopped. I was hopeful, but when I told Mindy it wasn't snowing anymore she said, "Yes it is," and I looked again - it was snowing again. This is what I get for saying "At least it's not snow" yesterday.

Min said, "You can't ride outside if it's snowing, I guess you'll just have to ride inside." She had picked up Ella Enchanted at the library yesterday and knew that if I rode on the trainer, I would let them watch a movie. Well, she won on this one because I wasn't about to track down a baby-sitter so I could go riding for 2 hours in the snow. Brr! Plus, I secretly wanted to watch the movie too. I'm a sucker for fairy tails. 

The good thing about riding the trainer is that I can multi-task. I LOVE multitasking. I can ride my bike while:

1. baking bread (I just had to hop of for a few minutes to take it out of the oven at the right time)
2. giving Elle a nap (of course, she didn't nap today, but it could work)
3. watching a movie
4. spending time with my kids. 

It's a win-win situation!

I knew that I would have to be careful not to let myself go too easy if I was watching a movie so I put it on a semi-hard gear,  and tried to keep my heart-rate above 150 by pedaling at around 90 rpm. I don't know if this was high enough. It was pretty hard, but not too bad. It's weird that a 2-hour ride is no big deal now when it used to be my long ride.

The movie was cute in that anachronistic, alternate fairy tail kind of way. I liked it, and Mindy and Ethan liked it, but Elle did not. She was in playing with Barbies by the end.

That ride counts right? So far, I've gotten all my workouts in for the week, and just because I did some of them on the trainer, doesn't mean I didn't do them. So why do I feel like such a slacker? I think it's because I'm not getting much else done. But I have to just come to terms with the fact that I'm going to be spending a lot of time on this training for the next few months. Then I'll have time to do everything else.

More Rain -At Least It's Not Snow

Today it was rainy and cold pretty much all day. I could have ridden in it, I probably should have ridden in it, it would have been good for me, but I opted for a trainer ride today. I just wanted to stay home and relax with the kids and get the house clean today. Here's what my training plan says:

Bike: 90 minutes at RPE 4 on trainer or road. 

Try to maintain aero posture during middle 40 minutes. Take your tools along and stop for adjustments as necessary to keep comfortable position without sacrificing power. You'll find that this position will vary as your flexibility and strength changes. Keep notes in your log of adjustments fur reference. 

We'll do this again at the end of the week to test positioning.

Ok, so I didn't take my tools along to make any adjustments. I don't want to mess anything up, and I usually feel pretty comfortable on my bike, except when I'm on the trainer. I did try to stay in the areo bars for as long as I could. I was watching movies with the kids so I probably wasn't working as hard as I could have. 

Spring Break!

It is spring break for the kids this week so I got to sleep in this morning! Well, I don't know  if "sleep" is the right word because Elle came and got in bed with me at about 7. I got to stay in bed until about 8 when Ethan came in, though. He put his head close to Elle and she hugged it and said, "I love you, Ethan." 

He said, "I love you too." Then, "Do you want to get up?" 

She said, "It's not time to get up yet." 

He says, "Yes it is, look at the sky." I told him she didn't have to get up if she didn't want to so he left. Then she got up and followed him. It was just the sweetest morning!

 

We took our time with breakfast, that no one ate because they had all been eating their Easter candy all morning. Then I dropped Pete off at work and headed up to the gym so I could get started with my workouts for the day:

Swim: race-specific
wu: 2 x 75, last 25 in each is backstroke.
main: 3 x 600, first at RPE 4, 2 at RPE 8, 3 at RPE 4
cd: 150 easy

What does race-specific mean? I mean, wouldn't race-specific just be a long long swim in this case? I don't get it.

I did the first 600 in about 12:30, then the second one I did in 11:25, and the third one I did in 11:50. Twelve laps is a long time to go pretty much as hard as you can. RPE 8 is really high. It was good, though. I love  how calm and serene the pool is. I just thought today, as I started my first lap, that I just feel so at home there now. It's a nice way to exercise. I would recommend it. :) 

It was nice to not have to rush home afterwards. We took our time, the kids climbed on the climbing wall then we went to lunch at Rumbi. That was really good and the kids loved it, of course.

When we got home, we did a lot of cleaning, and Elle took a nap then they played outside really good while I mowed the whole lawn. This was cool because last year I couldn't mow the whole lawn without Elle needing me or something.  It was just such a nice day, I just really wanted to be outside. The  kids actually ended up getting their swimming suits on  and playing in the water.

After I picked Pete up, I hurried and did my bike ride:

Bike: 90minutes. Find hills, keep RPE 3-4 in flats, higher when climbing, include out of saddle and focus on constant pedaling even on downhills.

I was going to go up the same hills we ran up on Saturday, but then this long train pulled up and stopped right in the way so I ended up turning and heading up to Bountiful where I "found" some hills. They weren't crazy hills, but I'd say they were hard enough. I did get out of the saddle going up some of them, and I tried to keep pedaling constantly going back down, but when I got to 30 mph I just didn't really want to go any faster so I stopped there. This was on that same road where I got honked at that one time, and my top speed was 35 mph so there, I was going the speed limit. I know, that's not very fast, but it was fast enough for me. At least on that road.

I did 21.6 miles in 1:36. My average speed was 14.4 which is not very fast, but there were some good hills in there so I think it was ok. I was going a lot faster than that a lot of the time. :)

It was just such a beautiful day today! I felt so bad because when I picked Pete up and told him I needed to do my ride still, he told me he'd been looking out the window all day and was planning on going out on his mountain bike. He said, "I did my Ironman, though. Now it's your turn." I just wish it would have been light for a few more hours so we both could have gone. It's supposed to rain tomorrow and the next day so I told the kids to enjoy the sun while it lasted.

10 Weeks to Ironman - Happy Easter

Happy Easter! I hope everyone had a great day. Easter is such a wonderful holiday. We had a mixed Easter and birthday party in Heber so there was a LOT of sugar. It was a lot of fun, though.

A lot of biking coming up this week! My legs are sore and the thought of that doesn't make me very excited right now. I'm sure it will be fun though (let's just hope it doesn't snow too much)!

12.8 miles

Training plan for the day (or actually, for Sunday, but I switched it with the swim I was supposed to do today because I wanted to make sure to get my long run in):

Run: 2.5hour long run include some hills, RPE 3. Try to use nutrition which will be available on race day.

This morning I was up bright an early because first Elle came into my room at around 5, then 5:30. After I got her back to bed, Ethan came in at 5:30 with his ears hurting. I gave him his medicine and got him back to bed. Then I had some oatmeal and did the dishes while I let it digest before getting ready to go running. I needed to leave right at 7 because I was planning on running for an hour then meeting up with Pete's aunt, Heather.  She is planning on doing the Florida Ironman next year, I'm doing the Little Red Riding Hood Century with her, and she's one of the coolest people I know. I'm not just saying that because she's a loyal reader of my blog either. :)  

Elle woke up just as I was about to leave, but I put Blue's Clues on for her and let me leave without a fuss. According to Pete, that lasted about half an hour.

I took it super easy for the first hour. I managed to get back to the house at almost exactly 8 where Heather was waiting so I took some Hammer Gel and a drink, then we set off together to do some hills. We ran up The Avenues and if you know Salt Lake at all, you will know that those are not small hills. It was hard work, and at one point I looked at my heart-rate and it was at 180! I was really glad to have her with me because I would have probably whimped out on those hills if I were by myself, but we kept going up for an hour, some parts steeper than others. 

When we got to the "top" I had some more Hammer Gel and water, then we got to turn around and come back down. That was nice. As we were going down a particularly steep part, I was just thinking to my knee, "Don't start hurting, don't start hurting," when she asked me if it was hurting my knee, and it wasn't! I didn't really have any pain at all, it was a really good run!  What a relief that was. If I hadn't planned to run with Heather, I might have just skipped it since my knee was hurting last night, but I'm so glad I went!  

When we were about to where we parted ways, she said, "That last mile was a 9-minute mile." I was like, "Really?! Oh, but we were going downhill." Then she said that our first mile was also 9 minutes. That's pretty cool! I could tell I was running a little faster with her, and I thought I wouldn't be able to keep it up, but I did! She was one step ahead of me most of the time, but she was nice enough not to leave me in the dust! After she turned off, and I started running by myself again, I started to feel that my stomach was hurting and it's been hurting all day. That's the only side-effect from the run, other than being tired and a tiny bit sore, I feel really good.

Thank you again for running with me Aunt Heather, we'll have to do it again sometime! Maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong about the distance here too. According to google maps, I went a total of 12.9 miles (I was guessing 13 based on time and pace and hills so that's probably right). 7.2 of those miles I did with Heather, the rest were solo. I did it all in almost exactly 2.5 hours, maybe 2:35. My average running pace was 11.63 minute miles.

Pete and the kids were gone out for breakfast when I got back so I had plenty of time to stretch good and take a bath and get ready. I was glad when he called me and told me he was taking them to breakfast because it was Ethan's birthday and I kind of felt bad that I wouldn't be there to make him a special birthday breakfast. He's 5 years old today! I'm not going to get into the rest of the day because I really need to go to bed now, and this post is probably long enough anyway! I'll just say that we went to Mindy's ballet and it was really good! It seemed almost a professional ballet, and Min was just so cute and did a great job as a pearl oyster.

Momentum

Today was one of those days where I hardly had time to breath between all the things I had to do.

Here is my training plan for the day:

Run: 60 minutes easy run.

Bike: 120 minutes:
warm up: 15 minutes RPE 3
main: 6x (12t, 3r) 12t at RPE 5-7, 3r at RPE 2
cool down: 15 minutes easy spin RPE 2

I slept in this morning, or I guess I didn't since I get up at 7:30 instead of 7 pretty much every morning. The nice thing is that the neighbor starts honking his horn every morning at almost exactly 7:30 so, even if I turn my alarm off, I know what time to get up. It was really hard to get Mindy to get up and get ready for school, though. She was really tired from her late-night rehearsal.

I dropped her off and realized that it was the perfect weather for running, and I also realized that I wanted to go for a run. Pete told me yesterday not to go running because I feel like I need to, but because I want to and feel good. I was feeling good so I went out for my easy hour run as soon as I got home. Well, not as soon as I got home, as soon as I got home, cleaned up a puddle of pee and gave Elle a bath.

It was a really nice run. I felt really good, no pain or anything. I told myself that I would turn around and come home at any sign of knee pain, but they felt good. It was beautiful weather, and a lot of the trees are blooming now so that was really pretty to look at. I wore my tri shorts for the second time. Last time they were just fine, but today they did rub and leave little sore spots on my legs. I'm still trying to decided about those shorts . . . 

When I got home, I was going to put Ethan and Elle in the bike trailer to do my ride, but then I had to take Pete to work so I wouldn't have time to do that and ride my bike before it was time to pick Mindy up. Ethan was crying and in a lot of pain with an earache so I decided to hurry and take him to an instacare before picking Mindy up. I barely had time to do that, and I actually ended up calling her teacher to tell her I would be a little late. Her teacher told me she would just keep her in the classroom until I got there, so that worked out really well. She didn't have to wait more than 5 or 10 minutes, and I now had a prescription for Ethan.

By now I was really hungry, so we went home and had some PB&J, then I put my bike on the trainer to do my ride inside (since the bike trailer wasn't an option anymore with 3 kids at home). We watched Spiderwick Chronicles while I rode, and it was just the right length since I thought I was supposed to ride for an hour and a half, I wouldn't have had time to go longer anyway. It was maybe a tad too scary for the younger kids, but Mindy liked it, even though she had to hid her eyes at one point.

When I got done with that, I hurried and stretched (though not enough) then got everyone ready to go, cleaned up more pee, put diaper on that baby, and headed to the store to get Ethan's prescription filled and something for Min to bring for dinner.

It took longer than I had planned waiting for the prescription, and then they gave me pills! For a 4-year-old! I didn't really have time to argue about it, and they were really busy so we just hurried out to the car where I tried to get Ethan to swallow one of his pills, but to no avail. I only ended up getting him mad and having him yell at me and tell me that he hates me until he fell asleep as we drove up to Ogden.

Of course, we were already late, and it was now rush hour traffic so I was really frustrated by that. By the time I got her there, it was almost an hour past when she was supposed to be there. It was ok, though, because there were still 3 girls in her group waiting to get their hair done so she just went with them. She was really nervous when I left her, and I had hoped to make it back to watch it tonight, but by the time I got home I realized this wasn't going to happen. It was probably better this way since Ethan is so miserable. I finally did get him to take his pill by getting him a juice at a gas station, opening the pill, and dumping it into the juice. I guess we'll just have to do that with all of them. 

After dinner and bed-time books, Pete was a life-saver and went to get Mindy so I could stretch some more and take a bath (finally! I didn't actually get dressed all day) since I was feeling pretty sore. I've got ice on my knee right now, and I really need to get to bed so I can wake up early for my run tomorrow. The house is a mess and there's still so much I want to fit into this day, but it's not going to happen. 

Vacation

Training plan for today:

Run: 75 minutes solid endurance of RPE 3-4. Stretch, stretch, stretch!

Swim: wu: 3 x 150
main: 1900 ladder (300, 275, 250…etc)
cool down: 4 x 50

I did not do it. I really need a vacation!

I set my alarm to go off at 5am so I could go running first thing, but then in the middle of the night I noticed that it was pouring rain outside. I told myself that if it was still pouring like that when the alarm went off, I would just go back to sleep and do my run later. Well, you guessed it, when I woke up at 5, all I could hear was the rain falling on the roof. I love that sound. I went back to sleep.

The plan was to just do the run later, but with feeling sick and having my knee still hurting, and with Pete's encouragement, I decided to take a day off. This is not an easy thing for me to do. At first it was really nice. I got the kitchen all clean and did some laundry, but then I was wondering what to do with myself. Or at least, I felt like I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing so I was feeling depressed and stressed out about that.

Pete thinks I'm getting burnt out, and he's even more worried than me about my sore knee. He said he talked to some guys today (I have no idea what credentials these guys have . . .) about what it means to be sore under you knee cap. One of them said it was probably just some bruising or something, nothing serious, but the other one said it could be really serious and that I should talk to a surgeon about it. What?! I really think (and hope) it's nothing, but do I risk not going to see someone? And do I risk running on it again tomorrow?? It really doesn't hurt that much, I hardly even notice it now, and I told Pete that, but he's still worried. This makes me worry, of course. I still have a lot of serious running to do before I can take a break.

So, I wasn't going to run today, but I thought I could still at least do the swim. I didn't end up having time, though, because it was Mindy's dress rehearsal for the Alice in Wonderland ballet and it's all the way up in Ogden which is 35 minutes away. How annoying is that? So, I had to go drop her off at 3, then halfway home, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to make it back in time to take her to dinner with rush-hour traffic and everything. I had packed her some crackers and an apple, but not really a dinner. This was a huge a huge stress. Ethan was feeling sick and Elle was crying so I just wanted to get them home, but I didn't want Mindy to be sad and hungry later. Finally, after talking to Pete about it, I decided to just let it be, and if she was hungry when I picked her up we could go get something.

I picked her up at 9, and she was totally happy, all covered in blue eye shadow. I hardly recognized her. It turned out that one of her friends shared her lunchable with her and even gave her the juice that came with it. How nice hu?  She didn't seem to be upset about it at all, she just said, "We needed to pack a dinner, not a snack." She actually had fun, which was a huge relief. I mean, 6 hours is a long time for a 6-year-old. Of course she would love spending 6 hours with her friends, though, now that I think about it.  

Tomorrow is the performance (at 7:30 at Peery's Egyptian Theater in Ogden if anyone wants to come . . .), and she will be there for almost as long (from 4 to 9 I think) so I will make sure to pack her something more substantial. Of course, we'll be there to watch her tomorrow, though. I'm excited to see it, she's going to be so cute as a pearl oyster. I'll let you know how it goes. (I'm sure you're all on the edge of your seats about it.)

Sore Legs

Last night was a bad one. I was in bed by 10 because I was so tired, and my knee was hurting, but I woke up again at 11:30 feeling so allergic! I could not sleep. Around this time, Elle woke up so I put her back to bed, then sat up with Pete for a while watching Bones while I waited for my allergy medicine to kick in. I finally got back to bed at around Midnight, but I know I didn't fall asleep until after 1. Probably around this time, Mindy came into my room crying because her leg hurt really hard. I took her out and gave her some ibuprofen and tried to get her to relax her legs, but they were so tense! She couldn't really straiten them. I didn't know what else to do so I started a nice warm bath for her, and that helped a lot. It calmed her down and also made her legs feel better. I'll have to remember that for the future. She's had this happen to her since she was a little baby. She would just wake up screaming and her little legs would be so tense. I don't know if it's really bad growing pains of if they were sore from running around a lot during the day or what. It's no fun for her whatever it is.

I got her back to bed then I was able to sleep a little bit, but then Elle came and got into bed with me at around 3, and it took a little while before I could convince her to go back to her own bed. At this point I finally decided to take an ibuprofen myself and get an ice pack because my knee was still hurting pretty bad, and my muscles were just sore. I tied the ice pack onto my knee and was able to go back to sleep for 4 whole hours! That was nice. When I woke up this morning, my knee felt totally better! The power of the ice pack!

My knee was better, but I felt miserable. I was just sneezing and had a really runny nose and feeling pretty sick. I'm wondering if it's not allergies after all, but a cold. I sure hope not. I really didn't want to go do my workout today, but I just got ready and got everyone out the door. Ethan and Elle were still in their jammies and Ethan hadn't had time to eat because he was so tired. Before I knew it I was at the gym ready to do my hip exercises.  I promised Pete I would do them all this time so I did.  Then I did my workout from my training plan:

Swim: race-specific
2 x 1500 steady at RPE 4

Run: 30 minutes at RPE 3.

I did the run first because that just makes more sense logistically. I ran really slow. At first I was wondering if, with my sore legs, sore knee and feeling sick, I'd be able to get myself to run at all, but I did. I did about 13-minute mile pace - recovery pace. I did about 2.55 miles in 30 minutes. I was ok with running slow today, though, I was in no mood to try and go faster. 

When I got done running, I stretched really good then headed to the pool. When I sat on the edge of the pool and put my feet in that cold water, I was so close to just going back into the locker room and showering. I didn't want to get in that cold water, but I reminded myself that it always feels cold at first and that once I get going it feels fine. That's how it was today. I decided to just do 2 sets of 750 (15 laps) instead of 2 sets of 1500 (30 laps) because I was feeling so sick. 

I did the first set, stretched and did the second one. Then I decided I could at least do one more 750. I actually would have done the whole thing, if it wouldn't have already been 2 hours since I dropped the kids off when I got done with the 3rd set. I just hate leaving them in the daycare for longer than 2 hours so I got out and showered. They were ready to go home, and poor Ethan was probably so hungry!

He had some cereal as soon as we got home, and I made Elle and myself some eggs and sausage and toast while he got dressed. It was really good! Then I had to rush Ethan to school. He was late, but it's better that he got some food before he went. 

When we got home, I put Elle right down for a nap. Then the compression socks and the ice pack went back on and I got into bed for 2 hours before Elle woke up and we had to go get the kids. For the first hour, the ice pack was on my knee, then it felt better and I moved it to my hip for the second hour. I hope it's just hurting from those exercises and that it's not some injury creeping up. I really can't get injured right now, this is a pretty critical time in my training so I'm being really careful. I'm going to keep icing my legs, wearing the compressions sock, stretching really good, and taking naps. Hopefully this will keep me healthy.

When I woke up, I felt cold, but not very sore so that was good. Ice works wonders. Maybe I'll try that for Min next time she has sore legs too.

Hard Run Today

Today I was going to go running early in the morning, but then Pete was sick last night so I didn't want him to have to get up and get Min ready for school if he was still sick. Plus I just don't like waking up at 4am. 

After dropping Mindy off, I came home and got Ethan and Elle playing games on the computer then headed out on my run:

R: 90 minute tempo workout
wu: 10 minutes RPE 2-3
main: 7 x (7t, 3r) (7minutes tempo at RPE 7, 3min recovery at RPE 2)
cd: 10 minutes RPE 3

I ran for 10 minutes, then stopped at 7-11 for a bathroom break, then I was good for the rest of the time. Maybe I'll just plan on doing that from now on. Anyway, after 7-11, I started right into my first temp set (or whatever you would call it). I ran pretty hard on the tempos, getting my heart-rate up to around 173. This isn't quite as high as it gets when I do strides, but it might have been a little too high. I don't know. I just tried to go faster than my normal running pace, but slower than my strides. 

I got back to the house, where I had left Hammer Gel and water on the front step, at around 57:00 so that was perfect for a little nutrition break. I tried not to stop too much, but walked and ran slow while I drank it, then headed out for my last half-hour. In my second to last temp set, I got a really bad side-ach. I haven't really had that happen for a long time, but I just tried to keep going and focus on my breathing. I'm sure I slowed down a bit too. My legs were getting sore at this point too.

The 3 minute recovery was just barely long enough, and 7 minutes is a long time to run faster than usual! I didn't want to do the last set, but I did it anyway, telling my brain that now would be a good time to send down some adrenalin. It was hard getting started, but then Michael Jackson came on singing Scream and I was able to just run. Then the adrenalin came, and that was nice. My legs actually felt better when I was running fast then when I slowed down, and I had to remind myself to run slow instead of walk. I had forgotten that I was supposed to cool down for 10 minutes, so I really wasn't supposed to do that last tempo effort. 

I got home at about 2 minutes over the 90 I was supposed to do, and I ended up running 8.6 miles. That distance was a little disappointing because I pushed it pretty hard, but I guess that's pretty good since it was outside and everything. 

I drank a bottle of Recoverite while I stretched really good, then did half of my hip exercises (since I knew I would be sore already). Then it was time for lunch so I made some PB&J for the kids and myself, and drank half of one of my chocolate protein monsters. It was such a nice day, and the bike trailer was already hooked up so I just got the kids in the bike trailer and hopped on my bike to take Ethan to school. I had to hurry so he wouldn't be late, and it is really hard to ride that bike with running shoes. It's very annoying because my big shoes keep hitting the chainstay and flying off. I took it easy on the way home, and of course Elle said she wanted to go see the ducks. Luckily she didn't get upset when I told her not today. 

At home, I stretched some more. Then I put Elle down for a nap, took a hot bath (where I realized that I got burnt on my lower back yesterday, I need to remember to put sunscreen there). Then I put my compression socks on and laid down for an hour until I had to go pick the kids up. 

Pete commented on how I seemed really happy. Running usually does make me feel happy afterwards, plus it was such a nice day, how could I not be happy. He said that I have the perfect life, and I really do. I am so blessed and couldn't complain about anything. 

I still feel very tired. That was a hard workout. This is going to be a hard week focusing on running! It will be good, though. I need to get faster.

A Little Riding Companion

Today was beautiful!! It was around 70 degrees, and I was so happy! 

My training plan for today:

B: 90 minutes mostly even paced ride. Do some 60 second accelarations
(like the running strides) every 8 minutes, settle back into RPE 3 otherwise.

This morning I lovingly brought my bike down, put it on the trainer, and cleaned it really good. It was so dirty from my Saturday ride in the rain/snow/hail. It looked like I'd been mountain biking or something! Ok, maybe it wasn't that bad, but it was really dirty. I was even tempted to just take it outside and spray it off with the hose. Luckily, Pete caught me trying to get the bike out the door and asked me what I was doing. When I told him, he said, "That's a terrible idea." He explained to me that the hose-spray-down could ruin numerous things on my bike. So, if you ever get your bike really dirty and think, "Maybe I'll just spray it off then wipe it down really well." Don't do it.

I was half-way reluctant to take my bike outside again after getting it so clean, but there was no resisting when it was so nice outside! Pete even helped me get the bike trailer on since I had so much trouble last time.

I wore my new tri shorts to see if they would be more comfortable than last time. I wore them last time I rode on the trainer, and they were very irritating. Today, I wore them with knee warmers, though, so it wasn't the same, but at least I didn't feel too skimpy. They were Pete's knee warmers, and I'd never warn them before so when they were totally falling down by the time I got to Ethan's school, I thought they were just too big. I was going to just take them off, but I decided to give them another try (I'm so fair to my articles of clothing aren't I?) and I just had to pull them up further and put them under my shorts. Then they were just great! It was just chilly enough that I was glad to have them, but It was also nice to feel the air on my legs a little. What perfect weather! Too bad it is so fickle here . . . 

I rode for an hour and a half and I pushed it pretty hard. My heart-rate was above 150 pretty much the whole time. This was probably because, while I was cleaning my bike, Pete helped me move my speedometer to the front wheel where the computer could pick it up. I could tell how fast I was going now, and it was never fast enough!  

I didn't have time to check my training plan before I left, but I remembered the time and that I was supposed to do accelerations, but I couldn't remember how often I was supposed to do them. I decided to do them every 10 minutes, so whenever my timer beeped, I would take a drink of my power-aid, then go as hard as I could for about 40 seconds. I was supposed to do them for 60 seconds every 8 minutes, but that was pretty close. 

Elle stayed awake the entire time, probably because she actually slept all night last night, then slept in until 8:30 this morning. It was amazing! (This is what I thought at the time, but later Mindy told me that she actually did wake up and fuss a little in the middle of the night, and that she just went and tucked her back in and they went back to sleep! What a sweet sister hu? I'm so grateful to her for that!) Anyway, she kept up a running commentary the whole time. Most of the time I couldn't really tell what she was saying except when she would yell, "Cows!" or "Airplane!" "Uh-oh" when she would see a hill coming up. That just made my ride that much more fun. She of course wanted to go see the ducks since she thinks that's what we do on bike rides now, so we did that at the end. We'll have to bring something to feed them next time.

On the way home, just after passing one of the hills that Elle said "Uh-oh" about, a group of 6 or 7 guys went zooming past me. They said hello, and were soon out of sight. A little while later, I came upon three of them stopped to change a flat tire. One of them looks at me and says, "Uh, oh, she's kicking our a__ again!" as I rode by. Despite the profanity, I just had to laugh! At what point was I ever going faster than them? I'm sure he just said that for my benefit, but it was nice, and it made me smile for a while.

When I got home, I looked at my average speed and was surprised to see that it was 16.5 mph! That's including the 5 minutes or so while we stopped at the ducks, and the few minutes I had to stop because Elle was sticking her arm out of the bike trailer. Ah, I'm such a good mom.

11 Weeks to Ironman

I can't believe we're down to 11 weeks! We're getting close to a single digit. That's crazy! 

I was really hoping to have something to report on my fundraising, but I don't. If you've thought about donating, and just haven't had time, why not do it this week (click here!) so I can announce some new numbers next week? :) Also, please tell your friends/family/blog. I would be so happy if you did! 

This week, I've got a LOT of things going on. I really hope I can get all my workouts in. It should be a little easier since it is mostly running, and it's supposed to be warmer for the most part of next week. That's so good, I need some warm weather! Here's what my plan says about next week:

This week's focus is the run. Be careful to stretch well after all sessions and
warm up and down competely--we don't want any injuries to creep up.

Also the 2 intense workouts this week: the run session on Tuesday and the bike
session on Friday.

We spent today in Heber watching General Conference and spending time with my family. We stopped by the hospital in Provo last night on the way to see Sabel. She was doing really well other than being really tired. She is going home tomorrow so that's really good!

My brother was also in Heber with his wife and cute little daughter, Aria. She was so much fun to see. She just turned one, and she is such a character. The kids all loved seeing Aria, their aunt and uncle and their grandpa, of course. I was really happy to see the beautiful mountains that I miss so much. Driving around our old cycling grounds made Pete and I both want to go for a bike ride. It's so fun to ride around there!

The tracks for the Heber Valley Railroad just down the street from my Dad's house.

Throwing rocks into the river. Always a favorite pastime. 

Little Aria loved this puppy!

Cousins playing in the hallway.

Reverse Tri

I feel bad that I missed the first session of General Conference because of my training today. As I was leaving, Pete was tying to watch it on the internet, but it wasn't working so we have to do it the old fashioned way and listen to the radio. If only I had a little portable radio, I could have listened to it during my workout. I will have to read it later. Here's what I did

reverse tri order, back to back if you can schedule it…
R: 60 minutes easy running
B: 90 minutes easy alternating every 10 minutes from big ring to small.
S: 30 minutes nonstop at RPE 5. This should be a hard effort but only hard
enough where you can maintain the pace for the whole 30 minutes.

When I was getting my stuff ready this morning, it was snowing and I thought about just going to the gym and doing it all inside, but I want to do as many workouts outside as I can so I decided to just toughen up and do it anyway. I did my hour run, and that was fine. I was actually a little too warm when I got done with it.

When I started out on the bike, it had stopped snowing, but after a few minutes, it started again. When I got to North Salt Lake, I started noticing little pin pricks on my face and realized that it was hailing. It was during this hail that I decided that do to the inclement weather, I would not mess around with any hills. I would just get to the gym as fast as I could and not try to get an hour and a half in. 

I got to the gym, and even got my chain out to lock up my bike, when I realized that I wasn't even cold and I had plenty of time. There was no reason why I couldn't just finish the length of time I was supposed to do. I still didn't want to mess around with any hills, though, so I just went up the road the gym is on until it ended. Now I started getting cold, but I got back to the gym at just over 1:30.

I did my swim for 30 minutes, and I was feeling pretty tired, but it was ok. I did 29 laps. Then I did one more on my back for good measure, and too cool down.  I was running a little behind schedule so I hurried to the locker room and showered. Then I looked at my phone to see if Pete had tried to call me, and it was off. I turned it on, and a second later, he called me. I didn't have very good reception in the locker room so I hurried out to see if he was there, and he was just loading my bike onto the Jeep. Perfect timing. 

It was also just time for the second session of conference to start so I've been able to listen to that.  Now we need to go pick Mindy up from ballet, and head up to Heber. We'll stop and see Sabel on the way.