Six month reflection

Six months ago, on January 29th I posted the following to my MySpace blog:

I'm gonna do a triathlon. I mean it. I'm doing it and you can't stop me, k. For real this is gonna be rad.

About seven years ago I rode my bike through Alaska (Fairbanks to Anchorage). I thought, "Wow, I'm a bad ass!" And maybe I was for a brief period. And then I put my bike away and really didn't do much with it for the next few years.I almost sold it this past fall, but when no one showed up to buy my bike I decided to keep it.

I've been talking about (or at least thinking about) doing a triathlon for a few years. I used to have these pipe dream goals of doing my first Tri by 25 and my first marathon by 30. The problem is, I couldn't run more than a coupe hundreed feet without stopping and wanting to vomit.

I've been doing some running of late. Thanks to my sister-in-law's wedding, I started running last November. By early December I ran my first 3mile loop without stopping, and I haven't done that since. However, I've grown very fond of running internvals (like run three minutes, walk two minutes, lather and repeat). This weekend I ran another three mile no-stop thing, and I won't say it was easy, but it was pretty fun.

I had all these great vissions of me crossing the finishline at the next Ironman to cheering friends and family, I'm crying and colapse in exhaustion after it all. Now, I'll probably never do the Ironman, and I'm fine with that. But this June I will finish in the Danskin Women's Triathlon. It's a half mile swim, 12 mile bike and 3 mile run. Anyone want to train with me?

So I did it. This June I completed the Danskin and finished in the respectable middle third of the pack. I might be a year late on my first goal (first tri by 26, not 25) but I have plenty of time to reach my other goal (marathon by 30). My goals now are:
1. Complete two more sprint distance tris this summer.
2. Over the fall and winter work to increase my distances to international lengths (1mile swim, 25 mile bike, 6 mile run).
3. Run in the Capitol 10K in March.
4. Next summer complete the Danskin in under 2 hours
5. Do 2 sprint distance races and 1 Olympic/international distance race.

All seem pretty reasonable, I think.

Starting over

So I've joined another training team, TriZones. Our first group workout is this Wednesday, which I will not be at, but promises to be exciting. The next triathlon on the bill for the summer is Jack's Generic Tri on August 5th. It looks like the ideal event for me, short on the swim and long on the bike. Cut a mile off the run and I'd be pleased as punch.

Post Race wrap-up

This is a brief recaps of the race, a more detailed one and pictures will be coming soon.

Swim: super fun, and LONG, quietest most peaceful part of the race. Time: 27:12, ranked 1838 of 2601

Transition 1: It's really hard to put socks on wet feet. Time: 4:33

Bike: Hills, lots and lots of hills. I love those hills. Time: 48:53 (avr. 15.9 mph), Rank: 1314

Transition 2: I finally remembered to take my helmut off. Time: 2:31

Run: More hills, and bricks big time. I mostly walked/ran this. Time: 43:14 (pace, 13:56 a lot slower than a fresh mile), Rank: 2054

Overal: Time: 2:06:25, Ranked 1661 out of 2601 triathletes, 214 of 295 in my age group. Not too shabby for a first time, plenty of room for improvement.

The next race I'm thinking of doing it the Longhorn Triathlon Festival, October 6&7. Anyone want to join me?

Four days till T-Day

So I've put in about three months of training, suffered injury, massive mosquito attacks, and embarrassing falls, but now I'm four days out from my first triathlon. I'm now into my tapper week and it's driving me a little crazy. I've gotten so used to really working out six days a weekfairly intensely that my body is pretty wound up and ready to go. I did notice, however, when I swam on Tuesday I was FAST. I even lapped some guy in the pool. Granted, he was probably a newer swimmer, and his form was super bad, but it felt great to pass a guy in the pool.

Yesterday, every time I would think about the race I'd get a little queasy. I think it had a lot to do with dehydration as well, but I was building up some big anxiety. After a good night's rest I'm feeling much better about it this morning, and I'm spending my empty mental space visualizing my smooth long gliding swim stroke, my strong circular
pedaling motion, high knees and strong legs in the run and crossing the finish line like a champ.

So today I take an easy run, and I think I'll drive the bike route to check it out.

Injury

So, I'm injured. Not like how I was when I fell off my bike, but in a worse, less vissible way. Last Saturday I did my first open water swim. I totally freaked out. Swimming in a lake is significantly different from swimming in a pool. It's especially freaky to be in the deep cool dark expanse of the lake. My form went all to hell, and in the process I totally strained/pulled my right shoulder. I've tried to take a little time off from the practice to let myself heal, but I got back into it too soon, and today my should is still hurting like all hell. It stinks that it's my right shoulder, too. Since I'm right handed I use that arm A LOT.

Ah well, such is the life of a triathlete.

technical note on comments

to those friends who would have left a coment before, but were disuaded by the complex nature of it, the process should be much simpler now. The blog was on default settings, I had no idea it was such a pain. So feel free to comment abundantly now (please!).

Over the Hill

Last night we did hill training in west Austin. For the first time since the team workouts began, I am so super sore. This hill was probably about a 20-30 degree incline over 100 yards. We went up and down that thing five times. I was consumed by mosquitos, sweating like a sweaty runner, and nearly wanted to die by the time I reached the top. I hit 193 bpm, which was unpleasent, but I think I need to adjust my max heart rate (which I had estimated at 195). I just don't think I was that close to meeting my absolute limit.

This morning I am sore and stiff, and looking forward to an easy hour bike ride this afternoon. My hip kinda hurts, but all and all I feel fine.

This Saturday we have our first open water swim practice. I'm a little nervious, but excited too. I love living near the race site, I think it gives me an advantage over out of towners.

bike bite

You are now looking at my first wound inflicted by a fall off my bike caused by my clippless pedals. It's my first fall with the pedals, and only my 2nd fall in my adult bicycling venture. This picture doesn't fully capture the grossness/coolness of this battle wound. There's also a lot ofbruising, and there was more blood.

I was on a longish (very long 30 miles to me) ride with my friend, S, when I tipped over during our rest at the half way point. I was standing over the bike, began to loose my balance, and couldn't get my foot out of the left pedal. I knew I was going to fall, and there was nothing I could do about it. My right leg hit across my front gears, and I scraped up my left knee (I think there are still tiny pieces of
sand in my knee). Totally embarrassed, I brushed it off, got back on and we road back home.

The back of my right calf was killing me. Water leaked from the mouth piece of my camelback and ran down the back of me leg stinging and burning the whole way. For
a while I thought I just lost a couple of layers of skin, but after a bit I was sure I was bleeding. Being clipped into the bike and the cuts being on the back of my leg, there was no way I could see what was going on there. When we got back to the car I finally got a good look. My leg was cover in dirt, chain grease, blood and sweat. Thebruises where barely starting to show. And I though, "This is the raddest scrape I've ever had!"

I'm at work today in a skirt for two reasons. The scrape is kinda sensitive and pants across the skin kinda hurt. And I'm hoping someone asks me about it so I can sound all tough and hardcore.

splish splash

100 feet is longer that 25 yards, I'll have you know. And when you do a workout in a pool that is 25 feet longer than you usually swim, it take a lot longer to do. This morning's swim was nearly an hour, but it was awesome none the less.

Odd note, I've gained 1 lb, but lost 1% body fat. Huray muscle!

New Heart Rate Monitor

Timex Ironman Triathlon Heart Rate Monitor (the new HRM)


So, somehow between last Wednesday and last Thursday I've lost the watch to my heart rate monitor. The HRM is a two part system, one is the chest strap that picks up the electrical sygnals and transmits them to the reciever, which is the watch part. I've been at a total loss without it. I've looked high and low for this thing, and alas, it could not be found.

Yesterday I looked all over Austin to see if I could either buy a watch to go with my chest strap, or just get a whole new contraption. From training with my team, I've learned one thing about HRM. I really like Timex. It seems like the way the computer is set up is just much more intuative than Polar, and the design is much more normal looking than any other brand I've seen.

So I figured I might as well upgrade. My new HRM has 5 zones it tracks, calorie counter, 30 lap (something the old one didn't have), watch, timer, average and max HR, and recovery timing. Myabe it will do my taxes too. It's not as pretty as my old one, but it's still pretty sweet. I know now that in about a week, when this new HRM gets all sweety and there's no way I can return it, the watch to my other HRM will show up. It's truely the way of the world.

not much to say

I missed my swim training this weekend with the team. I was in Houston at a training with the Industrial Areas Foundation, which completely rocked my world, I'm still digesting a lot of it.

Anyhow, swimming today, that is if it dosn't thunder and lightening terribly.

cycle-iscous

My bike, pre clippless pedals and cool new saddle.

Last night was our first bicycle group workout. These first workouts on new sports always come with a lot of lecture, which is cool, I'm learning a lot, but I didn't get to ride as much as I wanted to. This was also the first time I got to ride with my new clipless pedals. I go the pedals last weekend, but a flat rear tire, old rim tape, and being in Bryan most of this week, I never got a chance to try them out until last night. I never actually fell, but it will happen. After a while I got the hang of the petals, they felt great, and I felt fast. I can't wait to go for my next ride tomorrow morning.

The pedals are the Shimano M520. It's a mountain bike pedal, but it has a bit more give tha road pedals (also I didn't need to get new shoes, which saved me more than $100 in the end). In a couple of months I hope to get some new shoes. I'm totally hot for Sidi, they're remarkably compfortable for cycling shoes.

On a side note. I have elected to subject myself to the weekly torture of a half hour deep tissue masage. My IT bands are so tight, when I run I feel like someone's squeezing my left knee. This afternoon is the first hour long kickoff to getting that worked out. I though masage was supposed to be this luxiurious relaxing thing.

New shoes!

First thing's first: Yesterday's workout was a swim, and it was AWESOME! A half dozen of my team mates were at the pool. Now, I know the Danskin Tri is all about coorperation and sportsmanship and girl power and all that crap, but I've got to let a little arrogance out. I totally smoked those ladies in the pool. Yes, the next clossest teammate in age is probably at least 10 years older. And I've been swimming this year since early March (and in the beginning, it was really ugly). But I've been really anxious about my swimming lately, yesterday I reallized I wasn't too bad. I'm no female Michael Phelps, but I'm not too terrible either.

Today was running day. I finally went and bought some new running shoes this morning. I used my handy $20 coupon for my fancy new Brooks shoes and my cool white reflective Yankz. Check out the Yankz, they are cool.

I've come to realize that everytime I go to an atheltic store that claims to know running shoes, they always tell me I'm in the wrong shoe. I think it's all a rackett. But I'm happy my new shoes feel good, look cool, and cost almost $40 less than my old shoes, without the coupon.

So, I'm in Bryan, TX today. It's a fine town, but the problem with this kind of travle is that it forces me to workout at the gym. Anyone out there know of good outdoor places to run in Bryan or Waco, please let me know. Anyhow, I hate running on treadmills. But I did it, and my shoes are awesome. My calf pull is even feeling better.

4/25/07: Swim 800 yards, 33 minutes, Zone 3 (average HR: 125bpm)
2/26/07: Run 2.25 miles, 35 minutes (includes warmup and cool down), Zone? (forgot HRM watch at home. Heart rate unknown).

Running

This Saturday (4/21) I met with my training group at the unholy hour of 7:30 am to work on running and establish my maximum heart rate.

A note about max heart rates (mhr). Apparently the whole 220-your age=MHR is not very accurate. More recent research has established that a person's MHR is thier own unique number that is genetically established, and not a sign of your cardio fitness. So we were doing all these tests with our handy heart rate monitors (hrm). Accroding to the old method my max should be 194. Now after doing five separate sub-max tests (meaning an estimate of the max but not actually reaching the max) my estimated MHR is 194. So far I'm the only one who's new max is close to the old estimate. Our two coaches have MHRs of 215bpm and 185 bpm. And apparently these max numbers change depending on what sport you're doing. So while my max for running is 194, my bike max may only be 184, and swim may be 174. These are all estimates, though.

Back to running. We did a timed one mile run. My old fastest mile was 12 minutes, as of Saturday, I've shaved off a minute. I now run a mile in 11:04...we'll just say that's an 11 minute mile. It's no olympics speed, but an improvement on before, for sure.

This morning I attempted to do my swim workout, but Stacey pool was still closed, so I'm going to try to go to another pool tonight. I'm a little rattled right now beause I got into yet another fender-bender this morning, scraped up the right side of my car and took out my passanger side mirror. And it was my fault. The other guy barely had a scratch. This is 3 accedents in less than a year (but the only one that's my fault). I want to move back to a place with real public transportation and a job that requires less travel.

Genesis

This blog is a record of my training and thoughts leading to my first triathlon. From today, there are seven weeks until I compete in my first trathlon. I'm hoping this won't be my last, but it's a little too soon.

Come back to find out...
Why I chose to do this, what training is like and how it's going,what a goof I look like swimming,and other fun/not so fun things.