Tri-Dogmom

So, here I am sitting at home while my team, minus myself & momo , plus 8 others are out there running the Ragnar Relay as I type this... It's a little bitter-sweet... With my ITB issues I knew I couldn't do the Ultra (only 6 people), and I thought there might be a chance I could do the 12 person team, but then I remembered last year. How my 3rd leg put me in tears because my ITB was hurting so bad. So, I started just concentrating on getting better, and the team moved on.... Last night we all met up for dinner so everyone could meet. It was kinda a make-shift team and a lot of people didn't know each other, so it was a great idea. Momo called me on the way home to tell me she was ' bummin .' I was too, but deep down I knew it was the best thing for both of us. To get healthy and not risk further injury. After last weekend's great week of running I got lazy. This week was really busy with work, and workouts, and well life. I got lazy with my reh...

Today was ABSOLUTELY gorgeous here.... Perfect for outdoor swimming, not cold, not too hot.. just perfect. Here's our 10 day forecast Oh, and look what I just happened upon today.... I was SO not even looking for shoes.. but I walked though the department store on my way to exchange a dress I bought to go with my Red Boots from my birthday, and saw 75% off shoes.. I just HAD to look. And look what I found... $110... for the bargain price of

Well, I made it through one more week of IM training, in 1 piece! Yippee! I did miss one of my weight workouts... but no big deal. Daniel had me sore from Tuesdays workout for several days. It was a tough one. It was also my biggest running week since the marathon. That is pretty excited! I was very good to my IT bands with rolling, stretching and icing all week. Guess that will just be an additional workout in all of this if I want it to keep healthy! We did a pretty tough ride on Saturday. My legs were toast from the week, including my longest run in several months (1:50) on Friday. I also was horrible with my nutrition Friday, trying to catch up with my calories at dinner. Not a good idea. The course basically climbs from our house (~1400ft) to the turnaround over 3000ft. There is one decent in there, but once we went down the hill, we re-gained back all the elevation over the next hour. Shane was feeling good, and was in front the whole time. I just couldn't stay up with him, s...

That I have learned in the past week or so. I LOVE my new running shoes (Asics Gel Nimbus). I should have switched a long time ago! I have a hard time committing to races. I look at people's blogs and see their race schedule on the sidebar and think - Oh, I should do more races. Then I get scared and don't sign up. I train SO much more than I race. I need to push harder on the bike. I slack off when my legs start to hurt.. Then I look at my AVG HR after a ride and realize I didn't even spend most of my time in zone 2. I think I could be a lot faster if I put more effort into it. My trainer Daniel is evil. And a freak of nature. He makes everything seem so easy. Today, my legs were killing me so I said, "let's do an hour of core work." he didn't even acknowledge my words. I did 40mins of legs (HARD) and 25 of abs. My IT bands will forever be my downfall. They will always decide my training and race fate. I hate that. If you gain a bunch of weig...

Aghhh, another successful week. A good week at that I might add. Running perked back up with a lower HR & faster pace. I continued my at home IT band therapy of icing, stretching and foam rollin' 2-3 times per day... It seems to be keeping the inflammation at bay! Yippee... We had a couple of great rides with the AVG speed picking up! And, my swims are FINALLY picking up a little speed with a little less effort.... 6 months off REALLY slows ya down! At one point, on Wed I think, my masters coach was asking how I was doing... She said that 'this week' I was looking a lot stronger. I told her that my shoulder, arm pain/numbness had subsided, so I could get a better stroke.... So, one of the workouts was 20x 100. 1-4, we were to count our strokes, making them as FEW as possible...and going SLOW. This would be, number of strokes = 'N' My N = 17 5-8 were level 3 and N=2 so 19 strokes 9-12 were level 4 and N+4, 21 strokes. 13-15 N+1 level 2 16-20 levl 4, N+3 My level ...

Ok, I just have to first start off by saying how excited I am that this week turned around. Starting with an off/bonking Monday, followed by ITB flare up Tuesday..... I just wasn't sure how it was going to end... Well, I did was I was supposed to!! I iced, and rolled, and rested and iced, and iced, and rolled some more. And, I slowed my pace down to watch my form. It all worked, and my workouts got better as the week went by. My neck even held up on a pretty tough & windy 3.5 hour bike ride today (the saddle area is a WHOLE other story, but that will just take some more getting used to... and more aquafor, but I'll leave it at that). Everything seemed to be out to get me this week, but somehow I fought it ALL off. Even a flat, and a spare tube with a hole in it, and a 2nd spare tube with a too short of valve..... anyway, it all worked out, and if you look at the cool chart below you will see that my workouts went pretty darn well for week 1. In total (weight training not sh...

Yes, people.... it does get COLD in Arizona. I'm not seeing any of this snow.. but that's what it says!!!

Week one, day 2 and it's already been tough! Not the distances or the time, or anything like that.... Just one of those weeks, ya know? We started out with Sunday Superbowl celebration at momo's ... which, although I was good & let Shane have all the fun (ugh, which he apparently took to another level - I'm sure he'll write about it eventually) I still was slow to get moving on Sunday! I finally got outside for my 45min tempo run at about 10:30.... My HR was high, although my legs felt fantastic, and I didn't have enough 'gas.' I got home just in time to throw on my swimsuit and get to masters that started at noon... My schedule is the lowest swim week I'll see over the next 5 months. Only 2000meters. I am fine adding some extra for the first few weeks, but after that my schedule will ramp up with distances past the masters workouts, and I will be there before, and still there after everyone else. Our coach is really good about helping add on to her...

I started blogging 1 year ago!! It was the Saturday before my 20 week plan started.... And, here we are again. Fired up, and ready for the journey to begin. Fortunately, I'm a lot less scared. As long as my body holds up, I know there is no way that I won't reach that finish line! Last year I was surrounded by 6 other close friends and thousands of fellow triathletes. This year, although our local group is small ( S , momo & I), I can't wait to get there and meet all of YOU ! It will be a fun adventure, no doubt! It was a pretty darn good week. My body started to feel much better... I had less and less arm & neck pain as the week went on, and today, even after a tough 3 hour bike ride, I'm feeling good! Cheers to that! I also had one of the best running weeks in YEARS. Maybe it's my new shoes (switched from Adidas Supernova Cushion to Asics Gel Nimbus), mabye it's good karma for finally resting an injury (4 weeks completely off of running) - ...