Week 1- No Christian

Christian's gone for 2 weeks, this was week 1. Proud of myself for making it to Tuesday and Wednesday morning workouts. Slept in a bit more on Thursday. Then because I had a meet this weekend, I switched around my long Sunday workout with Friday, so I wouldn't have to stress so much on Sunday to get it done before going to see Spring Awakening at the Arscht Center!

Besides Christian being gone, nothing HUGELY interesting. Monday: 40 min swim, Tuesday: 2 hour bike, and 40 min run, Wednesday: hour swim and 1:15 track workout, Thursday: 2 hour ride, Friday: 4 hour ride, 30 minute brick run, Saturday: 1 hour ride, 1:50 brick run, Sunday: 45 min swim, 35 min easy run. Total 16:15.

Best workout of the week was Wednesday track. I wanted to ATTEMPT to run at that threshold speed I was told I could run at during the Lactate Test. The workout was 1.5 mile warm up with some speed-ups during it, then 4x800 (1:00ri), 4x600 (1:00ri), 4x400 (1:30ri), 800 cooldown. The 800s and 600s were supposed to be at threshold, and the 400s at :10 under threshold! Well, the bad news is that I didn't really descend the pace. The good news is that I didn't slow down either! And actually did get faster on the last 2 of the 400s! The even more amazing news is that I was actually holding around a 7:45 pace for most of it, and I didn't die! I was very proud of myself! And starting to gain a TINY bit of confidence in running! Which is nice...even got some coach compliments on a job well done! :) Of course then, I thought I would turn to that Sat. long run and be able to hold my HR in Zone 2 and run like 9:00/mile...WRONG. HR went up and up and I had to slow down and down. Ended up with a 10:30 average. I guess it doesn't all translate within a day or two! Imagine that!

Oh, also proud of myself for doing my 4 hour ride on Friday morning all by myself...and for getting 67 miles done! Go me! :) As for this week, its not really a "recovery" week, but a "rejuvenate" week? Only 13:00 hours scheduled...so that sounds nice. Then Coach says were ready to start bumping up the distance again! YIKES! We did about 4-6 weeks of 4 hour long ride, 2 hour long run...feeling comfortable there, but scared again at moving up! Wish us luck.

On a completely unrelated note, if "Spring Awakening" comes to your town, go see it! Its great!

Muddy Buddy and Clermont

Saturday was to be my 4th Muddy Buddy (Christian's Third). This was our second one in Orlando. I was last minute getting our costumes together and made, but I got it done. We dressed up as Ms. Piggy and Kermit the Frog...team name Muddy Muppets.

Did the costume contest, LOST AGAIN. And you know, at the time I was totally fine with it. Last year, I felt we got screwed, but this year there were some really great costumes. Most of the top ones had bought their costumes, but still cool. The top two were: He-Man and Skeletor (bought), but they had made their bike to look like the tiger and that was homemade, so cool. And The Ambiguously Gay Duo (this looked bought, but I'm not sure). Ace and Gary looked awesome and acted the part up on stage, so I cheered and voted for them. All's good...except...get done with the race and see that NEITHER TEAM had RACED IN THEIR COSTUME! What the hell? How is that fair/part of the race. That's the whole point...and if I ran the whole thing in a red dress and a pig's nose (admittedly, I didn't wear the wig), they should have to stay in costume too. UGH. Whatever...

Racewise, we were only a minute faster than last year. I was a bit disappointed in that, but I pretty much blame it all on my mountain biking ability and comfort. I was just not comfortable enough to whip my bike around people and with 2000 TEAMS this year, the course was CROWDED. I tried, but not hard enough on the bike. Overall, we finished 11th in our age group (out of about 140) and 133rd overall. And it was still fun.



Since we were in Orlando and Clermont is a 1/2 hour away from my best buddy's house, we got up EARLY on Sunday morning and headed over to Clermont to do the first loop of the Great Floridian Tri (60 miles for first loop), and to get an experience of hills that we can't get in Miami. We have heard the Louisville course is pretty hilly. So, what did I learn on this ride. #1 Clermont is BEAUTIFUL, wooded, open, nice roads, nice people...and if you have to live in Central Florida, this would be the place to be. You would think you were in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia...it looks the same. I had NO IDEA that a place like that existed in Florida. #2 Clermont is REALLY hilly. They weren't kidding. It was TIRING. And after we climbed the mountain, for some reason I thought the rest of the hills wouldn't be that bad....wrong...lots more hills and big ones. #3 Sugarloaf Mountain is a BEAST for real. Apparently about a 1/2 mile at a 17% grade...turned that corner and my mouth fell open. It was hard the first time. But coach had us do it FOUR times. OUCH! I was pretty damn proud of myself after that fourth time though! All in all we did a few minutes over 4 hours, and covered 64 miles. I was exhausted and my legs were beat, but I loved the ride. It was SO much nicer to get the heck out of the one BORING-ASS ride we can do in Miami. Maybe we will hit it one or two more times before the big day!

And this was the end of our "Recovery Week." 11:30 hours training. 4:00 of those on Sunday, so a nice week!

Lactate Test

Got two/maybe three big things to report on from last week...so for now, I'll do a quick post about lactate testing! Then on the next post, I'll post about Muddy Buddy and biking in Clermont (Sugarloaf Mountain).

So, after being a bit screwed over by coach last week with our lactate testing it was rescheduled for this week on Friday. The good news is that it was a recovery week anyway, so there was no need to really change much of the training plan. We also were able to schedule on Friday, which was a day that Christian had already taken off for us to head to Orlando for Muddy Buddy. We took Thursday completely off from training! NICE! Then got up Friday morning and headed to this new apartment complex with a new gym inside where he does the testing.

Coach wanted to do one of us at a time, so I wanted to go first b/c I was nervous about being stabbed repeatedly in the finger. I have blazing memories from childhood about this gun implement that was used to prick my finger. I remember it hurting like HELL! and it sucking really bad...worse than needles. So I was not looking forward to it. Got on the treadmill at about 4.6 and walked for a bit to warm up. Then the deal was every 4 minutes he would crank the pace .4mph. He would then ask me to stop briefly, stick out my finger, he would prick it, and then get back on. After that, he would ask me to rate my exertion on a scale of 6-20. No problem. Still freaking out about the prick, I started the jog at 4.8 (SLOW JOG!), and stuck out my finger...bang! Hey! That wasn't that bad...even better, apparently I'm a "good bleeder." So he really only had to prick my finger like every other time! Towards the heavy breathing, hard running end of the workout, it hurt a bit, but still not horrible. Even better, it kept getting faster on the treadmill and I actually got to the fastest speed I've ever been on a treadmill (I hate treadmills-the whole fear of flying off thing, especially after watching the biggest Loser! And having to jump off and jump back on for the finger prick!!) But, I survived, and I made it up to 8.4mph (7:03ish pace!) WOW! YEA ME!

So, what did this test tell me? Well, it told me that my HR zones for my long runs are correct about 145-155. AND it told me that on my harder runs, my track workouts, I should be pushing to do pace holdings at 7:45! WHAT????!!!! Are you kidding me? In January, at the marathon, and before, was struggling to hold 11:30s! I was ecstatic to hold 9:15s at the last Oly Tri...7:45s, seriously. So hubby hears that, what does he say? "I told you!" OYE! So, apparently I CAN be a lot faster. At least physically my body is completely capable of holding a much faster pace...awesome...know what else that means? You guessed it...ITS ALL IN MY HEAD!

So, new goal. Throw out all notions of what speed I am for running. How to accomplish that? I have no idea. The mental part of this game is definitely the hardest part. But, from a blog I just read, I'm just going to "Zoom Out" to that pic of my crossing the finish line in Louisville and ATTEMPT not to think about much else, just "do it."

Oh, I almost forgot...I passed my Certified Personal Trainers exam! I'm officially qualified to be a personal trainer...now I just need a job to teach me what the hell that means! :)

Sight of the day

Today's sight of the day at our early morning 5:25 am ride...I was just finishing the last interval about to bike back home from the Key...off to the side I see movement...what is it? It's a giant vulture...what's he doing? Pulling a dead cat by the tail so he can eat it! EEEWWWW!

BTW the heat of Miami is here. It stayed back for about a month longer than usual, but its here now, and its not holding back. 86 and STICKY yesterday, looking for more of the same (or hotter) from now through August! YEA!

Derby Day

Derby Day is one of my favorite days of the whole year. I love the horse race, I love the events and drama that leads up to the race, I love to have people over wearing big hats and eat GOOD Southern food and just hang out. So, even though schedules are a bit crazy with training and working and trying to study...I decided to have another Derby Party.

Friday morning I had to get up at 4am, and go to work the kids out at morning practice. Once they left, I did my 45 minute swim with some late-coming masters and then got dressed to run. Did a 2 hour run from 8-10am. Came back and its the day we do "Shark Races." Which is like an intersquad meet. So I spent 2 hours getting the meet set up...and finally headed home around 12:30. Basically, that gave me 2 hours at home to eat lunch and clean a bit more. I had gotten maybe half the house clean on Thurs., so I wanted to finish cleaning and get the cupcakes made on Friday. Within that 2 hours, not much got done. Best news about Shark races is free food after the races...so dinner was done! Christian ran down from our house to the pool for his run, so I had a plate ready for him. Went home and spent the evening cleaning and making cupcakes.

We decided to switch our usual Sat (long brick) and Sun (2 hour ride/30 min run) workouts b/c I had morning practice about 45 minutes away on Sat from 7:30-10. We got up at 5:30 and did our 30 min easy run at 6 am. Then I headed to practice. I did some Derby races at the end of practice (5 kids raced in one lane and then jumped to come back in another lane like a track! Very fun!), and headed home. Got home in time for some lunch and to start making some food. Christian had luckily started prepping while I was at practice. I started making the pieces to the cupcakes (supposed to look like horses in the end). We finally left for our 2 hour ride around 1:00-3:00. Got back and had to finish making the rest of the food, the cupcakes, and shower and get dressed by 4:00!

I turned the corner to see that all the pieces to the cupcakes I had made had been EATEN BY JACK! UGH! Christian ran back to the store to get new pieces as I got the Derby pie in the oven, and showered. Once back, I again attempted to make pieces to the cupcakes only to find the chocolate glue was not hardening b/c its too hot in our house! FRUSTRATION! Ran out of time to make homemade biscuits so called a friend to get some pre-made ones. What we did get done before people arrived: Deviled eggs, Ham and pre-made biscuits, corn pudding, fried green tomatoes, and Derby Pie. Our neighbor brought some mac and cheese, and I finally gave up on getting the cupcakes finished (what did get done of the cupcakes did not look like horses, but would've worked great at a bachelor party!). I just couldn't do it all!

Other than that however, it turned out great. We had a great time, with some of the people we actually like here! :) The pool winner won $15! It wasn't me! My horse never left the middle of the pack! Will I do it again next year, wherever we are!? Probably!

Sunday just left us with a 3:30 hour bike ride. Supposed to simulate the 70.3 with some 5x12:00 intervals. OUCH! Into the wind! Double OUCH! Wind is the BANE of my existence! But covered 60 miles in the 3:30 and came back for a Zone 3 brick run! OUCH! But held around 9:30 pace, so not too unhappy! Happy for recovery day today!