Random thoughts early in the morning.

I haven't posted in a while, or for that matter had time to read anyone else's blog in a while either.  Any kind of website that is a social media website is blocked at work, so I have to wait until I get home to catch up.  Sometimes it just doesn't happen, after eating dinner it is time to go to bed for an early morning wake up.  But here is what has been going on.

A couple of weeks ago I babysat my friend's two year old for a weekend.  I decided you need more endurance a two year old than you need to be an endurance athlete.  By the end of the weekend I was EXHAUSTED!  Kudos to those of you with kids that still find time to eat much less train!  I will stick to being an Aunt.

A few months ago, on a whim, I signed up for the Honolulu Marathon.  I got a really great deal on the entry fee, and I have a friend from college who lives there that I can stay with.  I wasn't sure if it was going to happen, but last week I found an awesome price for an airline ticket.  So I am going to Hawaii in December to run with her.  The most exciting thing about this to me, other than getting to see my friend, is that I am actually able to go somewhere in December.  If I was still in retail that would NEVER happen!  The downside is I hear the race is hot and humid.  Will I never be able to escape the humidity??

And speaking of marathons, I am also signed up for the full marathon in Houston in January, not to mention a half in November and a half at the beginning of January.  So yes I am running a half 11/13/11 a full 12/11/11, a half 1/1/12 and a full 1/15/12.  Seeing this in print makes me think I really didn't plan out my schedule to well.  I *think* I have decided that of the two full marathons I would like to really kick ass at Houston.  I need to redeem myself from last year's bronchitis debacle and there is a slight chance for a little less humidity. After my last two marathons I have had the need for about a 2-3 week recovery.  I know EMZ runs like a marathon a week, but I am wondering if any actual humans have run two marathons this close together?  Any tips for training would be greatly appreciated.

With all these running races that I have committed myself to I think my triathlon season is over this year.  I really enjoy doing them, but I do not put enough time in on the bike.  Plus I don't know how I could possibly fit another race into my life right now.  I might do another spring in October, but will have to see how the training is coming along.  My plan is to then next year have a serious chat with my bike to work out our differences and shoot to do an Olympic distance in April of 2012.  We'll see how that goes.  My bike and I aren't even on speaking terms right now.....

Last weekend Jeff and I went to New Mexico for a family reunion.  It was a blast to get to see my brother's, dad and step-mom, and nephew and nieces.  We were even able to fit in a run with this view.



...........Okay, blogger won't let me post pictures right now, so I will have to add them later. Ugg.  Anyway, it was an amazing view.  It was so nice to run there, even with all the hills and the altitude difference.  I learned while we were there that Albuquerque is the same elevation as Denver!!

And lastly, I think I might have a little tendinitis in my knee.  So instead of getting up to run this morning, I woke up at 4am couldn't go back to sleep, cleaned the kitchen and am now icing.  I ran Monday and it felt ok during the run, but was a little tight afterwards, and going up and down our stairs was not pleasant.  I am hoping a couple days of rest, ice and anti-inflammatory meds will make it go away because I do not have time for an injury right now.

Happy training, and I will try to catch up on blogs this week

Tejas Race Report

Sunday Morning Jeff and I woke up at the ungodly hour of 3am. At this time I was thinking how ridiculous it seemed to be waking up that early for a sprint distance race, but at this point I am not really equipped for a longer distance. For this race I had planned on skipping my morning coffee, but I just couldn't. I NEEDED it. So I had my coffee and a whole wheat bagel with some natural peanut butter. Then Jeff and I were off for an hour drive down to the race.

Once we got there we, well Jeff prepped the bikes and then we walked over to transition and got set up and then did a quick run to warm up. About that time it was time to head over to the start. My friend Ann came down to watch and we met up with her, as well as some friends from the Tri club before the race. Jeff was in the first wave, but I had to wait 30 minutes to start.

Now, I know this was only a short swim (600m), but when I saw the distance I started freaking out a bit. Before Jeff headed out he reminded me I had just done 2400m at masters, and 750 at Lake 288, but for some reason this distance seemed more daunting. Maybe because the last race I did was wet suit legal and this time I would be on my own, with a few other people knocking into me!

We killed some time by snapping a few pictures

My "age"


As a quick side note, my least favorite thing about triathlons is the age up thing.  When I was getting body marked I made a comment to the lady that I would not be 35 until December, so she put an astrix next to my age.  HAHAH

So we walked into the water, which felt like bath water, had a 3 minute wait, and went off.  I started swimming and got into a groove pretty early on.  I did much better than the last race, actually swimming freestyle the whole time and didn't do too bad sighting.  I still freak out a bit when I feel feet in front of me and haven't quite figured out how to power through the line of people ahead of me.  After I made the turn at the first buoy there were only about 200m left so I decided to do a little bit of a sprint.  Even though I felt good, I also figured that I was one of the last one's out of the water.  I found out later this was not the case. I was 10th out of the water out of 23, finishing the swim in 12:21.8, or an average of 1:52/100  Overall I was happy with my swim, though I may not look like it coming out of the water.

I ran up to transition, which took me 3:31 (I think Jeff and I need to work on a sense of urgency in transition) and tried to dry off a bit, and then was off on the bike.

The bike was an 11 mile ride, which was on a loop and half course.  I actually passed a few people on the bike, but I take turns very slow and I have a very hard time drinking on the bike.  I wore a camelback to hydrate on the bike, and really can't describe how I look when I am trying to get a drink.  During the bike I had no idea how fast I was going because I forgot to hit start on my Garmin.  I finished in 38:58, which was an average of 16.9 on the bike.  I am happy with this pace because it is an improvement from my last race.  My goal the next few months is to get out there and ride so I am more comfortable on the bike.  Because in addition to not being able to drink on the bike, I am not so great at getting off the bike either.  I can't really describe how I do it, but maybe this picture can.

I pretty much unclip both feet coming up to the dismount line and then wobble off my seat until both feet hit the ground.  It is not pretty.  But I safely got off of the bike with falling and headed to transition which took me  2:17.7 this time.

I headed out for the run feeling pretty good, but again I forgot to start my Garmin.  I actually stopped right before I crossed the mat coming out of transition to fix my ponytail and Jeff was yelling at me,   motivating me to get going since I was in a race and all.  I never really found my legs during the run, but I felt good the whole time.  I passed a lot of people who were walking, so I was pretty happy with myself for running the whole time.  I used the water stations for a couple of sips, but pretty much to dump cold water on my overheated head.  I ended up doing the run 3 miles in 25:47, which was an 8:36 pace.  Way better than I did in my last stand alone 5k!

This was a great race and I will definitely do it again.  I really love running, but am also really starting to love adding swimming and biking before the running.  I finished in 1:22:55 and was 15th out of 23 in my age group.


Thanks to my friend Ann for coming out to support and taking some awesome pictures(my first awesome pictures from a race, which is a whole other blog post!)