Swim and swim again

I've been back to the grind since my first triathlon.  Results came in at 1:53 overall for a half mile swim (40 minutes), 15 mile bike ride (40 minutes) and 5K run (30 minutes).  I estimate my first transition was about two and a half minutes and my second a minute and a half; the bike mount/dismount including time to/from the ocean added about a little over a quarter mile onto my transition, but that seems typical.  As I said before, ugh on the swim. 

Amazingly, I plugged my info into a calories burned calculator and I burned over 1,200 calories!  In the weeks leading up to the triathlon I kept telling my husband I would be fine to hang out Sunday afternoon as we usually do...  I was deluded!  I was exhausted, cranky and it was all I could do to not fall asleep everytime I sat down. 

Of course, I took off Monday.  Not work, but working out.  I needed it sooo badly.  I wasn't sore, but I was really tired.

Tuesday, back at it.  I swam 1100 meters.

Wednesday I went on a leisurely 10 mile bike ride in the morning and a 3 mile run that evening.  The run was supposed to be a nice recovery jog, but the speed demon inside me (ok, it was really the "let's get this done" voice in my head) caught up and I hit an 8:22 pace.  That was another evening of exhuastion, but overall I felt good.

Took off Thursday and Friday, and Saturday did an easy 6 miles in sprinkling rain and cool temperatures.  It felt great and I felt really great, hitting a 9:45 pace.  This was actually more of a recovery run, which should not be about pace, see Active.com or Runner's World/Times, but I read that if you feel good and you're not out of breath, then you're ok.  I'll take what I can get at this point.

Sunday morning I was dreading.  It was my "rehearsal" for my August triathlon.  Don't get me wrong, I was really, really grateful to have the opportunity to see the course and practice more open water swimming, but I was scared.  In the end, it was fantastic.  What's nice is that this is a 'women only' triathlon and supposedly caters to beginners, which is why they do the rehearsal. Check it out -- I SAID WOMEN ONLY!!

Got up at 6am for an 8am start.  Had a cinnamon raisin bagel with peanut butter and banana and a small cup of coffee.  Took off around 7:30am and met the group at 8am.  We rode our bikes with our gear down to the beach and hooked up with a bunch of others. 

The event organizer did a little talk on organizing your gear and helped us visualize where the racks would be and the entrance/exit for the different legs.  Then, it was time to hit the water.

Here's what the beach looks like on a normal day (actual picture of the beach):

 

 

Here's what it looked like to me (actual picture of the beach during a storm):

 And here's what it really looked like when I was there:

 



 

The mind does amazing things.

 

The water was pretty cold, but very still.  Of course, the buoys weren't set up just yet, but there was a demarcated swimming zone that was about 1/3rd of the course.  Our group of 15 or so waded in hesitantly.  Most of the women wore wetsuits and looked like this (credit to all3sports.com):

 

Whereas I looked something like this (credit to amazon.com) note the pained smile on the model's face accurately reflects what I looked like:

 

It was a true dichotomy of triathlon wear.  I'm too cheap to buy a wetsuit and too lazy to have to bother with it, so I suck it up.

 

Oh yeah, the swim.  It went much better, and I chalk it up to a few things:

 

1.  The beach is protected by a series of islands, so the water was practically still vs. my last experience of choppy swells in true open water.

 

2.  I wore my tinted goggles vs. the last time when I wore clear goggles.  I usually use tinted goggles in the pool, but my husband gave me his pair of clear goggles, and I thought those would be more helpful the day of my triathlon because it was overcast.  The problem with clear goggles in the ocean?  You can't see anything anyway, so I think that freaked me out big time.  At least the effect was muted with the tinted goggles.

 

3.  I wasn't freaking out.  I swam slow and steady, sighted well, and managed to front crawl/freestyle the entire way.

 

I did it!  Now to repeat next Sunday...

 

What's even more awesome?  The bike is very nearly completely flat and the run is entirely flat.  Yay!

 

So, the training continues.

 

Tri 1 is done.

It was bad. 

My biggest takeaway:  I need to swim a lot more.  A LOT MORE.  The swim portion was far and away the most difficult thing I have ever done.  I have been through military bootcamp but that in no way compares to the half mile swim.  Or, should I say, doggie paddle / backstroke.  I was embarassed; I was tired; I was slow.  On the plus side, no one kicked me or swam over me.  There were multiple moments when waves washed over me and I felt like I was going to drown.  It was so bad that there was some 16 year old in a kayak floating alongside me and I convinced myself that he was recording me on his phone and posting to Youtube.  That's completely irrational, but that's where my emotions were in the moment.

I'm really not sure what happened.  I can swim a half mile in the pool, no stopping, without any problems.  I don't do it so quickly, but I can do it in 20 minutes (stop laughing, I never swam before February!).  At the triathlon I probably clocked in at 35 minutes?  My watch read about 25 minutes when I was near the last buoy, so I think that's pretty accurate given my overall time.

What really, really hurts my pride is that I KILLED the bike and the run.  I was not passed by a single person on the bike ride and only one person on the run.  My average biking speed exceeded 20 mph, and at one point I even hit 38 mph!  My average running pace was somewhere around 10 minutes per mile.

And the hill?



Nailed it.  I rode all the way to the top.  This was definitely the hardest part of the course for most of the participants.

So, I finished.  Yes, it was bad, but I finished.

On to the next one, August 18.  There's a run through this Sunday, and I think I will be hitting up the water BIG TIME with a leisurely bike ride and walk through on the run course - the run is a double loop.  Wish me luck and give me all your open water swimming tips.

It's the final countdown!

So the triathlon has come upon me quickly.  When I signed up in April I was convinced I had loads of time to prepare.  I was even successfully completing a training plan before I was derailed by severe knee pain in mid-January.  Well, unfortunately good intentions don't make for an accurate reality.

On the one hand, I've been swimming somewhat regularly since joining the local YMCA, but the biking portion has been a little... neglected.  I've gone out a few times to ride on the (very flat) paths at the beach with my husband and daughter.  I probably should have been the one pulling her around in the bike trailer, but I left that to my husband!  Good thing because the last time we went out I fell off my bike.  Oops.  In retrospect, it was sort of humorous.

Scene:  Me on my bike, biking shoes locked into the clipless pedals (sidenote - I'm not sure why they call it a clipless pedal since your shoes are clipped in?  I can't be bothered to Google).  Daughter is crying from inside the bike trailer because she accidentally turned off "the pad" and Mickey Mouse has ceased to stream.  We stop suddenly at the first cry thinking something is horribly wrong.  I turn/yank my right foot sideways to get it unclipped from the pedal.  In super slow motion I begin to tip to my left as I'm frantically yanking my left foot sideways.  I am convinced my toddler is greviously injured even though she is safely tucked away in the bike trailer with snacks galore and an ipad.  Crash.  I'm on the ground, in the dirt.  My left elbow was a little scratched, but luckily that was my only injury, other than the severe blow to my pride.  My daughter's immediate reaction, "Mommy fell off her bike."  She still tells people about it.  She even told her class during their Monday morning weekend review at preschool.  I'm a legend.

Flash forward to three weeks ago, I was in the local shop that runs in the triathlon.  What is this I spy?  A map of the course for the taking.  Yesssss.  I grab it and quickly scrutinize the route.  Doesn't look too bad, mostly through residential neighborhoods close to the beach, in fact, it goes right by my house.  Until... until...  I realize the last part of the route goes directly up a very, very steep hill.  My husband likes to tell a story about riding up said hill with his friend.  His friend puked at the top.  This friend was in pretty decent shape.  Ugh.

Monday morning I woke up at 5am.  I thought, "Self, now is a good day to ride some of the bike route."  I blindly grabbed my biking clothes in the dark, none of which match so I'm sure I looked AWESOME, and off I went.  Right as I begin my ride I see a light flashing behind me.  Some guy passes me on his bike and gives pleasant greetings, something like, "Good morning!"  To which I responded, "(pant, pant) hi (pant, pant)."  Again, this was at the beginning of my ride.  Fantastic.

As I snaked my way through the neighborhoods, it really wasn't too bad.  In fact, I was moving at a pretty quick clip.  If it hadn't been dark, I probably would have gone down the hills much faster, too.  I told myself when I got to the hill I would revert course and circle back home.  Well, that didn't happen.  I saw the hill and thought, "Self, you need to do this.  You need to prove you can get up that hill, otherwise you'll be the lame-o walking up the hill on Sunday."  Slowly, painfully I went up the hill.  I actually was a bit of a lame-o and I cut it short and went off on a side street.  Map my Run tells me the hill keeps going for another quarter of a mile, but supposedly the elevation change is minimal past the point I cut out. 

For some perspective, here is a view of the hill.  This is a view from the bottom; it curves left and keeps going. 

As proof I am not exaggerating the severity of this hill, here is an elevation chart with grade:

FYI, purple is no fun.

By contrast, my running hill is a 5% elevation grade.  That seems really, really silly in light of this particular hill.

In the end I did 75% of the course, and the only bit I didn't do was to/from the beach, which is entirely flat.  Though I previously broke my bike's computer, when I got home I calculated that I'd pedaled a 16 mph speed on the course.  I honestly have no idea if that's good or bad, but My Fitness Pal claims this speed is "vigorous."  Thank you downhill portions!

In any event, Wednesday morning I picked this up

Time to make it happen.

And the base keep runnin', runnin'

After doing some Jillian Michaels workouts earlier this week and again this morning, I took to the streets for a bit of cardio.  Not that the Ripped in 30 workouts are easy, but I've been following up with cardio to get me in the zone for my first triathlon next Sunday.  Sidenote - I'm definitely NOT ready.

My neighborhood is fairly hilly, which makes for some decent training runs, even though 82 degrees with 70%+ humidity does not make for an enjoyable run.  It's great, though, in that I have plenty of opportunities for hill training.  This is an endurance/speed technique that I'm (unfortunately) very familiar with given my high school cross country coach's undying love for the torture it inflicted upon us.  Basically, you run up a hill over and over and over.  Maybe you take a break, then you do it again.  It works, so stick with what you know, right?

Although I'd been on many runs throughout my neighborhood, I hadn't identified a hill that spoke to me for such a workout.  So after an easy half mile up and down some potential suitors streets, I came upon the hill...

Ok, so the "hill" looks pretty lame in Google Street View, but I swear it is a slowly sloping hill.  It's actually two sided, so if I were feeling ambitious I might double up and run up one side, down the other and back up (yeah right). 

What I love about this hill is that it's on a dead-end residential road, so there is very little traffic.  And, since I run early enough that very few people are out, save the paper delivery and trash collection services, I have the adjoining road and hill to myself.  Or so I thought.

Mid-way through my 10 hill repeats on Monday morning, off in the distance I see someone approaching me.  Another runner, nothing unusual here, step aside, step aside.  I continued with my sprints up the hill and slow recovery jog back toward the road, and as the runner draws closer I see it's a man running along hunched over.  Although he skipped my "hill," he did get close enough for me to take notice that he's probably in his late 80's.  I continued my repeats, up and down, up and down, and I see him cross back, hunched over, but moving at a pretty good clip.  THAT was inspiring.

I set out again this morning after some punishment from Jillian, and there he was.  As lame as I felt chasing the neighborhood bunnies up and down my "hill,"  I was moved to push through.  If he can do it, I can, too.

Long time, no blog(ging)

So... I'm back from my 3+ year hiatus.  In that time I had a baby, changed jobs and went on a bunch of awesome vacations with my fantastic family.  I'm sure I'll end up with little to nothing to blog about at some point in the future, so eventually you'll hear about it all.  My life isn't that interesting, ha, ha!

After I had the baby I was really, REALLY off the fitness bandwagon because I was not allowed to exercise during my pregnancy.  In fact, I was advised to gain weight before conceiving, just to up my BMI from underweight to low-normal.  I had/have a fairly muscular build, so I didn't look extremely thin or sickly, just slender. 

I dabbled a bit after my daughter was born and I was given the all clear, mostly long walks and light jogging on our treadmill while she was napping, but I nursed her and it was generally uncomfortable for me.  In the interest of full disclosure, my boobs were huge, constantly felt squashed and I was paranoid I would lose the bounciness of my twenty year-old self if I exercised as I had previously.  I even went so far as to invest in a Moving Comfort Fiona sports bra, but I just couldn't bring myself to really get back in the swing of things until we were done nursing.

Cue March 2012.

She was well past her first birthday and was drinking cow's milk at school, but we were still nursing mornings and evenings.  I'm not sure what possessed me, but I became convinced I needed to be healthier, so I started having smoothies for dinner.  My milk supply tanked, my boobs shriveled up and (surprise, surprise), my daughter was no longer interested in nursing.  I continued the smoothie kick for a week or so until this happened, at which time I FREAKED OUT that I was irreparably damaging my daughter (first time Mom guilt) and I quit my smoothies.  It didn't help, I/we were done.

At that point I thought to myself, "something has to change."  That "something" was exercise.  Mind you, I was only 2-5 pounds heavier than I was when I became pregnant, so it was really more about toning up and building a muscle base.  As fate would have it, a few days later a Groupon caught my eye for a bootcamp-style personal training group that met at 5:30am at a gymnastics center just minutes from my house.  For $30 it promised me a meal plan and three weeks of unlimited training sessions.  "Sure!" I thought, "I went through real bootcamp, so could this really be so bad?"

Cue May 2012.

"Oh no, my Groupon expires at the end of this month and we're going on vacation soon!  How could I have waited so long...?!"

I managed to get in just under the deadline, and thus began my fitness journey with Reshape.