an Ironwoman in the making

A VERY long description of a long day

2006-09-04T00:48:00.000-07:00

(It may have takene me longer to write it than it did to do the race!)

3:56- wake up, look at clock, and have that incoherent thought "oh, good, four more minutes to sleep!" Two minutes later, Kim says "Kristen, it's time to get up!" I think I answered "no, we have 2 more minutes to sleep!" Bitch! If I have a bad race today it's cause Kim robbed me of two minutes of sleep! :)

First things first- I ate my first breakfast. I wanted to give my body as much time as possible to get rid of some stuff before I headed to the port-a-potty filled transition area. Didn't work. After a second breakfast (and an attempt in the bathroom) we left the hotel at 5:00 with our Special Needs bags, our swim stuff, and the dry clothes we wanted waiting seventeen hours later. How the heck am I supposed to know what I'll want after I finish this?!

First order of business was to drop our special needs bags in the right box. My race number was 2079, so mine went in the 2050-2100 box. Not rocket science, right? Dropped mine in the wrong box. Thankfully Kim (#2070) was too smart to follow my lead and corrected my mistake. OK, I guess I forgive her for the 2 minutes of lost sleep. Now on to body marking. All these
volunteers are lined up on the side of the road in the dark with big black markers writing your race number on your arms and your shins, and your age on your calf. Kim and I got marked together, but we had somehow managed to lose Alex, I think because at that moment Alex was pinging with nervous energy, and shooting around the area like a pinball. Her path crossed us
again, and we tried to corral her long enough to get the three of us into transition, where we split up.

After taking care of all of our random business (bathrooms, inflating bike tires, adding things to transistion bags) we re-connected to sit down in a grassy area in the middle of transition to wait until they let us out to the beach. This was one of the highlights to my day- it turned into an impromptu team meeting. Somehow the bulk of our 70 member team managed to find their way to the same spot, and we proceeded to wait there together. Everything conceivable was done with the exception of just doing the race, and a calm settled over us, nerves seemingly gone.

The calm before the storm. As soon as we were allowed, Kim and I headed out into the water for a 5 minute warm up swim. Our plan was to scope out a spot toward the outside of the start and do the entire 2.4 mile swim together. Triathlons have a reputation for brutal, violent, washing-machine-spin-cycle starts, and we wanted to try to stay together through that. We've done nearly every workout stroke for stroke side by side, so we knew that if we could stay near each other through the start we could do the race together. It was not difficult to get a spot right in the front- people are pretty good about self-selecting to stay out of the way. No one wants to get run over! We had a few guys come over to ask us what we thought our swim time was going to be. (Apparently it is inconceivable that two giggly girls that are planning to swim together might
be fast enough to need to be at the front, and they were trying to "help us out" by letting us know we might be out of our league.) I like to imagine that one of these guys is the same on that I had to intentionally kick in the head a little later on, but I don't know that for sure.

The cannon went off, and the start itself was actually dreamy (that was the word I thought of during the race). There was such a wide spread of athletes that for the first quarter mile I didn't see anyone even near us. Kim on my right, open lake on my left. Sadly, as each of the 2600 swimmers sighted on the same bouy, the field closed in around us. Where a "typical" triathlon swim start involves the washing machine start, then a thinning out into an easy swim, this was the opposite. The rest of the 2.4 mile swim was violent. Thankfully I was only getting punched from the left, as I had Kim on my right. (well, except for the one time she slugged me in the ear while I was breathing, but I forgave her for that...)

So, I better explain about the guy that I intentionally kicked. He was swimming on my left, his head about even with my shoulder. He could not seem to swim a straight line, and kept swimming into me, then away, then into me again. I made a decision to make him "uncomfortable" so that he would not want to swim near me, so instead of trying to avoid him when he swam into me, I swam into him as well. At one point, as I pulled my arm out of the water for a stroke, I hooked his arm (not intentional). But when I realized that I hooked his arm, I went ahead and took a stroke, rather than allowing him to free his arm. That, apparently, made him uncomfortable, and he stopped dead in his tracks and started to punch me. Like professional boxers do with the boxing bag. To prevent him from grabbing on to me further, I went ahead and kicked at him (not hard) as I swam away. I'm not certain that I made contact with his head (and I was not aiming for his head) but it is likely that it was either his
head or his shoulder. But come on, he was PUNCHING me!

Anyway, an hour and four minutes later, Kim and I emerged together slightly battered, as the 331st and 332nd swimmers (8th and 9th in our age group). Knowing I would not see her again, I wished her luck as we headed into transition.

Transition at an Ironman is cool. First off, there are volunteers called "strippers" (no such luck!) whose job it is to rip off your wetsuit for you (one of the hardest skills to master in the sport of triathlon). You run in, lay down, and two of them grab it and pull it off in a split second (doing it yourself takes 3-5 minutes, and you look retarded and sometimes fall down). Seems like a cool volunteer job until you think about the fact that all 2600 of us pee in the wetsuit at the start. ewwww. Also cool about Iron transition is that there is a changing tent. They sort of assume that you want to fully change clothes and set up a mens and a womens tent to accomodate this. I, of course, ran into the women's tent and stopped immediately at the first chair where I promptly ripped off the shorts I had under the wetsuit, and started to pull on my bike shorts. As I was struggling with them (you can imagine how hard it is to pull on lycra bike shorts when you're wet, right?) I realized the mistake with picking that first chair. I could see every single swimmer as they got their wetsuits stripped, every volunteer in the entire area, and probably every spectator within a block of the transition area. Oh well, so much for the privacy. The transition volunteers were amazing. One volunteer stayed with me, packed away the things I would not need, handed me things in the correct order, dug around looking for my missing cycling glove (never found it), basically anticipated my every need! As I left the tent, two more volunteers were waiting with sunscreen, then pointed me at my bike and out the transition area. Even with the struggles to get the shorts on, and the time spent looking for that glove, I was out of transition in five and a half minutes.

Ah, a 112 mile bike ride. The first 35 miles of the course is relatively flat, running alongside the lake. And fast. It's where you WANT to hammer. I struggled to hear Coach Wayne's voice in my head, telling me to take it easy, get my heartrate down, and just spin these easy miles. There's a LOT of road (and a few BIG hills) ahead of me. An added challenge for me is that I am only an okay cyclist. So all of the really good cyclists that are only okay in the water are now passing me- I must have been passed by 800 people in those first 35 miles. I read a short story by an Ironman athlete with a similar challenge. His trick was to mutter "crap swimmer" at all of them as they passed, reminding himself of his strength in the water. I didn't actually say it out loud, but it did help to remember- these people were behind me for a reason!

At 35 miles, we turned away from the lake and started to climb. The next 8 miles was Richter pass- an 1100 foot climb. The day was starting to warm up- it was now about 10:30, and it would ultimately reach about 93 degrees. A few of our teammates had done the ride up Richter two days before the race, and had assured us all that it was "nothing" compared to what we trained on. While that was true, the hills in the Bay Area are far worse, Ted's statement had left me thinking that there was going to be "nothing" to it! Not true! I cursed poor Ted a few times on that hill. But it was really early in the day, and I found myself still smiling at the top. Plus, now was the fun part! One thing have learned in the past few years is how to take advantage of my "buddha" (that's what I call my extra belly) on the downhill of a bike ride. I go fast. Somewhere on the course I managed to hit a speed of 46 miles per hour, according to my bike computer, and I think it may have been on the back side of Richter pass.

The next 25 miles were flat to rolling, and took us to the famed "out and back". We turned off the road we had been on to go 8 miles to a turn around, then return to where we started and proceed on the same course. It has the tendency to be demoralizing for riders, as you spend an hour "going nowhere". I had mentally steeled myself for this part, expecting it to be the most mentally challenging part of the ride. I actually loved this part! It was the one place I had a chance to see Kim ahead of me (and I did) as well as the rest of my teammates behind me (all gaining on me!). It was like a big party! Plus it was there that I got my Special Needs bag. Funny, I had packed it myself the night before, but somehow it still felt like Christmas morning when they handed it to me!

From the out and back it was one long, steady climb up to Yellow Lake (about 15 miles). In spite of the fact that I do not like to climb (that damn buddha!) this was probably my favorite part of the bike. There were SOO many spectators, all over the road. And it didn't matter who they came out to see, they all cheered for each racer. (and we were climbing, so we're going slow enough to actually talk back and forth). I had the biggest grin on my face the whole time, and so many people commented to me about how happy I looked, and how strong I looked. I just kept saying "thanks for being out here!" to everyone, and they would answer by cheering louder. It was amazing.

I crested Yellow Lake, saw Coach Wayne and a whole bunch of other folks, and started the screaming 15 mile descent back into Penticton. THAT was fun! I was riding back into town on Main Street, and was overcome by emotion. Oh my goodness! I am about to finish the bike ride of my Ironman! I started to get choked up and almost cried a little. Realizing that might lead to a crash in the last 3 miles of the bike, I mustered up the thought "Suck it up, bonehead. You still have a MARATHON to run!" That did it- tears instantly stopped. (though I wanted to cry for another reason!) I finished the bike in 6 hours, 47 minutes and 35 seconds- 92nd in my age group, 1734 overall, averaging 16.5 mph.

Dismounting my bike into Transition 2, I was struck by the fact that I could hardly walk. Oh boy. It's gonna be a long run! The volunteers in T2 were every bit as helpful and amazing as those in T1, so I can't blame them for my slower transition time (8:32). By the time I got out of there, though, I felt okay.

I set off on the 26.2 mile run with a plan. I would run/walk the first 3 miles (5 min run, 2 min walk) then run between water stops and walk through them- they have them about every mile. The first 3 miles I felt pretty good- I didn't even want to walk for 2 whole minutes, even though my legs probably needed it. I compromised, walking only one minute.

Couple of things of note in the first 3 miles. First off, the marathon course is an out and back. A quarter mile out of transition you are running along the finisher chute, past rows of stadium seating, in the opposite direction of the finish. Then you turn around, run practically through the finisher chute, and turn out of town for the next 12 miles. Kind of a tease. No, not kind of. A TOTAL tease. So, here I am, 8 hours and 10 minutes into my race, starting the run, and running past the bleachers in the finisher area. The bleachers are packed. The crowd is going WILD!! I am thinking "man, this is awesome! I mean, the crowds have been great all day, but this is unreal! I'm just starting the run and they are going CRAZY!" Then I get passed by a motorcycle cop. Hmm. That's wierd. Oh, wait. Then I get passed by a Subaru (race sponsor). Why's there a car on the course?! Wait, that car has writing all over it...... "Lead Male Athlete". Then I get passed by this guy running..... Oh. So the cheering dies away as he pulls away from me, half a mile from the finish of his race. And I yell out to the crowd "What?! The cheering wasn't for ME?!" And the crowd goes wild again!

After the tease, as I am heading out of town, I see mom. I stopped and hugged her (poor thing. I'm sure I did not smell good at this point...) and chatted for a minute. She told me of all the people calling her to check on me, and calling to tell her where I was on the course. "Brad just called to say you are done with the bike!" Yup. I am! I was awesome to know that so many people were following along at home! Thanks all!

So, following my plan, I made it to about mile 6 when I got my first calf cramp. What? Realizing that a cramp was probably dehydration and an electrolyte shortage, I started drinking a lot of water and taking my electrolyte pills at an accelerated rate. I had already taken over 50 pills on the bike, and I had 35 more with me. Plus, I started eating pretzels and drinking chicken broth (for the salt) at the water stops. After 2 water stops worth of pretzels, I started to worry about actually eating too much, so then I started taking handfuls of pretzels and sucking them one at a time to get the salt, then spitting out the pretzel. Sorry, town of Penticton, for littering pretzels.... I would also start to run periodically to see if the cramps were gone, and run until I got aonther one. IronTeam teammate Raf came up on me during this phase, and would have been great company, except that his running pace was faster than I was walking, and my walking pace was faster than his walking. So we leap-frogged a bit, and his jokes kept me sane as I plodded through the next 6-8 miles. This was pretty frustrating, because I felt GREAT, other than the cramps, and REALLY wanted to be running!

At about mile 10, I had only 3 electrolyte pills left, and three miles to the turn around where I believed I had more in my Special Needs bag. (turns out I did NOT have any there, and had to rely further on the generousity of teammates who had plenty. I checked my notes later, and apparently never had planned to put any in that bag- a huge oversight!) Teryk, one of our teammates who did Ironman Lake Placid last month and came to support and cheer us on, rode up on his bike. Assessing my situation, he rode off to track down some electrolyte pills courtesy of other teammates. Were it not for Teryk's help, I may never have recovered enough to really run again, and I would have walked the whole marathon. I look upon this as karma coming around- on the bike at the bottom of Richter Pass a teammate of mine rode by and said "I just lost both my water bottles!" Knowing that it was 10 miles uphill to another water stop, I gave him one of mine. Of course, maybe that's why I was dehydrated on the run in the first place.....

Finally, at about mile 14 I started running and no cramp came. I was able to get back into my original plan of running between water stops and walking through them. I amended the plan to allow for walking up big hills as well. I was moving slow, but I was running, and it was steady, and I felt great doing it!

Wayne had promised that the last 10K (6 miles) would be "magical". I even wrote that in my notes from his talk. "magical". Perhaps I set my hopes a little too high, because mile 20-22 were terrible because I felt no magic. My biggest sacrifice of the race happened there as well. It was all I could do to be moving forward, and every water stop I would slow to a walk, and call out what I wanted ("water! ice!"). I did NOT want to have to stop moving to get something, did NOT want to miss what I wanted, and (God Forbid!) did NOT want to have to turn back for something. So about mile 21 I was approaching a water stop, and start to call out for ice. This stop was staffed by two women in their 30s and a small girl, about 4 or 5, named Courtney. As I approached, asking for ice, one of the women says "Courtney, do you have ice?" Courtney did not have a cup of ice ready, so the woman grabbed one and handed it to me. As I was passing, Courtney got hers ready and started to say "I have ice! I have ice! I have ice!" By the time her words penetrated the haze in my brain, I was 3 or 4 steps beyond the table. But I could hear in her voice the excitement of being part of this day, and helping an athlete get to the finish line, and the beginnings of disappointment that I had not taken her ice. By the time my brain processed it, I was 5 or 6 steps away. I turned, walked those 6 steps back, took Courtney's ice, and thanked her. She was so excited. And the mom- I think she started to cry when she thanked me for coming back. I wanted to cry, too. I'm not sure if that was because I clearly had made her day, or if it was over the 12 extra steps.

About a mile later I had another near-crying emotional "I'm about to finish my first Ironman" moment. I thought about how my knee did not hurt at all, how so many people- from the surgeon to our coaching staff, to many of my teammates and friends- had told me that I would not make it here, or that I should not try to push my body to get here this year (all out of love and support), and just how amazing the day had been so far. And once again, as I started to get choked up, I thought "save it. too much energy right now. four more miles and you can cry."

Finally, I was on Main Street, only two miles from the end when I was joined by Mo, another Lake Placid teammate who is here to support. She ran with me into the crowds, yelling at the top of her lungs "LET'S HEAR IT FOR KRISTEN TRUBEY! SHE HAD KNEE SURGERY 4 MONTHS AGO AND IS ABOUT TO FINISH AN IRONMAN!!!" And finally, the crowd went wild for me. Not the lead male athlete, but me! Everyone tells you to savor the finish, because it goes by too fast. That may be true of the last 100 yards, but not the last 2 miles! Those two miles were magical (ahhh, Wayne was right!), truly magical, but they sure did take a long time!

Just before the finisher chute I saw a whole herd of Ironteam folks. One of those people was Karen, who had given the most practical finisher advice of all ("pack a hair brush in your special needs bag so that you get a good finisher photo"). As I started to run by the group, Coach Wayne jumps out to run with me and offer words of wisdom and inspiration. Not realizing he was on my right, I stopped dead in my tracks, turned left to Karen and said "how do I look?" She said "you look GREAT!" I said, "no. I mean, how do I LOOK? For my photo?" She laughed, and said "you look HOT!" I started to run again, and found Wayne looking around, trying to figure out where he lost me.

Not sure what he said, but it inspired me to smile, take it all in, slap the hands of the fans as I ran the chute. As I was finishing my 6:09.35 marathon (111 in my age group, 1711 overall) I remember hearing the announcer talking about me, but I did NOT hear the famous "Kristen Trubey, you are an IRONMAN!".

Shit. Does that mean I have to do it again?!

The day before

2006-09-03T11:05:00.000-07:00

Friends and Family- here are my thoughts and recollections about Saturday. Race day info to follow shortly (give it another day. I've made it through the swim so far.....)

Saturday morning was spent finalizing my Transition bags, then dropping them and my bike off at the transition area. Next, off to the "forced rest" of a Team in Training brunch. Forced rest because after the coaches and honorees spoke, they had "open mike". Are you kidding? Open mike for a room of 70 nervous, emotional athletes and their families?! It took hours. I think it might have gone on longer than my marathon the next day. Don't get me wrong, it was emotional and touching, and a great opportunity for people to thank those that had supported them, and share inspiration. It was quite nice. However, sitting still for three and a half hours has never been a strong suit of mine in any case, let alone the day before a big event. I found it challenging. I think my Attention Deficit Disorder mother did as well, as I imagine it is harder to sit through when you know none of the personalities and don't get most of the references.

When the lunch was over we headed back to the room, where I quickly packed my Special Needs bags. These bags are available to you at mile 75 on the bike, and mile 13 on the run, and you can put whatever you want in them. So necessities like more gu, potatoes and electrolyte pills (salt tables), plus things like sunscreen and chamois butter, and finally some random things like potato chips and circus animal cookies, because you never know what you will feel like eating by that point.

As an aside- when I got to Special Needs on the bike I was rooting through the bag, and was all excited to eat the circus animals. I opened the plastic container they were in to find them melted and sticky, making them significantly less appealing. As I tossed that aside, the volunteer who was there helping me asked (a bit shocked, I think) "who puts pink and white cookies in their special needs bag?!" I didn't want to take the time to explain that they really were there as a
reminder of the Wildflower Half Ironman that we did as part of our training where Skeeter had them at the top of Nasty Grade for me. Or the 70 mile ride at Berryessa (my first ride with the Team post surgery and probably the day that I realized that I really might be able to recover in time to do this silly race) where I ate them before I started. They weren't to eat (though I would certainly eat them). Rather, their purpose was to remind me of all of the crazy training I had
done to prepare for this day in the event that I was having a tough day. But that seemed like a lot of detail to go into on the side of the road at mile 75.

Anyway, back to Saturday. Mom, gracious and wonderful supporter that she is, was kind enough to give up her suite to the athletes (me, Kim, Alex and Skeeter) so that we could cook ourselves dinner and relax. She went out to eat with Alex's mom. I know that there is nothing she would have enjoyed more than hanging out with us while we prepared for the day, but she also
understood that would take our number from four to nine (one parent equals four parents and a husband), and would no longer be relaxing. What she should try to remember is that I am no fun to be around when I am nervous/focused/preparing for some big thing, and that as my mother she is the easy/vulnerable/obvious target for my frustrations. But, alas, her memory fails
her, and she mistakenly thinks it would be fun mother/daughter bonding time.

So the four of us cooked dinner and sat remeniscing about the season over a half a glass of wine each. Well, except Skeeter, who wasn't racing and could have as much wine as she wanted. Alex and Kim and I, though, made half a glass last a LONG time! Probably longer than my swim the next day.....

After dinner we headed down to the team relaxation session which was led by Terry Jordan, a professional hypnotherapist. Terry also happens to be the mother of Emily Jordan, and the wife of Bob Jordan. In the late 90s Emily, who was dying of Leukemia, wrote a letter to the Ironman Hawaii selection committee asking for a spot in the Hawaii Ironman for her father for his birthday. He had entered the random drawing for a spot in the race every year of her life, and she had watched his disappointment every year when he did not get in. Emily's touching letter worked, Bob got a spot in the race, and sadly Emily passed away before she could watch him do the race. She was four. Bob and Emily's story was featured in the race coverage that year (you might recognize the story if you ever watch the Ironman on TV) and Emily went on to be one of the early honorees for IronTeam.

So the relaxation session was in this grassy area in the center of the hotel complex. Not the most relaxing setting, as parents, non-competing friends, and strangers walked by. My mom was not the only one to walk up with her camera to start taking pictures, however she was the one that interfered with my relaxation! Kim's mom appeared a few minutes later, setting Kim off, and on and on. Needless to say- I don't remember much of the relaxation session.

Finally, off to bed around 9:00 to prepare for the 4:00am wake up alarm!

T Minus 33 Hours

2006-08-25T22:35:00.000-07:00

It's late, so I am going to make this short. It's Friday night, around 10:30pm. My race starts in 33 and a half hours (for those of you that don't want to do math, that's Sunday at 7:00). I arrived in Penticton yesterday afternoon, luckily for me in the rental mini-van with Alex and Skeeter and Ale's mom. Lucky because the team bus had an hour and a half delay trying to leave the airport. Apparently a limo broke down right in front of the bus, and the bus could not pull around them. So they sat at the curb at the airoport for a while, with Coach Wayne out yelling at the airport officials. Word on the street is that around the time he was offering to have his athletes get off the bus to move the limo out of the way, said aiport officials were threatening to have him arrested. As much fun as that all sounds to watch, I am happy to say that I missed it. And even that is nothing compared to the travel woes of our Lake Placid teammates. If you haven't heard that story, remind me later and I'll tell you!

So, anyway, today was the day to register for the race, and get in a quick swim and bike. Mom graciously offered over breakfast to go to the grocery to get a few things. Knowing how long our list already was, I kept saying "are you sure??" to which she responded, "of course, just make a list!" So I pulled out our list (five anal triathletes all trying to get their perfect pre-race meals in). It filled a sheet of paper. Mom kinda gasped, and the words that popped out of her mouth were "we're only here for 5 days!" So while we registered and swam she headed off to the store.

Registration was great. Very fast and efficient, with just amazingly nice people. It is so cool how the local people all get so into this event, whether or not they are athletic, or know any athletes or anything. When the clock radio went off this morning it was a "race news" report being broadcast. Mom had gotten here a day before me and met up with some locals for a bridge game. They all excitedly asked her my race number so that they could cheer for me. (she, of course, did not know it, so it's not likely that they will actually cheer for me.) At registration, the volunteer who checked me in was a 50-something year old woman named Mary. After walking me through everything I needed to know, she said "now I'm usually right at mile 9 on the run, so I'll be looking for you there!" So sweet. There are 2548 athletes doing the race Sunday, and Mary probably registered over a hundred of us. I'm sure she told each of us the same thing, so she won't remember me. But it gives me something to look forward to at mile 9!

They also weigh you at registration. In the event there is a medical emergency, they want to be able to compare my weight so that they know if I am dehydrated. So, I stepped on the scale, and the woman there looked at the scale, looked up at me quizzically and said "you don't weigh (insert large number) pounds!" I responded "actually, I do". So she hands me my sheet and sends me to the guy who writes down my weight. I tell him the number (subtracting 2 vanity pounds, of course) and he says "by this time next year, I want you at (insert large number minus 25) pounds." gee, thanks. He was trying to be nice, but ouch.

We went to the pre-race carbo load dinner and athlete meeting this evening. A few videos, a few speakers, some info about the race (like they have increased the number of people out looking for tacks in the road on the bike course?? apparently there have been some situations in past years where a few of the locals are expressing that they aren't interested in the race being here.....)

Last Coached Workout

2006-08-20T21:43:00.000-07:00

Our last official, organized practice of the season was today. The next time I see most of my teammates will be when I meet them at the airport on Thursday morning.

We met at Fort Mason in San Francisco for the three phase workout- first, we handed over our bikes to Tri Bike Transport, the company that will take them to Penticton. It was kind of funny to watch everyone on the team tentatively moving toward the truck that would take the bikes away, almost a little afraid to hand over their baby. Progress was slow, but I can tell you that when I reached the front of the line it was over way too fast! I was giving my name, paying for the extra insurance, handing over the gear bag that I sent along with it, and all of a sudden I realized that she was gone! My bike had disappeared around the corner of the truck, and I didn't even get to say good-bye! The next time I see "Betty" (my bike and I have grown close...) we'll be in another country!

The gear bag, incidentally, was the cause of most of my stress this past week. It felt alot like needing to be ready to pack, and I was just not there! So my Saturday night was spent putting things in the bag, writing down what things I put in there (God forbid I freak out later in the week because I can't find my Gu flask!) and weighing the bag to make sure it was under (or not too far over...) the 25lb limit. I would have to schlepp it into the bathroom and weigh myself holding the bag, then carry it out to add or remove things, over and over.

Phase two of practice was a Q&A info meeting with the coaches. Every athlete on the team has, in the past two weeks, nervously read every single snippit of information available on ironman.ca and ironteam.net, as well as countless emails from coaches and TNT staff, and eveny probably searched the web for the race reports of random strangers that have done this race in the past. (I know that I have done this, and I am far less information hungry than many of my teammates!) So, really, there were no questions that we did not already know the answers to. So the Q&A went like this:

Athlete: "So, how exactly do I go about the process of dotting all of the "I"s and crossing each "T"??

(at this point, every other athlete in the room- about 50- starts to whisper to the person next to them about how THEY cross t's and dot i's, and/or giggle nervously about the T-crossing process, making it impossible to actually hear the poor patient coach say something like:)

Coach: Generally, I like to take a blue pen-- you can use black, too, but I prefer blue- and hold it in my right hand. Some choose to use their left hand, and that is okay, but the right works better for me. Then I will........

Fortunately, after about an hour and a half our room rental was over and we were forced to conclude phase 2. (I may sound contemptuous of this process, but please don't mis-understand- I was sitting alongside my teammates taking notes on I-dotting as though I had never dotted an I in my life.)

Phase 3 was a nice 7.5 mile run to burn up some of that nervous energy. As you do during taper, I felt tired and sluggish during the run. I would fluctuate between worrying about the run and telling myself that this is what taper is all about. (I never worry about it when I feel sluggish during a swim, and rarely with a bike, but boy do I stress about it with running!)

We finished the workout with a lot of nervous "see you Thursday!"s and headed on our way. Oh, and my favorite- "hey, Kim-- what are you doing next weekend?" "oh, I don't know. maybe I'll do an Ironman..."

Emotions

2006-08-18T11:15:00.000-07:00

They say you get a little emotional in the last months of Ironman training. Family and friends claim to witness mood swings ranging from tearing up and crying over nothing, to getting pissed and yelling about stupid little things (though we athletes are all convinced that they are just imagining it). I witnessed the beginning of a spat between Kim and her husband over the raspberry flavored hammer gel (the perils of a two athlete family) as well as a tiff between Skeeter and Alex about the best lane on the Bay Bridge to drive in. Thankfully, both couples maintained composure enough to hold the real fighting til I was gone. I have watched teammates get all sentimental over our last track workout, our last long bike ride, our last short bike ride, our last practice before people leave for Lake Placid, our first practice after they got back from Lake Placid, and on and on and on.

I, of course, am above all that. Yessir! I flash back to Tom Hanks in that movie about the women's pro baseball team "A League of Their Own" when one of the players starts crying. He sputters incredulously "There's no crying in baseball!" Yup, no crying in Ironman for me!

Just like there would be no ice baths for me. Geez this is rediculous. This morning Kim and I got to the pool for what might be the shortest swim workout in history (took about 20 minutes). The two best lifeguards there remember us and start to move folks around in the pool so that we can swim together, as they have been doing for the last few months. And, BAM!, there it is. The welling up of the eyes as I imagine the month of September with no Kim-and-me-going-to-Koret-to-swim.

What the heck was that?! It's not even an isolated incident. I gt my bike back from the shop (pre-race tune up) and went out for a spin by myself. Felt great, got all excited about the race, then, POW!, it's there again. Race numbers publicized the other day (mine's 2079), SPLAT!, happens again. Kim and I are swimming Trans-Tahoe, side by side, and I start to flash back through all of the swims we've done together and, KA-POW!, the tears well. (had to put an end to that one real quick, the goggles were getting full!) I was running at Tahoe, thinking how lucky I am to be out there, actually running, not just running but running 20 miles! a few months after surgery.......

The list goes on. I have to quit this soon! Or I am going to turn into some sort of sentimental, sappy girl or something! Sheesh. I thought I was just signing up to do a triathlon.

Family

2006-08-09T12:20:00.000-07:00

Wow, I have a lot of catching up to do. I have had so many post ideas running through my head in the past weeks.... It's time to get some of them down. Watch this space- I may get a few of them up today!

Just after my last post I went to NC for 6 days for a family reunion. I was a bit anxious about maintaining my training during the trip. Not because it is hard to train during travel, but because of what my family reunions are usually like.

We've been doing them every other year since before I was born. My mom is one of 6 kids, and the reunion consists of the six of them, their spouses, their kids and the kids spouses, and all the kids' kids. Upwards of 40 people, though this year I think we capped at about 25. We rent a few houses at the beach, and then we alternately eat, hang out on the beach, eat, nap, eat, maybe go find a waterslide, and then eat some more. Now that my generation are all "adults" we cap off the evenings by drinking publicly (we used to have to sneak off with our parents' beer) and playing cards. All in all a great week, that normally results in 10 pounds gained. Notice exercise was not listed, and I assure you that the eating is rarely healthy.

Not to mention we are talking about a week in a place that, while beautiful, rivals hell for high tempatures in the summer. And, my GOD the humidity! Two years ago one of my cousins and I decided to go for a walk on the local bike path at about 6:00pm. You know, a fitness walk. I even toyed with the idea of running for a bit. We made it about 500 yards down the path before we had completely melted into our shoes. We turned around and went back home for a pre-dinner cocktail.

Going into it this year, I knew that the key to success would be the early morning wake up. Exercise at 6:00am when the rest of the family is asleep, and it's only 180 degrees with 3000% humidity. But I also had my reputation to uphold. My brother Brad and I rival each other as the last to go to bed every night, and I could certainly not let that slide! It was probably the hardest week of my training! Not because of the workouts- technically it was a "recovery" week. Rather, because I was living on no sleep! To bed around 2:00, and trying to rise at 6:00. Plus playing with my nephews and cousins during the day.

The coolest part about it, though, was the amazing support that I got from my family while I was there. The people in my family range from not athletic at all to fairly active, with maybe a few more to the non-athletic end of the spectrum. The active ones do things like play ultimate frisbee and tennis to ride horses. Among the 25 people who were there maybe two have ever done a running road race, and probably nothing longer than a 10K.

So when I got up at 6:00am on morning one for a 10 mile run, I was ecstatic to find my cousin in law Derrick lacing up his running shoes! He was in for 5 of my 10 miles, he said. It was perfect- he's a much faster runner than I (along with anyone else in the world that actually owns running shoes...) but hasn't run in a while, so we had a nice pace going. We did an out and back along the bike path and road, and had a great chat. I kept waiting for him to turn around (I think I even pointed out how far we'd gone a few times) but he stuck with me til the 5 mile turn around point. At one point on the return we passed a cop who was parked on the side clocking cars' speed, and Derrick yelled to him "how fast are we going, officer?!" Really great to have the company.

As we reached the last turn, about a mile from home, Derrick finally had to start walking. But I had a running partner for 9 miles! (he struggled with stairs for the next 2 days, and didn't offer to do any more runs with me, but that was okay!).

After the 10 mile run, I set off on the rental bike that I had picked up from a triathlon shop for the week. A college buddy, Donald, had left his house at 4:00am and driven down to do a 75 mile ride with me. We set out, but ended up doing only 40. I hated the bike because it wasn't mine, and I was uncomfortable on it.

The week persisted like that- I would find someone to do a short recovery run with me, or the family would drop me off the boat to do a swim. In making plans they were ever aware of my need to go train-- "will you have enough time to do your ride if we get back at 4:00?" It was great to have the support.

The culmination, though, was one evening late in the week. I had missed the morning workout (sleep had finally gotten the best of me) and had not gotten the bike ride in during the day (waterslide park with the kids took precedence). I finished stuffing myself at dinner, and sat there thinking "what could I do to salvage this day?" Finally, I turned to my sister in law Laura and said "I'm going for a swim. I'll swim parallel to the shore, toward the pier." She's a mom, and she worried a little about that (I think she even asked if I has waited 30 minutes since I ate) so she decided to walk along.

As I got ready, she talked to cousin Amy, who decided to come too. The three of us headed to the beach, and I dove out into the waves and started swimming. Every time I breathed to the left, I would see one or both of them, walking slowly alongside me. All of a sudden, about 10 minutes into the swim I noticed a small red-headed child. Could that be Mackenzie, Amy's daughter? Then I relaized that Benjamin and Jacob, my nephews, were there as well. Wait... is that Aunt Carolyn? By the time I came out of the water after about 40 minutes the entire family was beside me on the beach. It was spectacular. I got a little teary (though I hid that and blamed it on the salt water). All 25 members of my family came to support my training in whatever way they could. Amazingly heart warming.

Right up until Benjamin (my 5 year old nephew) came up to me, tapped me on the leg and said "Dad said to tell you that you have 10 more minutes to go."

Am I..... hard core? gasp!

2006-07-09T19:40:00.000-07:00

I just re-read my last post- the one about my first ice bath, where I describe Jenny as "hard core" and talk about how only the "hard core" would take ice baths. I've become a bit of an ice bath junkie. I've taken four now. In a week! And I've progressed from one bag of ice to two or three, and sometimes I even do it without the sweatshirt. I ate tacos while in the ice bath the other day to save time! I took one today after the run I did, and I am thinking about taking another one now! Somebody help me! I need an intervention! I now can't imagine a long bike or run without an ice bath.

I went with Alex and Lydia up to Alex and Skeeter's place on the Russian River for the weekend. The schedule called for a 75 mile bike ride on Saturday and a 16 mile run today. My amended run schedule was (hand written on the schedule by Taylor):

"goal 12-13 miles :) Bonus :) if reach 16 miles. :) :) :) Yahoo!"

Saturday was a beautiful day for a ride (but HOT!). We headed off around 8:30 or 9:00 (late start for a hot day) and about four and a half hours later returned home with 69.8 miles done. Crap. See, as we were heading back toward the house at the end of the loop, I was realizing we were going to come up a little short of the 75. I knew that both Alex and Lydia would be okay with that, but for the past 6 weeks I've been feeling like I had a lot of catching up to do. I can't possibly "catch up" and be ready if I am cutting rides short, can I? So I had negotiated in my head that if we went anything over 70 miles (even 70.01) that I would call it a day. Anything under 70 (like, oh say 69.8...) and I would add on the miles to bring it to 75.

Stupidly, I had told Alex this, so off I headed to pick up 6 more miles.

Then (of course) I took an ice bath (ahhh.....) and we headed to the store. Picked up some stuff to grill for dinner, watched the World Cup, had great conversation, good wine, slept, and got up this morning to do the run. My knee had been hurting enough all weekend that I had been limping- pretty much since Wednesday's run- and I thought for sure it would hurt on the run. So I half-heartedly prepared for a long run, knowing that I has about a mile of running in me. Surprisingly, I headed out on the run, and it felt pretty good. So I kept going.

I had a 13.5 mile out-and-back run planned that took me to and through a redwood grove (stunning). I was feeling good enough that I started to strategize how to pick up three extra miles. I wanted those "bonus" smiley-faces that he had written on my schedule. At about 11 miles Alex appeared to run me in (yay!). Having told her about the smiley-faces, as we approached the house I said to her "there's really no reason to stop other than 'my knee hurts' is there?" She confirmed that there was not. I scanned my knee for pain (kinda hoping there was some). Nope. Dropped Alex at the house and kept going.

The house is in a neighborhood that is on a small loop. The entire loop is about 1.2 or 1.3 miles, so to get 16 I would need to run it twice. The first loop was easy- I was on the high of having decided to keep running, and working on steeling myself to run past the house again. I did a good job- passing the house was easy. What I had not prepared myself for was the mile after I passed the house. It was terrible! One crushing thought occured about halfway through that loop- on race day there are TEN MORE MILES! That was the hardest finish to a workout I have had all season.

But finish I did, and without walking a step. Not because I am hard core, though, but because my knee hurts to walk, remember?!

In the car on the way back to the city, Alex pretty much told me that I am hard core. She used the word "aggro" as in "aggressive about training" which we have been using to playfully tease Kim all season. Kim would never stop at 69.9 miles, or at 13.5. I have spent the season pointing out how aggro Kim is, in the hopes that no one would notice that I am too. (trying to keep up my laid back, relaxed image....) Well, the gig is up. With Kim not able to join us for the weekend it was only me. Alex went so far as to say she wasn't sure who was more aggro- me or Kim.

I think I'll call Kim and tell her that. See if she gets all aggro and does an extra workout or something. :)

2006-07-05T21:18:00.000-07:00

As you know, if you've been following along at home, I had a big run on the schedule for Sunday. I went to our team workout, which was a swim/run. After the 3000 yard swim, the team headed out for a road run. I was a little unsure of how far my knee was really going to let me go, and how hilly the run would be, and I did not want to get stuck far out and not feel good enough to walk back in.

The school we were at had a track, so I headed over there with one of our coaches, Alex. My instructions from Taylor were to run between an hour and a half and two hours. If the knee hurt too bad for that I was to walk. Alex didn't have running shoes with him, and I was in no hurry to start running, so we walked the track for the first 25 minutes. I knew that I needed to start running, but it was sure hard to leave Alex and take off for the next hour and a half. Thankfully he stayed at the track and kept me company, as that is a long time to run around in a circle. To distract myself, as I ran 32 laps around the track, I had a few things going on. First of all, I was counting my strides per minute, and playing with different paces. I was also monitoring my heart rate, seeing how my strides per minute affected my heart rate. Plus I had Alex serving as my personal water stop every mile, and encouraging me along the way. Finally, there was an ultimate frisbee game taking place in the field. That was the most interesting of my distractions, and when the game ended while I still had a mile to go, I was pretty bummed. As they were all packing up I ran by and said "wait! you were my TV! keep playing!" One of the women responded "you've been running a long time!" This was not news to me.

This run was a major turning point for me. I have always believed in my surgeon's work. And I have never doubted (questioned, but not doubted...) Taylor's work at rehabing my knee, or his confidence in my ability to get through the race. And I sure have not ever questioned my own.... perseverance, dedication, stubborness (you pick the word)... in working toward the goal. But Sunday for the first time my body told me that I will be able to finish this race. I was halfway through the run when I realized that me knee felt better than when I started. It felt the same as my other knee. It was awesome. I kept giggling and smiling. Sometimes I would run past Alex with a big ol' grin on my face and he would tell me I had an extra spring in my step, or that I was running faster than I had been.

Of course, the second that I stopped running I was like "ow! my knee hurts!" And I came straight home and repeated the ice bath, and it took two days for my knee to recover from the run. But it does not change the fact that my knee felt great on that run. And for that hour and a half I knew that I was going to be able to finish the race.

Ice

2006-07-01T21:24:00.000-07:00

I did something today that I swore I'd never do. Fortunately I never swore it out loud in front of anyone, but I did promise myself in my head that I would never, ever, under any circumstances do it.

I took an ice bath.

Way back at the beginning of the season I remember listening to this woman on our team Jenny describe sitting down in a bathtub of ice water after long runs while training for a marathon. She swore it was the best way to a quick recovery. I've known Jenny for a couple of years, and she has a well-desrved reputation for being pretty hard core. So, as I stood there silently listening to her that day (way back in October when a two hour workout sometimes caused me to sleep the afternoon away) I thought to myself "of course Jenny would do that. She's hard core. I bet most people on IronTeam don't take ice baths. I will never ever do that. No way!" I also knew that a total rookie maneuver would be to say that out loud. That would make me look like a naive little newbie, a fresh lamb ready to be led to the slaughter. So I kept my mouth shut.

Thank goodness, since I just got out of the tub.

This all comes on the heels of a 106 mile bike ride, 31 miles longer than my previous longest-ride-ever, and 36 miles longer than my longest-ride-this-season. My teammates have had a little more build up to this- they did a 90 miler a few weeks ago, and have put in a few 80's since. I was a little nervous going into it.

I had a GREAT day! We did a 53 mile loop in wine country two times through. It was sunny and warm, and did not get really hot until late in the ride. We rode through vineyards on beautiful back roads, mostly flat with rolling hills. I spent the day with Kim and Alex, along with three other teammates, Susie, Jess and Joe. We chose to do the loop backward the second time for a change of scenery. The added benefit was that we got to see our teammates and cheer them on as they headed in the other direction. Great to draw that energy and support from folks we knew along the way.

I felt awesome right up until about mile 90. At that point, I pulled out a pb&j sandwich, and was halfway through eating it when I started to hit some major potholes. The sandwich bounced out of my hand, then dropped back into it. I knew that I'd better eat it fast and get both hands back on the bike, which I did. Then, my mouth all sticky with peanut butter, I took a quick swig of water, just as I hit another pothole. I nearly choked on the water, but was able to recover to keep riding.

The combination of fast eating, 90 miles, hot day, big gulp of water, bouncy road and nearly choking kind of did in my stomach. The next 10 miles went by really slow, with me feeling alternately like I might puke, and like I wanted to puke. I didn't throw up, but it did give me enough time to realize that on race day the run comes right after the bike (duh...) and it involves bouncing. In my ever-changing race plan I have now shifted the consumption of pb&j toward the beginning of the ride, and a less hearty power food (like gu or clif bloks) to the end of the ride.

About 20 minutes after I finished the ride, I let out this enormous burp, and immediately felt great again. Coulda done 20 more miles! (ha! just kidding!)

Anyway, this brings us to the ice bath. Tomorrow is a run. For me it is a 1.5 to 2 hour run (about 10 miles currently) that is critical to my training (according to doc/coach Taylor). So critical, that if my knee hurts too bad to run I am to walk it. And if my knee hurts too bad to walk it, well, I'd better plan to crawl for 2 hours. (his words, not mine). After stessing this to me Friday, Taylor suggested the ice bath.

The look I gave him must have been a doozy. He stood there, hand on the doorknob about to leave the room, in a bit of a stare-down with me for about 15 seconds, then came back toward me and started to tell me about this other patient he had once. (I SWEAR he makes most of these up!)

Apparently, this guy had a similar injury to mine, and Taylor had recommended the ice bath. The guy came in for his next appointment with a huge bandage on his face. Apparently, he was so against the ice bath, that he was trying to figure out a way to just get his knee in the bath. He was kneeling in the tub, hands on the side, and one of his hands slipped. He fell on his face on the edge of the tub and broke his nose. Taylor says that he had given him the same look I was giving him at that moment (he mistakenly interpreted it as "how can I do only my knee without sitting in a tub full of ice water?" when in actuality it was "I hate this man. I really do. He is a sadist, and I hate him." I guess I am glad that he mis-interpreted it.)

Anyway, I got the point, and knowing that I could do something just as stupid as this mythical "other patient" I went ahead and sat in the ice bath.

At least, I think I did. It still counts if all the ice melted before I was done, right? It was still really cold.

I'd better be able to run tomorrow!

Cinderella Re-visited

2006-06-24T14:13:00.000-07:00

Remember the Cinderella Classic? It was a women only supported ride that some of my teammates and I did a few months ago. We were in a recovery week, and we opted to do the crazy (back then) long 60 mile ride instead of the proscribed 22-28 miles on our schedule. The weather was terrible, big headwinds, and we all ended up exhausted. (if you don't remember it you can always go back to March and read the post I wrote about it.)

At the end of that very long and tiring day that nearly killed the seven of us, Jenny piped in with "you know, there's this great ride every June that I do...". Today was the Giro de Peninsula, and five of the seven of us were on hand. Three headed out for the 110 mile option (instead of the 70 we are scheduled for) and two of us headed out on the "metric century" option (about 62 miles). Thankfully, Alex either learned from our Cinderella mistake, or was too sick this week to think about 110 miles, so I had some company.

Today was everything that Cinderella was not- a gorgeous day, cool enough yet beautifully sunny. Windy, but not the crazy headwind we had before. I thought a much prettier course, with some great small climbs. Yummy homemade chocolate chip cookies at the rest stops. Everything one could hope for. And, of course, really nice to be riding with one of my old riding partners again. (sure, she had to be coughing up a lung for me to keep up with her, but still.... I was riding with her!)

Yet in spite of all of the amazing things I can say about the day and the ride, somehow I still missed the camaradarie of the seven of us suffering together through Cinderella.

Mona Lisa

2006-06-23T20:44:00.000-07:00

I've run three times this week- once for 30 minutes and twice for an hour. Sunday I am to run for an hour and forty five minutes. My pace has come down a little closer to pre-surgery- from 13:49 down to 11:30. My knee still doesn't feel "normal", but it doesn't really hurt too bad, either. Don't get me wrong- I still have the occasional day where it hurts so bad that I think the surgery was a flop. But here's a first- this week I had a day where it felt so good that I kinda forgot about the surgery altogether.

I saw Taylor this afternoon, and after checking out my knee he sat and roughly mapped out the rest of my training season. He went so far as to tell me that I should be able to get to the point that I can average 10:00-10:30 miles for the run of the Ironman. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I never really thought I would go faster than 11:00 before the surgery, though he may have gathered that from my jaw hitting the floor and my eyes popping out of my head.

The best thing that has happened so far in my recovery- as he sat and figured out what to have me do this week to make it so that I peak with my team, he got really excited and said that I was doing great. Right on schedule for a great race. And that as great as my recovery is going, my knee and I will turn out to be his "Mona Lisa". That could not be more positive, could it?!

2006-06-18T23:44:00.000-07:00

Here's the fundraising email that I just sent out:

Hi Friends and Family,

Here I am, eight months in to the ten month IronTeam training program. It has been a roller coaster! I am sitting here remembering that at Kick-off we wrote a letter to ourselves that was sealed in an envelope to be delivered to us on the eve of our race. I wonder what the heck I wrote?! I sure had no idea what I was in for!

In the past eight months I have swum 117,625 yards. That is 66.5 miles, equivalent to 4705 lengths of a pool, though much of it has been in open water. I have swum from San Francisco to San Jose. From Raleigh, NC to Burlington, NC.

I have ridden my bike 1730.5 miles, a distance that would get me about two thirds of the way to visit my family in North Carolina.

And I have run (some of it water running) 266.5 miles. That's from Raleigh, NC to Washington, DC. Or I have run from home to Lake Tahoe, and am halfway back! (thank goodness it's downhill on the return!)

It's hard to imagine that for four weeks in the heart of our training I was counting my progress in city blocks. Many of you know that I had knee surgery on April 28. The surgery was more complicated than anticipated, and I was on crutches and in an immobilizing brace for four weeks, during which I crutched about 140 city blocks. (yes, I am geeky and retarded and counted it...) I took my first crutch-free steps on May 24. Yesterday I ran 2.2 miles. Today I rode my bike 71 miles.

All of this is under the guidance of my surgeon-recommended rehab doctor- don't worry!

At this point it looks really promising that I will, in fact, be participating in Ironman Canada 2006 with the approval of ALL of my doctors! Obviously this will be a very different race than I was planning in early April when I sat with my coaches to develop my goal race plan and time.

Accepting this fact has been much harder than any of the workouts that I have missed. I went for a bike ride this week with Kim and Alex, who I used to ride with. I saw them at the beginning, and again at the end. It was lonely and depressing. During that first run on Saturday I was panting as bad as any run I did in October- how could I have lost so much in so short a time?- and my pace was a blistering 13:49 per mile. (I have been a consistent 9:40-10:00 mile all season). Please don't get me wrong- I am ecstatic to be where I am. It is just hard sometimes to look around and be reminded of what I have lost.

Which brings me to my point. In the past month and a half, I have found more inspiration from my honorees than I had imagined possible. They have always been the thought that gets me out of bed at 5:30 in the morning for a swim. Now I look to them for the inspiration to even TRY to get back into training. More so, I have used the thought of my honorees to remind myself how LUCKY I am that I can even THINK about doing this Ironman. To help me remember that, in the grand scheme of things, I haven't "lost" anything! I am still here, still training. And maybe I'll get to enjoy the race for a little longer than I had originally planned to. But I WILL get to enjoy the race.

Well, that is if I achieve my fundraising minimum. Fundraising has been a little back-burner these days to things like learning to walk, and doing silly little physical therapy exercises. Now all of a sudden I need $1500 to make the minimum, and only have a few weeks left to get it.

This is where you come in. Go to my blog at ironkristen.blogspot.com. Read over my training notes. Read about the surgeon and my rehab doctor, and my first bike ride post-surgery. And if you would like to support me, please make a donation to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society while you are there.

To those of you who have already donated, thank you so much. Looks like I may be an ok investment after all!

Thanks everyone!

Berryessa

2006-06-15T23:12:00.000-07:00

IronTeam had a training weekend at Lake Berryessa last weekend. We headed up to the lake (about a 2 hour drive, unless you follow Kim and I on the way home...) on Friday and stayed in cabins right on the lake. Kim and I took Friday off and arrived at the lake early in the afternoon. Because we thought me might not get enough training in over the weekend we went ahead and did a quick half mile swim. (ha! not get enough training! as if! not to mention we'd gone to the gym in the morning for an elliptical session and water run!)

As a team we had a big ol' cook out Friday night, and sat around trying not to think too hard about the day ahead of us. The plan for Saturday was a two mile swim at 7:00am, followed by a 93 mile bike ride. Taylor and I (see previous post if you don't know who the heck Taylor is) had studied the ride's elevation profile, done a little negotiation (you can imagine this, right?) and settled on the part of the ride course that I was allowed to ride, with the goal being 70 miles for me, with limited climbing. Over dinner, I sat with one of our coaches Alex to talk about the ride. He told me of the seven water crossings on the course. Places where a river crossed the road, where all cyclists would need to dismount and walk their bikes over the slippery rocks to continue the ride. Damn. Not doing those seven miles either. Then Wayne pops by, looks at the profile, and vetos one of the hills that Taylor had approved (begrudgingly, and only cause he caved under the pressure of our "negotiations"). Crap. Five more miles gone.

By the time my coaches finished, the plan was for me to ride the first 14 miles, then get into a sag car to pass the water crossings and the major climbs, and get dropped again 33 miles later. I was to ride the rest of the course (giving me a total of 56 miles). If I still felt ok, the coaches suggested that I turn around and do an out and back along the course that would bring me to the 70 mile total that Taylor had approved. Can I just implore you to imagine how hard that is to do? Fifty six miles after I started my day I arrived at the doorstep of my shower and bed, and heard the lake beconing me. And I turned around to do an out and back. I got as far as I could before reaching a climb too steep for my knee, and turned back. I reached the cabin again at mile 65, and once again headed out onto the road. When I reached "home" for the third time at mile 69.79 I retired from the bike. What a great day overall. Incidentally, I found out later that none of the coaches actually thought I would turn around and go back out. Ha! Who are these people? Do they not know me at all?!?

Sunday's planned run for the team was a 13 mile road and trail run. For me, a lovely 3-5 mile walk with Coach Alex. I think we hit around 4.5 to 5, and it felt great! I felt better walking on Sunday than I had on Saturday. Apparently cycling is good for my knee!

I will admit to one moment of weakness during the weekend. Saturday morning after the swim I stood in front of my cabin checking the air in my tires in preparation for the long ride. A group of six or eight 20 and 30-somethings walked by carrying their coolers full of beer and food to the boat that they would spend the day in on the lake. Oh,the "day envy" I experienced! I toyed with the idea of saying my knee hurt to bad to ride, but I couldn't figure out how to get on the boat full of strangers!

In the end I am glad I didn't. It sure feels good to be a practicing part of IronTeam again.

taylor

2006-06-07T22:55:00.000-07:00

I decided that my awesome doc deserves his own post in this training/rehab blog. Dr Taylor Rabbetz has been treating me for my knee since probably February. He's the one who sent me for the MRI and recommended my surgeon, and was the first to tell me that I may not be able to do the race. He was also the first to tell me after the surgery that I WILL be able to do the race. There are times in this recovery process where I am quite certain that he is the only one who believes it, though most of the time I do as well.

Taylor is a chiropractor who specializes in sports injuries. He's treated or is treating half of IronTeam. (he often asks for gossip, and even recently started to playfully pit Kim and Alex against each other.) He is charming and funny, attentive and patient. (don't get too excited, ladies- he's got a girlfriend). I have been completely amazed at his interest in me and my situation, and I know that each of his patients feels the same level of concern for them.

And I can assure you that I am NOT an easy patient. He deals with the completely bi-polar nature of my mind in this recovery. I will come in thinking I am invincible, I push for permission to do more than he tells me I can, I challenge every limitation ("what do you mean I can't ride my bike outside yet?! I can't take riding 2 hours a day on the trainer! Come on! Are you sure? Please?!") Then 2 minutes later he tells me to try something I don't think I am ready for and he gets something like "are you sure I should try walking up and down stairs? I mean the surgeon didn't tell me that stairs were ok." or "Oh, I am not ready to go without a crutch yet, no way!" (in spite of the fact that I walked 5 blocks to the appointment carrying the thing rather than using it).

Bless his heart, he has suffered the WRATH of Kristen this past week. Wednesday before last was my first day walking at all. It felt great! It was awesome! It was better than ever! I way over did it! And boy did I suffer. All day Thursday and Friday, the pain was terrible. I was sure (as I am EVERY time there is a new pain!) that the surgery was a failure and we'd have to start all over. I was despondent. I arrived in his office Friday afternoon sure that the recovery was over. But no! "It' s a good sign!" he told me, which really just pissed me off. Because see, every time there is a horrible pain he calls it a good sign, and by this time I was sure he was just flat out lying. Then he made his big mistake. He promised me a "miracle session" and proceeded to do a lot of active release therapy (rubbing the hell out of parts of my knee and leg that just don't want to be touched) which is excruciating. And then he sent me home for the weekend.

There was no miracle. I still hurt on the following Monday. I've tried not to, but I have thrown the words "miracle session" in his face more times than I can remember. And in spite of that he gave me his email address and invited me to send him questions any time I have them. And he patiently gives me a daily training plan geared toward healing my knee (first) and getting me back in line with IronTeam training (second). As I mentioned, the attentiveness is amazing. (in case you are wondering, the "miracle" was a lot slower in coming than he thought, but it seems to finally be taking hold...)

Anyway, I just wanted to throw the kudos out there. Taylor has been such a critical part of getting me back into my training, and helping me start to feel "normal" again that I wanted to make sure to recognize him (here in my audience of three!).

I MUST be getting better....

2006-06-04T00:37:00.000-07:00

.... or at least I LOOK healthier. I got carded this week for my disability. Yup, someone asked to see my ID to prove I was disabled. And in case you are wondering, apparently crutches are not a sufficient identification.

Let me back up. For the past 5.5 weeks I have been on crutches. For the first 2 weeks I had a huge brace on (ankle to hip). The next two weeks I had graduated to the smaller brace- mid-calf to mid-thigh. A week and a half ago I lost the brace altogether. I also started to weight bear. So instead of having the dead weight of the leg dragging out behind me, or sticking out in front of me, I have been putting it on the ground and trying to use it. And in the last 3 days it's really been me walking and using the crutches as a security blanket. Really they are just there to keep everyone from bumping into me and destroying all progress.

Also in the past 5.5 weeks I have had to rely on a lot of public transit buses, BART, some cabs, and a few awesome friends for most of my transportation needs. No bicycle or motorcycle allowed. And since several of these bus routes are ones that I would NEVER be on if it were not for this (I always ride the bike to work.....) I have not felt the least bit guilty about paying the reduced "disabled" fare. It's only 50cents rather than $1.50.

So Thursday morning I had to go and crack the joke to Kim "hey, I might just keep carrying around the crutches so I can get the discount on the bus forever!" Sure enough, not half an hour later I get off BART and go get on the bus. I drop in my 50cents and crutch back to a seat, and the driver turns around and says

"Do you have an ID?"
I was confused at first and asked "excuse me?"
"Do you have a disability identification card?"
"No. I sort of thought being on crutches was enough of an ID."
"Well if you don't have an ID card I'm sorry, but you're going to have to pay full fare!"

So I crutched back up to the front (exaggerating the plight of my disability for the other bus patrons who I think were as shocked and irritated as I was- how dare he pick on the poor cripple?!) and dropped in another dollar in change. There went my bus fare home.

My only consolation was that it meant that I am weight bearing enough that he did, in fact, think that I might be faking it to save a dollar.

A few pics

2006-05-21T18:48:00.000-07:00

My first team workout post-surgery. One week after surgery I was allowed to get in the water only with the brace on. (I also did an open water swim where I cut the leg off of my old wetsuit so tat I could wear the brace. I'll post a pic of that as soon as someone emails me one!) Two and a half weeks after surgery I was allowed to swim with no brace. Three weeks after surgery I started on the recumbent bike, with no resistence and no more than a 60 degree bend. I think this week I will be allowed to water run. Read the last post for more info....

This is an old pic (obviously, since my knee doesn't bend that far and you can't see any surgery scars......) but several folks were screaming for pics of my new pic, and I just stumbled on this one on our team website, so I thought I would share. The bike was getting a little lonely in the closet, so I brought it out into the living room and set it up on the trainer (just like in this pic). I sometimes sit on it while watching a movie to try to keep my butt saddle ready. Probably not enough to actually keep my butt ready, since it hurts my butt.... Do you like how my bike matches my Ironteam jersey? Totally a coincidence!

This pic is also old. From left to right you see Teryk, one of my fellow teammates; me; Kelly Ault (refer back to the post "it's a small world") my teammate from Vermont who was my buddy in French class in high school; and our Head Coach Wayne Spaulding. Behind us is Aquatic Park, a part of the San Francisco Bay where we do a lot of open water swims. Water temp is in the 50's year round. (no comments from the peanut gallery about me looking cold, ok?)

recovery update

2006-05-21T18:43:00.000-07:00

Wow. I hope the long time between posts hasn't chased off both of my regular readers! The surgery was 3 weeks and 2 days ago, and the recovery is coming along well. Granted, things have changed alot in the last month- no more 70 mile bike rides for me for a while. But I did spin my legs around in a circle today! For the third day in a row I was on the recumbent bike at the gym. (the recumbent is the one where your legs are out in front of you rather than under you. I'm on it because you can ride it with less knee bend). Today I worked up to level 2 on the bike. Plus I followed it with a 30 minute swim.

Having an obvious disability (as opposed to my normal disabilities which you have to know me well to be aware of) has been fascinating. I get the most fun, interesting and bizarre comments and support from strangers and friends. And I've been quite the novelty to have around at the gym and at practice. The other day I crutched out to the pool with all of my gear hanging off of the crutches and my hands, took the several minutes to get settled at the end of a lane, set the crutches asied and sat down on the edge of the pool. A guy in the lane next to me had been watching all this from his kickboard, and as he approached smiled and said "you must really want to swim!" I responded, "well, I really want to bike and run, but right now I'll take swimming!" And today, as I crutched out of the locker room and got on the elevator a fellow passenger started to ask about the brace, the surgery and the recovery, and paid me a huge compliment by telling me that I am an inspiration. (I did my best to just say "thanks" rather than tell him about all of the truly inspirational people out there, though I think I did mention our team honorees.)

I also get a fair amount of the look-away-because-she's-handicapped reactions which, even though I expected it, always catches me off guard. All through high school, as my dad's health visibly declined, I watched people treat him differently and it always had a very personal impact on me. I thought that I really got how terrible it feels. I'm finding now that it is a whole different ballgame when it is me they are reacti

post-op report

2006-05-01T15:49:00.000-07:00

the surgery friday was a success, but did involve a few unexpected plot twists. i chose to stay awake thoughout the procedure, with a spinal to numb the lower half of my body. i had my own monitor, and my doctor and i talked the whole way through it. i saw the tear in the meniscus, watched the repair, examined the healthy side of my knee (including a beautiful acl and pcl).

so i was also a part of the discovery process of the big broken flap of cartilage that was not visible on the mri. it was still attached, looking a lot like a clam shell. my doctor stopped, came face to face wtih me and told me that i would not be able to do the race. i tried negotiating with him for a few minutes, and got him to say "we'll see how it heals" which, in retrospect, sounded a lot like the "we'll see" i used to get out of my parents that always meant no. after a brief wait, while his friend/medical supplier drove across the city to bring us just the perfect device to use, he tacked the piece of cartilage back in place. i am in a full leg brace for the next 4 weeks, on crutches.

we spoke after the surgey as well, at which point it became clear to me just how lucky i am. if we had not gone in to fix the meniscus, it was only a matter of time before the piece of cartilage broke completely off. apparently it was sizable enough that he felt pretty certain that if that had happened i would never run again (along with a whole host of other things i suppose). right now, he feels like it has a solid chance of healing well enough that it won't interfere with an active athlete's lifestyle.

he said that it was definately a new injury- so sometime during the half ironman a few weeks ago i broke off a big chunk of cartilage. he seemed surprised that i didn't have any pain during the event.

as for the race- i am not willing to give up complete hope just yet, rather will cling to the "we'll see" and just trust that maybe i'll be the one who recovers faster than anyone else. (don't worry- i will absolutely not do anything this is not sanctioned by my surgeon and my rehab team). anyway, thanks everyone for all of your support!

setback

2006-04-26T23:09:00.000-07:00

I am having surgery on Friday for a torn meniscus. Here's the math I have learned: cross country skiing accident+ 5 years+ lots of running= torn meniscus. I have a highly recommended surgeon who has gone so far as to say that I "might be able" to recover fast enough to do Ironman CA in 2006. It is a very ambitious recovery plan- I am to WALK out of the surgery on Friday, start swimming as soon as the incisions heal, biking in 2-3 weeks and running in 6 weeks. ("not running far, but running").

You have no idea how excited I am by this prognosis. Last weekend I was fairly sure that my season was over. I was already cooking up the headline for the blog post to tell you all (the frontrunner was "Settling for Silicon" because Silicon has roughly half the atomic weight of Iron, and I did a half ironman a few weeks ago).

I also spent a lot of time thinking about our honorees. I've always used the "this is nothing compared to what our honorees have been through" rationale to get me through some tough workouts. And the "some of honorees will never have an opportunity to do anything like this because cancer took them to soon" when I didn't want to get out of bed to go to practice.

Well, while I was feeling really sorry for myself at having this Ironman taken away from me, I again turned to "this is really nothing compared to..." And in that moment I committed to continuing to fundraise whether or not I could compete. Cancer still sucks, whether I can run or not, and there is still no cure.

So I still have some copies of the awesome training mix CD for sale (only $10!) I still have a few calendars left (still $20 even though it is practically May!) and the Pudding Wrestling event is still going to happen. (sadly I will have to have a stand-in for myself, but my friend and training partner Kim has agreed to do it!)

And of course, straight donations are always accepted.

Thanks for all the support- both financial, physical and psychological. It means alot to have all of you sending well wished as I head into this speed bump in the training.

it's a small world...

2006-04-19T23:50:00.000-07:00

So we have this girl on our team that lives in Vermont. "Vermont?" you are asking "Why the heck is she on IronTeam in San Francisco if she lives in Vermont?!" Well, there is NO WHERE IN THE WORLD other than the Bay Area that you can train for an Ironman while raising money for LLS. Ha. Pretty cool for me, eh?

Anyway- so we have this girl from Vermont. Her husband's sister's friend did IronTeam last year (she lives in SF), Kelly heard about it, wanted to do an Ironman, loved the cause, joined the team, and has been training "with" us from Vermont. When she first joined (in October like the rest of us) her name popped up on our cool website (ironteam.net) with her story, and I thought to myself "hmmm.... Kelly Ault. That name sounds familiar." The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a name of someone I knew in high school or middle school. So I went to her blog and looked for a photo. They were all far away shots of her on a bike or something, and I couldn't really see her. But I did read her story, realized that she was married, and thought 'oh, just a coincidence. Ault is her married name." Never thought about it again.

Couple weeks ago, I got an email from one of our team captains saying that Kelly and her family were coming to SF for a week to visit her inlaws, and that if anyone had an extra road bike she could borrow that she would appreciate it, and that she is 5'10". Well- looking for any excuse to do ALL my riding on the new bike, and none on the old (I SWORE I would use it to commute, but I have literally not been on it once since the new one came in) I immediately emailed her and offered up the old Strada.

We arranged for her to come to my apartment on Monday morning, and we planned to ride to Aquatic Park together and meet a few folks for a swim. As I was getting ready to go to bed Sunday night, I thought "man! That name Kelly Ault REALLY sounds familiar!" Even though I knew it was her married name, I went ahead and pulled out the ol' high school yearbook just to look up that name. (how hysterical was THAT!? pretty stinking funny! 1987 offered up some great hair and fashion!) Sure enough, there was a Kelly Ault. As I flipped through, I found several photos of Kelly Ault, AND the place where my good friend (freshman year) Kelly Ault signed my yearbook. To quote "Dude! What's up? You are a great friend and a great swimmer. I'm glad I had you in both my geometry and French I (boo hiss!) classes. See you next year in Algebra and French II!" (I am sparing you all the gory details of our 9th grade crushes to save us all a little embarassment.) I laughed to myself, and went to bed thinking "but Ault is her married name, so it can't be the same person".

Monday morning I answer the door and think "she does kinda look like her...." and this conversation follows:

KT- Kelly, is Ault your married name or your maiden name?

KA- It's my maiden name.

KT- Did you ever live in North Carolina?

KA- Yes....

KT- I think we went to high school together.

KA- Apex High??

KT- The Peak of Good Living! (it's on the water tower)

So I whipped out the high school yearbook, showed her the fun note, and we headed off to Aquatic Park for that swim.

How CRAZY is that?!@? I live in San Francisco, she lives in Vermont, we went to high school together in NC, we are training "together" for an Ironman, and we are close enough in size to bring us together for the bike. It is a small small world.

Help me win a new wetsuit!

2006-04-13T18:25:00.000-07:00

Follow this link: http://www.endurancemag.com/. In the bottom left corner register to win the $400 wetsuit. You can give it to me! Remember? I still need a new one!

Thanks!

Halfway to Iron weekend

2006-04-11T19:43:00.000-07:00

What metal do you think is "halfway to iron"? Whatever it is, I am officially that metal now! This past weekend was our "halfway to iron" training weekend. I don't know why it was called a training "weekend"- we only worked out one day!

We drove down to Lake San Antonio Friday afternoon. LSA is about 3 and a half hours south of San Francisco, inland from the coast, and is the site of the Wildflower Triathlons every May. Wildflower may sound familiar- many of you have donated money to Leukemia Lymphoma Society on my behalf as I trained for the Wildflower Olympic distance race the past two years. Every year the spring team heads down for "training weekend" and experiences their race course over two days- the swim and bike on Saturday and the run on Sunday. And every year the crazy IronTeam folks come down and do the entire Half Ironman course on Saturday the same weekend. I always thought they were nuts. See, IronTeam starts about two hours earlier than the other teams. And about the time we were always heading out of the park to start our 24.8 mile bike ride, they were heading back into the park at the end of their 56 mile bike ride- right before their 13.1 mile run. It was always a bit unfathomable to me.

Well, this year I was probably a bit unfathomable to them. Saturday morning we met lakeside at 6:15 for a 7:00am start. We were a bit delayed by the fog, and in fact our course had to be altered because of it. Instead of swimming the 1.2 mile marked course, we swam around the 3 small bouys that we could see for 30 minutes. For me, 30 minutes is about the amount of time that a 1.2 mile swim will take, so that was okay. I don't think that I actually made 1.2 miles Saturday though, as a few of us were playing around a bit. Kim and I were both intentionally running each other into the bouys, and John and I were practicing the "rollover" move that Wayne taught us. It's a way to get out from being trapped between two swimmers where you literally roll over the back of one of them.

By the time we headed out onto the bike, the fog was beginning to burn off, and by mile 10 or 15 it had turned into a clear and beautiful day- a welcome change from the rain that greeted our tent set-up on Friday night, and the rain that we've been inundated with in San Francisco lately. Once I fixed the fact that my back tire was rubbing on the brake (unfortunately I figured this out AFTER I rode the first yucky climb with my brakes on!) the ride was quite nice. The first 15 miles are rolling hills, followed by about 25 miles of relatively flat straight road- great practice for my new aerobars (they clip onto the handlebars and allow me to put my arms down and rest on them while I ride. this was my first long ride with them and I loved them!). About mile 40 starts Nasty Grade. (we name all of our hills here- there's Marshall Wall that we rode last week, and there's the Seven Sisters- or Seven Bitches depending on who you ask- a climb to the summit of our local mountain) Nasty Grade is a 5 mile climb, that finishes with a bit of, well, nasty grade. Not to mention that it has this terribly deceptive false summit that can shatter an unprepared cyclist. The false summit happens when there's about a mile of climbing left. Fortunately, Kim and I drove the climb on the way in Friday, so I was ready. (this picture is me and Coach Alex just before the false summit of Nasty. trust me- it's worse than it looks in this picture!) As an aside- I think Coach Alex had the worst day of all! His job for the day was to ride up and down Nasty Grade with all of us as we came through. So 3 hours of hill repeats. Yikes. Here- I'll throw in the bike profile map-
Pretty Nasty, huh?

Anyway- the 13.1 mile run wasn't much better! I started off with a few teammates planning an 8/2 strategy- that's 8 minutes of running followed by 2 minutes of walking. Problem was, that timing kept screwing us! We'd happily walk our two minutes, then be right at the bottom of a terrible hill when we were supposed to start running. After about 3 miles I started to see the danger of staying with them- I was going to walk too much. So I took of on my own with a new strategy- walk up, run flats and downs. I had to make a slight adjustment to that and add "walk through cabbage fields and mud puddles" to keep from twisting an ankle. That was working great for me until I hit "The Pit", so named because you run down this long hill into it, then you turn around and up the long hill out of it. The problem there was that the hill out of the pit is miles 10 through 12. I didn't want to walk that long. I really just wanted to be done. So for that hill I started this heart rate game- I ran until my heart rate hit 161, then I walked until it hit 149. Like a yo-yo over and over until it was over. Then the last, long mile, which was down this incredibly steep hill. Sure, you'd think that would be nice, but it is SO steep that it hurts. But that was ok- because when it was over I was officially Half-Iron!

This day was not without it's challenges (other than the obvious!). The bigger obstacles:

I haven't run farther than 3 miles in 6 weeks. I was closely monitoring the knee and achilles for pain, but honestly had none! Well...... during the race. After was a whole nother story! But I saw Dr Rabbetz on Monday, and he said the swelling was "expected" and not a problem, and won't interfere with my training for and completing an Ironman.

Race day was absolutely the worst possible day of the month for me, if you know what I mean. In the kind of way that you gentleman readers wouldn't know about. Thankful for the porta-potties on the course. And truly thankful that this puts me way out of cycle to have the same experience on August 27.

Finally, I was sick. I woke up on Thursday starting to feel sick. I woke up Friday with no voice, and a slight cough, and short of breath due to congestion in my lungs. Voice cleared up by afternoon, but Saturday morning same thing. It made the hills very difficult. Sunday and Monday- no voice at all. Today (Tuesday) it is starting to come back. Obviously not fully- at work today we had a visit with our Regional VP of HR and our District Manager Brian. Brian greeted me in the morning (we've met a few times) and when the froggy throat answered he asked what was wrong. I responded "well, I did a half Ironman this weekend..." Took him a minute to understand me, then he started laughing and told me that he thought I said "I did a fireman this weekend..." That was when I decided perhaps it was best not to say much to the Regional VP.

Anyway, the long and short of it is that I was set up to have a pretty crappy day. And after the brake rubbing incident at the beginning of the bike, I was sure feeling it that way. But at about mile 10 on the bike, I realized that a long day was going to seem a LOT longer if I kept at it that way, and I made a conscious decision to flip the mental switch and have a good day. And the cool thing is- I did! I really enjoyed it. So even though I was slower than I wanted to be, I consider the day a huge success, based on my ability to change my mindset. That skill is probably more important than any other for race day.

Of course, possibly the best part of the weekend was Sunday morning. Sitting down, eating a pancake breakfast prepared by some kick-ass volunteers while we watched all the Spring Team athletes head out for there run was really kinda fun. And as a team we provided one of their water stops for them on the run course, which was great. Most of our 60+ person team stayed around to cheer them on as the ran by us at mile 7 of the run. Here we are- (I'm on the right waving my arms because I can't yell).

Broken Records

2006-04-04T21:50:00.000-07:00

Yay. San Francisco broke a record this year, and I got to be an active witness to the breaking. This March San Francisco broke it’s existing record for the most number of days of rain in the month of March. The previous record was set in 1906. (incidentally, that was the same year as the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire. We’re all hoping we don’t break the records associated with that April 18 event…). It rained 27 days in March. Between training and commuting, I rode my bike 28 days in March. Which means there was at least one day in the past month that I did not get rained on, but I swear I can’t remember it.

The worst part about it was all the hype at the end of the month. Once the record was broken there was the daily rain count “now it’s rained 24 days in March! We just broke the record from 1906.”….. “what a rainy March!”… “the wettest March in history!”. As if once March was over the rain would be too. See, that was the REAL problem. Kim picked me up Saturday April First for our 63 mile bike ride and neither of us had brought rain coats. It was April, after all! Fortunately we turned around and went to get two of mine, as we’re off to a great start to beat any existing April records.

I will say, though, that I will gladly accept every single drop of that rain if it will only stay clear this Saturday at Lake San Antonio. IronTeam is headed down to the Lake to do a “practice” Half Ironman. For the math challenged among you (it is, after all, HALF the distance of the full Ironman) that is a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike and a 13.1 mile run.

This trip is an annual tradition- it is the Wildflower course, and this is “training weekend” for the Team in Training teams that are training for the Wildflower Olympic and Half. I remember being there last year (in the pouring rain, but that was in March, after all) and watching those crazy IronTeamers do an entire Half Ironman and thinking they were nuts. Crazy. I would never do that. Ha! Another record about to be broken- my longest triathlon up to now is an Olympic. I will double that on Saturday.

As a side note, I was released to running by the doc this week. As long as it is “tight, dull, achy or sore” I can keep running. If it becomes “sharp” I have to stop. No fair! How come “keep running gets 4 adjectives, but “stop running” only gets one?? Just kidding, of course, because I am very happy to be able to run fully again. I ran 3 miles on Sunday, and the knee and Achilles felt fine. The rest of me, on the other hand, felt like the first few months of the season. Gone is that enjoyment of running, back is the struggle. At least I know it is achievable. I will get it back.

Cinderella Photos

2006-03-26T18:25:00.000-08:00

This photo was taken pre-ride during the Cinderlla Classic. (see below post). I laugh now at our naivete about the weather we were in for- look at that sky!

This is flat tire #1. Look how patient my friends all are. Isn't it great?

This is Kim during flat #2. Trying to be patient.

Pretty characteristic of how we spent our "non-ride" time, this is Alex laughing at Jenny's lockjaw ER trip. Kim is in the foreground crying. No wonder it took us 7+ hours, while we only logged 4 hours of actual riding time.

Cinderella

2006-03-26T18:24:00.001-08:00

Today is Sunday, and it’s a rest day. This is the first (scheduled) weekend rest day since we started training in October. I think it may well be the only one all season. I have to make the best of it! My plan is to dedicate most of the day nesting- finding a couch for the new apartment, hanging pictures on the wall, just getting settled in. Maybe taking a nap. Definitely NOT riding a bike!

Yesterday was supposed to be a 90 minute recovery ride, which should be about 22-28 miles of riding. My friend Alex had the brilliant idea of getting a group of us together to do the Cinderella Classic in the East Bay. It’s a women only 66 mile ride supported by a local bike club, famous for the great food at the rest stops. We consulted Coach Wayne on the increased distance, and he said it was fine as long as we took it easy and didn’t eat the food. (HA!) He felt like we should take the opportunity to practice more race day nutrition, and told Alex to give him a list of food we want at the finish line and he’ll have it there. (silly man! The list currently included In-N-Out burgers, Lobster Thermidor, Beef Wellington…)

Anyway, early in the day there were some attempts at divine intervention to get us to not do the ride. One person’s bike fell over at the check in booth and she had to get the local shop to fix her chain. Just as she was getting back, another girl had to go shed some layers in her car. Finally, about 45 minutes later than planned, we all met up and started to ride. We went about 400 yards, and while stopped at a stoplight, my tube exploded. Scared the bejesus out of us all. I took the one spare tube I had with me out, changed my flat, and off we went. We got through the intersection (so, maybe 50 yards down the road) and my tube exploded again. As I am changing flat #2, 500 yards into our ride, using one of Jenny’s two tubes, Victoria says “The Gods have spoken. We are not supposed to do this ride.” We all laughed, I finished changing the flat, and we took off.

I don’t know how it is possible on a 66 mile loop to have a headwind the ENTIRE time, but we did. The only variance was that it was sometimes a 15 mile an hour wind, and sometimes a 30 mile an hour wind. Oh, and sometimes it was mixed with hail and rain, and sometimes the sun was out. A few times, it was rainy AND the sun was out. Actually, its not true to say it was always a headwind. Sometimes it was a 30 mile an hour crosswind. (which can sure feel like it’s going to knock over a new super light bike) At least I didn’t get any more flats.

I know more about these women than I thought possible (and certainly more than I would like to in some regards). I can tell you all about Jenny’s trip to the ER with lockjaw (she claims she got it throwing up, though a few other theories were offered up). I can describe in great detail each person’s strategies for applying Chamois Butt’r (an anti-chafing cream we use in our bike shorts). I could tell you all about Karen’s parent’s trip to Ironman Canada last year (Mom- you’d better start training now if you plan to cross the finish line with me- apparently it’s a little longer run than one would expect, and I am NOT slowing down for you!).

We had a blast, but finished exhausted. Alex said at one point “I’m going to wake up tomorrow with a few unusual muscles being sore- first my stomach muscles from laughing so much, and second my hand and wrist muscles from gripping onto my bike so hard in the wind.” That about sums up the day.

Iron Dreams

2006-03-26T18:24:00.000-08:00

I had my first Ironman dream this week. I guess I knew that at some point I would have one- you know like the dream that you get to elementary school on the first day and realize that you only have on underwear, or you show up for a final exam in college to and remember that you haven’t attended class all semester. When I first started waiting tables I had one in which I had a bunch of tables and I lost all of their orders. I guess I just didn’t think that they would start this soon! I thought I had until at least June!

So, in my dream, my sister in law Laura was here in San Francisco visiting. We had just met for breakfast after she did a long hike in the Marin Headlands. It was cold and rainy outside, and after breakfast I had to go (either to go to work or to train, not sure which) and I was asking her what she was interested in doing so that I could make some recommendations. So we got on the Muni bus together, and I looked over and she had out a laptop. She was online booking a flight to Penticton to come watch my race. I was very excited, until I realized that she was booking to go on February 9. I knew that wasn’t my race day, but I couldn’t remember what the right day was. I was in a panic trying to figure out the date of the race before she bought the ticket. I kept saying dates, then realizing they were wrong. Just as she was hitting submit I remembered- Sunday August 27. Not sure if I caught her in time to get the right ticket or not.

So, any of you thinking of booking a ticket- don’t go in February!

Thanks Santa!

2006-03-15T23:16:00.000-08:00

Wow! It’s been too long since I posted. And I’ve had all these great posts running around in my head for weeks. I’m going to try for the big three tonight, so read them all. Here goes number one: I GOT MY NEW BIKE TODAY!! I love it. It is so shiny and pretty and new and light and fast. And clean. I went to Marin this morning to get it. I walked into Christopher’s shop (the fitter who ordered and built it for me) and we started to make idle chat about the terrible traffic (I was late, but it wasn’t my fault! I was in a borrowed car, leaving me at the disposal of the friend who owns it!). And all of a sudden, I spotted it across the room. It was like those terrible slow motion scenes in a cheesy movie, where the couple is running toward each other on the beach. I lost all track of what Christopher was saying, headed straight to it and reached out, tentative at first, touched the top tube and said “Hi, Pretty.” It was all over. I am in love. Truly, madly, deeply.

Of course, like any good sappy movie, we were ripped apart immediately, torn from each other pre-maturely. Stupid job. How unfair is it to pick up this awesome new bike, then have to go straight to work? I thought I liked this job til now. And worse, I rode it the commute to work, locked it away in the warehouse, and then dreamed about it the whole afternoon and evening. And every time I got the urge to drag someone back to show it off, I would look around and realize that none of my Target peers would have any idea what they were looking at. (to give you an idea of the people I work with, I was recently given the responsibility to buy a birthday gift for the one manager who is remotely involved in outdoor activities, strictly based on the fact that I worked at REI. In trying to determine an appropriate gift I asked “does he hike or backpack?” The two I were talking to looked at me as if I was from another planet, and the guy said “What’s the difference?” Needless to say, this is not the person I want to be the first person I share my bike with! And the one remotely outdoorsy? He’s been transferred to another store!)

Have no fear, though. Our love will once again blossom. At around 5:30 tomorrow morning. Ugh. This will be a test of true love for sure!

Ironman this Week!

2006-03-15T23:15:00.000-08:00

I’m doing an Ironman this week. “What?!” I hear you thinking, “I thought the race was in August”.

It is. We are in the midst of a huge workout week, totaling 5 miles of swimming, 114 miles of biking, and 25.5 miles of running. (to remind you, the race is 2.4 mi swim, 112 bike and 26.2 run) Tomorrow is slated to be a brick- an hour and a half bike and a 45 minute run. And that is mid-week, on a workday! Who’s got that kind of time on a Thursday?? Especially given Wayne’s latest advice on sleep. Apparently, studies show that for every hour of exercise, you need an additional 20 minutes of sleep. So tomorrow night I will need 45 minutes extra. And according to Wayne, it’s not “extra over what you normally get” it’s “extra over 7 hours”. Seven hours? So tomorrow I have to work for eight hours, commute for 2 and a half, sleep for seven hours and 45 minutes (do you think I get to count the commute??), and work out for 2 and a half. So that has me at 21 hours already, and I haven’t showered yet.

And then there’s Saturday and Sunday- IronTeam Boot Camp. Both days practice starts at 8:00am, and we are expecting to wrap up at 3:00pm. Ouch. That means I need nine and a half hours of sleep. There’s no time left in the day!

But here’s what hit me as scary. Not that we are doing such huge totals this week. I mean, it’s going to be hard, and I’m going to be tired and sore. But I know that I can do it, so it’s okay. What is scary is that I am struggling to find time to get all of the workouts in during the week. It’s a real challenge to find enough time to do it all.

Okay, maybe you haven’t picked up on it yet. I’ll admit, it took a couple of days before it really sank in for me, too. Once it did, though, my palms started sweating. See, here’s what it is: I have a WHOLE WEEK to do this Ironman. Seven days. One hundred and sixty eight hours. And I’m not sure I have the time to get it done. IN A WEEK. How the heck am I going to do it in a DAY in August??

Un-rivaled support

2006-03-15T23:14:00.000-08:00

I have two more examples this week of the awesome support I am receiving from family and friends.

First- my cousin Amy has decided to come to the race in August! For her birthday, her parents gave her a plane ticket to anywhere, her choice. She called me last week and told me that, and I said “YAY! You’re coming to San Francisco to visit me!” She said “nope!” and paused dramatically, during which time my heart sank a little. The she said “I’m going to Canada!!” I am so excited I can hardly see straight! It’s going to be so fun. More than that, though, I am incredibly touched. Of all the places in the world she could go, people that she could see, and things that she could do, she has chosen to come run across the finish line of my race with me. It gives me chills. And a huge sense of responsibility about my training!

Second- my friends Annette and Doug. Annette and I used to work together at REI. Doug is her husband and a construction contractor. Bit of background- when I moved into my apartment a year and a half ago, Doug came over to help get my couch in. As with many small SF apartments, the turn into the living room was too tight for the couch. Doug offered to take off the door frame, sure that this would be enough. Nope. So then he cut the header and removed a bunch of the wall. Picture taking the door and making it about 3 feet taller. Two things he said as he was patching it together stuck with me: one- “You know how they say in an earthquake to get in a doorway? Don’t pick this one.” (fortunately I didn’t have to make use of that). The second- “you do realize that this couch is never leaving this apartment in one piece, right?”

So when I told Annette that I was moving across the neighborhood, she volunteered for Doug to come help get the couch out (in one piece) to take to the new place. He and I spent the better part of Saturday afternoon and evening removing the door frame, cutting the header, and taking down the same three feet of wall. Then we fought the couch for an hour or so trying to get it out. It would not fit out the door. Unbelievable! We got it in, so we know it is possible, but I swear to you, it would not go out the door. (or as Doug put it, we were just too stupid to get it out) So Sunday morning, while I was doing a quadruple brick (60 minute ride in the rain, 10 minute run in the rain, FOUR times in the rain) Doug was at my apartment with a powersaw and a paintbrush. As much as I protested, Doug would not have anything to do with the idea that I skip practice to help him. So he sent me off to workout, and tried (unsuccessfully, as she was sick) to drag Annette up to do the painting. I got there in the afternoon, and the wall was re-built and painted as if nothing had ever happened, and the couch had been transformed into a sectional, which found it’s way to an unattended dumpster a few hours later. (except the cushions, which found their way to a homeless man under an overpass…) Full deposit back and a quadruple brick under my belt, I am ready to start couch shopping in my free time. It’s amazing enough that he was willing to do this at all, but the fact that he insisted that I stick to my training plan was huge.

Injury!

2006-03-07T17:56:00.000-08:00

I guess things were plugging along a little too easy, weren't they? I am sitting here on my couch with a bag of frozen peas on my achilles tendon. It started to hurt last Wednesday during our track workout, and I stopped immediately. One of our coaches is a Physical Therapist so he checked it out, told me I had a mild case of tendonitis, and banned me from running for a week and a half. I am doing fun things like icing it and rolling the arch of my foot around on a tennis ball. (supposed to loosen the muscles in the arch, which pull on the achilles). All in all, this is only a minor setback. I should be running again next week, and have a whole battery of new stretches and strengthening exercises to do. For now- water running. (sooooooo booring!)

The weird part about it is that I really miss running. I mean, I was kind of actually sort of a little bit maybe starting to like it. Kinda strange, but true. And, of course, I battle with a little teeny voice in my head saying "come on, really? are you really hurt? or are you just trying to get out of running?" I know I am not trying to get out of running. Its just that for so many years I would have done anything to avoid running. To that little voice in my head it seems a little..... convenient...... that it is a running injury, not a cycling injury.

My coaches did get to see on Saturday just how neurotic I can be. Practice was a 90 minute bike followed by a 30 minute run, two times through. We finished the first bike, and I said to one of the coaches "should I go get in the pool and water run for 30 minutes?" She said "no, you don't have time to change and stuff." I'll be fast! "no, just stay here and wait." Should I do some core stuff? "no, it's not a core day." Well, should I ride extra? "no. just wait." Isn't it kind of wimpy to just stand here and do nothing?? She looked at me like I was from another planet, and chose not to answer. I just waited.

Winter in San Francisco

2006-02-28T21:41:00.000-08:00

There are alot of reasons to live in San Francisco. Not among them: cheap rent (my 500sq ft apartment costs nearly twice the 3 bedroom house I OWNED in North Carolina), short commute times (it takes me about an hour each way to get to work), being close to family (well, for me, anyway. mine are a 6 hour flight away!).

Here are a few of the perks that I was reminded of this week:

The time difference between here and NC. Sure, usually this is a negative. But last night around 11:00 I was doing my core workout before I went to bed. (I got an email from Coach Wayne this week that might as well have said that I would be an hour slower if I didn't do the core stuff. This is my first week of really doing it.) Anyway, my phone rings, and it is a North Carolina number. "Odd", I think, "it's 2 in the morning there. Who would call me at 2 in the morning?" It was my friend Trevor, calling to tell me that my good friend Meredith (his wife) had just, less than an hour before, given birth to their first child! Rock on! An 8+ pound girl named Ellie (or something like it). Mom and baby healthy. And I got to be the first to know, because I am their only west coast friend. They could call me, giddy with new parenthood, because of the time change. Congrats to the whole family.
Mild winters. I live in a place where I heard this come out of someone's mouth today (in all seriousness). "It has too snowed here! In 1976!" This, as a general rule, is pretty cool. And when/if you miss snow, you drive 3 hours to Tahoe for world class skiing. Best of all worlds. This is the mantra I was repeating to myself yesterday as I rode my bike to and from work in the driving rain. I have never seen anything like this. I thought the wind might blow me literally off my bike. The rain was horizontal in my face. It hurt. I have bruises from water. It was like nothing I have ever seen before. The photo above is me on arriving at our IronTeam dinner last night. I kid you not, I only had to ride about 2/3 of a mile to get there. Look how stinking wet I am! (I got there and everyone was all impressed with me. Little did they know it was actually a shorter ride to get to the team dinner than to get home!) So, I rode along, laughing out loud at my plight, thinking "at least it's not snow!"
IronTeam. The Bay Area is the only place in the World where a Team in Training team trains for an Ironman triathlon. How lucky am I?? I can't imagine doing this without the amazing group of 60+ people I am training with, not to mention the phenomenal coaches. Heck, that's enough of a reason to move to a city! And I just stumbled on it!

Double Brick

2006-02-19T15:54:00.000-08:00

ummmm....... wow.

That was rough.

Sometime last week, I ran into a girl I hadn't seen in a year, and when I told her I was training for an Ironman she gave the typical response "That's crazy!" I said "oh, yeah, it's a big commitment" (or some such acknowledgement) and she went on "no, really, I mean it! That is just insane! I mean it's really huge. I'm so impressed. It's just a lot......." It didn't sound as though she was going to stop, so I finally cut her off and said "shhhh....... my body doesn't realize what we're doing yet, so if you could help me out and keep it in the dark a little longer I would appreciate it!" and we shared a good laugh.

Well, the gig is up. My body figured it out today.

Not on the first 30 mile ride (about 2 hours). Felt fine there- it was cold (high 30's, maybe 40) but a really beautiful ride through the east bay hills. Got mooed at by a few cows, enjoyed some nice chatting with my teammates, finished with cold toes, but strong. And it didn't figure it out on the first 4 mile run. Sure, it was tough getting off the bike and running, but it always is, and it always gets easier. Overall, that first run felt good.

Too bad today was a "Double Brick".

During the second ride, which was an 80 minute stationery spin (equal to much longer on the road, since you never get to coast!), my body started to catch on. I just kept checking my watch, and thinking things like "really?! it's only been 38 minutes?" Still, overall felt fine.

Then it was time to run again. 40 more minutes. Ouch. Not so happy. Man, did my watch slow down, or what?

Now, as my friend and teammate Alex pointed out near the end of this second 4 mile run- nothing hurt that should not hurt by this point. And that is a good sign. But I can tell you that after 5 hours and 15 minutes of training, a lot is supposed to hurt!

After eating and catching a ride back home, it was 3:45 when I tucked into my couch to start typing this. Somewhere in the fourth paragraph I fell asleep. I woke up long enough to go get some dinner, stop in for an hour at a friend's birthday, and head straight back home. As soon as I finish this I am headed straight to bed.

Thank God tomorrow's a rest day!

Water Running

2006-02-15T13:05:00.000-08:00

I spent 2 hours in the pool this morning, turning into a prune! The first 45 minutes was yesterday's swim workout. (I got out of work too late to make it to the pool). Then I did this morning's 50 minute run as a "pool run". You wear this foam belt that keeps you vertical, and keeps your head above water, and you run. It's painfully slow and boring (much worse than actual running!) but less impactful on you joints. Every time I do it, I think there's no way it is actually doing anything for me, cause I never get sore or feel tired at all. Well, today was the first time I've gone over 30 minutes, and sure enough, right at 32 minutes I started to feel it! My quads and hip flexors were getting worked! That's when it occured to me that the same is true of actual running. Duh.

Anyway, after I finished 50 minutes of running, I had a little time to kill before I had to get ready for work so I swam another 1200 yards. I do like the retail schedule for training in some regards!

The picture is of our team water running at a practice early in the season. I'm the one cheating by holding onto Kim's running belt.....

The Build Cycle

2006-02-13T23:09:00.000-08:00

Wow. It's been a while since I posted. Ooops. Have no fear- that is not entirely indicative of my training (though some of it...). Here's the short version of the past month:

The week immediately after the Louie Tri was a "recovery week" during which practices were short and comparatively easy. My interpretation of "recovery" was to stay out really late every night, catching up with friends I hadn't seen a lot of, skip a bunch of workouts, have a few too many glasses of wine, and generally suffer through sleep deprivation for the week (telling myself all the while "it's 'recovery' if I skip the workout, right?"). By the time the weekend rolled around, I needed a swift kick in the rear to get me back into training mode. Fortunately, two of my new good friends from the team, Alex and Skeeter, have just bought a new house in wine country, and invited Kim and I up for a weekend of training. It was great- we did a beautiful ride through vineyards, and followed it with an evening of great conversation and wine. And a big spin/run the next day, of course.

The two weeks since have been "build" weeks in our training cycle. Basically, we do a week of stuff that is slightly harder than the hardest thing we've ever done, then we do a week that is a little harder than that. Finally, a third week, harder still (the week we are currently in) followed by a "recovery" week. Then it starts over again with 3 weeks of build (which starts at the next level...)

In case you are thinking "pansies. all that time for recovery!" you ought to know that part of next week's "recovery" is a 2 hour bike ride followed by a 30 minute run. The next day is a .5 mile swim followed by a 7-8 mile run. Oh how I long to really recover. (guess that is what September is for, eh?)

You might be wondering what we are doing this week which qualifies that stuff as recovery. Saturday is scheduled to be a 98 minute run (for me about 9-9.5 miles), followed by the "Triple Brick Preview" on Sunday. It's a preview of our season's longest workout (coming up in July). The "preview" entails a 29 mile bike loop, followed by a 40 minute run, then an 80 minute spin workout and another 40 minute run. At least it's only a double.....

Can't wait to report back!

Louie Tri- Swim pics

2006-01-25T21:52:00.000-08:00

This is the race start for wave 1 (the first 25 athletes). I was in wave 2, which started 5 minutes later. Nothing compared to Canada, where all 3000 of us will start together!

This is my good friend Steven, getting in the 53 degree water before the race start. He is likely cursing me in his head at this very moment. At times like this he tends to blame me for his signing up for this event. Do I ever get the credit when things are peachy? Of course not.

Here's me coming out of the water at the end of the swim. If you look close on the right you will see the foot and tripod of the news cameraman that was there filming. I am trying to smile and be photogenic so that if he puts me on TV I won't look cold or retarded. You have to think of so many things during a race.....

Louie Tri- Bike

2006-01-25T21:48:00.000-08:00

Me staying hydrated on the bike. Now, imagine how fast and cool I'll look on my new bike when it gets here.....

I swear this is me. :)

Louie Tri- Run

2006-01-25T21:45:00.000-08:00

This is me during the run of the Louie Tri. How far have I come in my training over the years? Well, note that I am doing these two things simultaneously: running and smiling. That alone took 2 and a half years of training!

Louie Bonpua Olympic Triathlon

2006-01-22T15:15:00.000-08:00

Ahh. I am fresh out of the shower after the Louie Bonpua Memorial Triathlon, and wanted to share my thoughts on the day. It was beautiful on Treasure Island today- sunny and warm (except for the water). The South Bay IronTeam joined us for a total of about 100 athletes, plus 60+ great volunteers to cheer us on and point us in the right direction. (we needed that many! I counted 19 turns on the bike course, and we did that loop 6 times. that's a lot of turning!)

Before I get into race details, I want to tell you a little about Louie. I didn't get the opportunity to meet Louie before he passed away in January 2002 from Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia, but he sounds like he was an amazing man. He was diagnosed in 1997, and became a team honoree for Team in Training. After a while he decided he wanted to be a participant as well, so he signed up for a triathlon. After a few years, he decided to Go Long, and started to train for Ironman Canada as a participant and honoree with IronTeam. When asked why, he said "because I want to show people that you can still live, even when they tell you you're going to die." He completed Ironman Canada three and a half minutes before the 17 hour cut off in August 2001.

Louie was such an inspiration that he was nominated and selected to carry the Olympic Torch through San Francisco in January 2002. Three days before the date he was to carry the torch, Louie entered the last, rapid stage of his cancer, and was admitted into the hospital. Doctors warned him that he may not live that long, and cautioned against releasing him from the hospital. They finally agreed to let him go, in an ambulance, escorted by a nurse and an EMT. He was to be pushed in a wheelchair his .2 miles of the relay. After stopping at another hospital en route to get Louie additional morphine for his pain, Louie walked his leg of the relay inspired by the support of thousands of friends, family and strangers. Louie was taken back to the hospital, where he fell asleep and lapsed into a coma. He never awoke, and died a few days later.

It was awesome today to have Louie's family come to support us and share his story, four years after he passed away. His sister Aggie spoke, through tears, saying that it is still hard for her to come, but that she promised Louie on his deathbed that she would always stay in touch with IronTeam, and continue to share his story and inspiration with us. For the first time ever, his mother joined us as well. Today is the fourth anniversary of the day that he died.

As for the race itself- it was great! It was on Treasure Island, between San Francisco and Berkeley. I did the official Treasure Island Olympic race in 2003, so of course I am comparing my times. My swim today took me 27 minutes, which is a minute slower than the race. Not too worried about that, as our course today could have been longer or shorter than the real race. It was really cold, and the sun was right in our eyes on alot of it. My transition+bike+transition time in 2003 was 1:46. Today that took me 1:30, so I was really excited about that! My run was also a little faster, coming in at 1:02, compared to 1:05. I came in right at my goal of 2:59. Overall I felt really good on both the bike and the run, and am pretty excited about where I am in my training. Though I do take pause at the fact that my Ironman is 4 times as long!

Holy Cow!

2006-01-21T09:05:00.000-08:00

I'm doing a race on Sunday. Our whole team is. Up until about a day ago it's been this ho-hum thought of "practice on Sunday is a practice triathlon. la ti da. i've done that before. nothing exceptional there..." Then all of a sudden it hit me- this practice tri is an Olympic distance race. That is equal to the longest race that I have ever done. So the ho-hum thoughts are being replaced! The race is called the Louie Bonpua Triathlon, in memory of a former IronTeam participant and honoree. Louie finished Ironman Canada 2001 in 16:56.30 (that's 3 and a half minutes faster than the time cutoff) while he was in the middle of cancer treatment. He passed away the following year. I never met Louie, but many people on my team knew him well, and he sounds like he was an amazing guy. Spend a few minutes checking out his website, http://shrimplouie.com/. After you do, if you are further compelled to eradicate blood cancers, click to the right to make a donation to the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. Thanks.

On another exciting note, I ordered my new bike this week! I went to a professional bike fitter, who measured everything about me from my height and inseam length practically down to the length of my fingernails. (this will come as a shock- he told me that I have long legs and broad shoulders. don't think I needed to pay anyone for THAT info!) He took that info and figured out every bike on the market that would be a good fit for me. There's one. For almost the same price I ordered a custom frame (got to pick my own paint scheme!). It'll be here in about a month. If you are interested, check it out: http://serotta.com/pages/cda.html. You can even manipulate the colors on the website to see my actual bike! It'll be the "half and half fade" in sapphire and kelly.

Best of all, though- the very next morning I was on caltrain with my current bike, and the train conductor started asking me about my current bike. We swapped info, and I may sell it to him once my new one gets here! Presumably I can get enough out of that to cover the cost of the vain need to custom design the paint job on the bike!

Does time multiply in the rain?

2006-01-14T21:31:00.000-08:00

Does time multiply in the rain? What could I possibly mean by that? I mean, does a 2 hour ride in the rain count as 4? Heck, even three?

This morning's practice was one of the ones that I will definately try to remember on race day when I am unsure if I have prepared enough. I looked at weather.com as I waited for Kim to come pick me up. It was 48 degrees and raining. We went to Treasure Island and swam for 25 minutes in the bay (water temp 52 degrees). Then we tried to get dry in the rain, changed into cycling stuff and did a "spin" workout for an hour. Next was 30 minutes riding on the road, then 30 more back on our trainers. Silly me- forgot my helmet, so I spent the entire 2 hours on the trainer. (the pic is from this morning).

This evening, after I update this and my workout log, I will read some more of my current book "Sports Nutrition for Endurance Athletes" before I go to bed. Steven is picking me up at 7:15 tomorrow for our swim/run practice. Wow. My life is so interesting. This is my Saturday night!

As for that beautiful schedule I laid out in my last post? Well, don't go sending me any emails telling me how amazing and inspiring I am. I have developed a new found respect for all those folks on my team that have been training and holding down a full time job since October. I didn't manage to do all of the workouts. Some of that was my fault ("what was I thinking?! I'm not getting up at 5:30 to run!") while some of it was way out of my control (I DID get up at 5:45 on Wednesday to meet a friend for a swim. We sat at the gym, locked out of the pool area, from 6:00 to 6:20 waiting for the lifeguard to show before I gave up and went to work "I'm SO sorry! the lifeguard has never no-showed before!") I guess it's all a learning curve- I'll be better each week I imagine!

things are a-changin'...

2006-01-08T21:34:00.000-08:00

I think my training life is about to get a lot more complicated. Up to this point I have missed 2 of our team workouts (one for my brother's wedding, the other for my oldest friend's wedding, both in NC) and only a handful of the on-your-own workouts. I've been able to train with Kim almost daily during the week, do the occasional mid-day run or bike.... whatever I want, really!

But tomorrow I start my new job (I'll be an HR Rep in a Target store). In looking at my training schedule this week, I am starting to wonder how my teammates have been able to balance training with a full time job! This looks tough!

To give you an idea, here's what my week looks like right now:
Monday: 6am get up, take 7am BART train to Fremont (arrives 8:01) ride bike 4 miles to the Target store that my training is at. Work 8:30-5:00, then ride bike 18miles to Kim's house. Swim from 6:30-7:30, then take train home to the city.
Tuesday: 5:30 get up. run 30 minutes. either BART/bike or motorcycle to work (8:30-5), then ride my bike at home on my "trainer" (makes my bike stationary) for 75 minutes after work.
Wednesday:"sleep in" til 6:30, work, then do 6 mile track workout with the Team at Kezar at 6:30pm.
Thursday: a much anticipated rest day from training, though right after work I am throwing the Calendar release party at Olive.
Friday: meet a friend to swim from 6-7, then motorcycle to work. go to another friend's birthday party in the evening.
Saturday: Team workout at Treasure Island- 40 min open water swim, 2 hour bike.
Sunday: Team workout in the East Bay- 1 hour pool swim, 30 minute run.

Like I said, juggling things with a FT job is going to be difficult! And to top it off, I just polished off a quart of OJ and 3 echinacea. Seems the "family cough" that surrounded me on my New Year's trip to NC might have followed me back. I'm going to fight it, though!

Caffeine revisited

2005-12-29T22:19:00.000-08:00

This was TERRIBLE! My mom and I were chatting Wednesday, and she said "wow! did you see Good Morning America today?" (never mind the fact that I have not owned a TV in more years than I haven't owned a car, and that is almost 3...) Apparently there was a big story on decaf coffee. They had gone into a few places like Starbucks and McDonalds and some more, ordered decaf, watched to verify it was decaf poured, then taken it back to their labs for analysis.

Before I tell you what happened, let me put a plug in for Starbucks' seasonal favorite the Pumpkin Spice latte. Or, if you are me, the "Grande, decaf, non fat, extra hot, Pumpkin Spice latte". (Isn't that ridiculous? I am embarrassed to order it!) It's pretty darn yummy.

So, back to Good Morning America. They get the coffee back to the lab and start testing the caffeine levels, only to find that the Starbucks coffee sometimes has as much as 80mg of caffeine per cup. It should have less than 5mg.

Of course I didn't believe my mom. She is known, after all, for getting her facts wrong on a regular basis. But a trip to GMA's website confirmed the awful truth. I made 2 calls.

First, I called my friend Jerry who manages a Starbucks. I told him what happened. He denied it, then suddenly had a pressing issue that he had to attend to, and would call me back soon. I haven't heard from him since.

Then I called Kim, my training partner and fellow giver-upper of caffeine. She's had a few lattes with me, so I knew she'd be upset too. She said "oh I gave up decaf at Thanksgiving." WHAT?! without telling me?! "oh yes. My dad's a doctor, and he told me that the chemicals they use to decaffeinate coffee beans are at least as bad for you as the caffeine is. I gave it all up." HELLO?!? Were you going to tell me this? "oh. I thought I did."

This is getting harder than I thought.

Sick!

2005-12-26T18:31:00.000-08:00

This is terrible! I woke up on Christmas morning knowing that I was going to be sick the next day. I did everything I could to combat it- drank a ton of water and tea, took heaps of vitamin C and echinacea, rested all day and went to bed early. I had probably the worst night of sleep ever! I was tossing and turning, ached like you wouldn't believe, and couldn't breathe. Sure enough, I woke up this morning with a terrible sore throat, and congested sinuses.

So both today and yesterday I have done no workout. It is so frustrating! I really want to be doing stuff! Mentally, I am trying to stay in the "Iron" game by doing related things that are not athletic. Yesterday I wrote thank you notes to everyone that has donated thus far. (you'll hopefully see yours soon, but did I mail them today? of course not!) Today I went with a friend to a bike shop to test ride some new bikes. I was riding each one for about a mile, and after 7 bikes I was done! I couldn't think anymore. (to put it into perspective, last Friday I did a 42 mile ride). The poor guy at the shop- "What did you think of that one?" me- "I don't know. They all feel the same now. I can't ride any more. I have to go home." Maybe I should have just gone to the post office.

At least this is a "recovery week" in our training. Send me good healthy vibes, and buy a calendar!

What keeps me going...

2005-12-13T11:25:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while I have one of those days where I just don't feel like working out. Like many people I sometimes take to bargaining with myself ("If you go this afternoon to the track and do this run, then this evening you have permission to lay on the couch and watch 3 consecutive episodes of Alias on DVD, while NOT cleaning the apartment.") Sometimes I compromise ("As long as you are on your bike trainer and pedaling it is okay to put a movie in and watch, even though it decreases your focus.") Sometimes I go a little hard core on myself ("Just get your lazy ass out of bed. There's NO reason for you to slack off today.")

Usually I manage to get myself to the gym/track/practice/trainer. And most of the time, once I start I am happy I am there. Every once in a while, though, I get started with a workout, and I still don't want to be there. That is when I turn to the inspiration of our honorees.

Team in Training teams always have a few Honorees associated with each team. These are individuals who have battled, or are currently battling a blood cancer. They range in age from under 2 to over 72. They may live locally and come to our practices or they may live across the country. They may be athletes themselves, or they may think we are nuts. They may be in remission, or currently in treatment. Or they may have lost their battle with cancer.

On the days that I am mentally suffering through a workout my thoughts turn to our Honorees. It is what most often pulls me through. I want to share one of their stories with you, because, to me, this is the best reason for doing what I do. In her own words, here is the story of our honoree and teammate Lesley Mansford (she is doing Ironman Canada 2006). Lesley has Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL). She is stage zero- meaning she isn't "sick" at all. In fact, it may be 10 years before she becomes "sick". But there is no treatment or cure for CLL. So Lesley lives knowing that, unless a treatment or cure is found, she will eventually get sick and die. For me, Lesley is someone I can look at and think "if we raise enough money to fund one more researcher, it might save her life." That's a pretty powerful motivator.

"I turned 40 in February 2002 and began to reflect on my life. I was thinking that perhaps 40 would be a good time to explore; more travel, perhaps cooking school; perhaps teaching. I’ve enjoyed success in my career but felt somewhat unfulfilled personally. In preparation for a new start I took advantage of a company physical only to discover that there was something wrong with my blood count. I remember my doctor saying that there’s definitely something wrong but the least likely thing it could be is leukemia. Two weeks later I was back in his office learning that in fact I did have leukemia.
It was obviously a shock and prompted a further evaluation of my life. All I knew at the time was that I was really young to get CLL, I was stage O and because of that there was very little to do but sit and wait to get sick. That has been the most difficult thing to accept - it’s certainly one reason that I’ve wanted to get involved in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and Team in Training. I feel like I’m proactively doing something for my health and to help find a cure for folks like myself. Since my diagnosis I have successfully completed the Treasure Island Triathlon, Wildflower Olympic and in 1994 Wildflower half Ironman.
I’ve gone from being completely un-athletic to somewhat an athlete. In addition, I’ve managed to raise about $120K for the cause. As for my health, nothing has changed since my diagnosis. I continue to go forcheck-ups every six months and try and live as healthy a life as I can. Joining the run time this year is part of a bigger goal of doing an Ironman next year. I think the run will be my biggest challenge."
-Lesley

Practice Tri

2005-12-04T16:05:00.000-08:00

Today was our first practice trathlon- a sprint distance race at Treasure Island. (for those of you non-local to SF, it is an island in the bay between SF and Berkeley). Got there at 7:15, race start was at around 8:30. We did a 900-1000 yd swim, a 12 mile bike and a 3 mile run.

I was really dreading the swim. Winter has hit in San Francisco, and the idea that when I got out of the 53 degree water the air would actually be colder really wasn't sitting well with me. According to weather.com, it would be around 48 degrees out. And as you may recall from my last post, my wetsuit is too big, meaning it doesn't offer me all of the warmth that I need it to. At least it was going to be sunny.

I reluctantly left my fleece hat and jacket behind to walk the 1/3 mile from the "transition area" (where we change from swim to bike gear and bike to run gear) to the swim start. Because it was far, we all brought our running shoes with us for after the swim. On the walk over I got quite a few admiring (??) looks for being so "hard core" because I was swimming in a sleeveless wetsuit. Ha! As if I had a choice! My sleeved one is even bigger!

The swim was pretty uneventful, and not as unbearable as I thought it would be. I've swum enough with these folks that I knew who I needed to be ahead of and behind. From about 10 seconds into the race I was in 3rd, where I swam by myself the whole way. I got out, and grabbed those running shoes to put them on. Amazing- I could see both my hands and feet, and I knew what needed to happen, but I couldn't manage to get the ice blocks on the ends of my arms to shove the ice blocks on the ends of my legs into those shoes! It took a solid 3 minutes to put on my shoes!

I saw both #1 and #2 in transition, so I knew I wasn't far behind. I also knew that they were both fast enough that I would not catch them. For me, the bike is the time where I try not to get passed by all the "real" cyclists that I beat in the water. I just want to hold my position, because I know I'll lose enough on the run! (by the way- in theory this is not a race, and we are all here to learn and have fun and just finish. whatever. i'm too competitive for that!)

The bike was three laps of a 4 mile flat course with a bunch of turns. About 3.5 miles into loop 1, I got a flat. A back tire flat. (it's a LOT harder to change a back flat than a front). Bummer. Historically I've been pretty lucky- in all of my time riding, this is my second flat tire. I'm not so fast at changing them, especially getting the back tire back on. I know that there is a gear you should put the bike in to make it easier. Is it the hardest gear? Or the easiest? I figured that it was better to leave it in the middle, since I didn't know. Overall, I was pretty pleased with my flat changing time. I think it took me about 10 minutes, and I only watched half of our team (about 35 people) pass me. Sweet. Back on the bike, head in to lap 2, which was uneventful.

Beginning of lap 3 I start to feel it again. Something is up with the back tire. I look down, and it is clearly low on air. I stopped, realized that it had a leak, and thought "maybe it's a slow leak. seems like it. i'll just top it off with air and ride the last 3 miles. don't want to have to change another tire." Great idea, didn't work. About a mile later I was on the side of the road for the third time changing my second flat. As I was about to fill the tire with air, a super helpful volunteer said "have you checked the tire for whatever gave you the flat?" That saved me from a third flat, as it is what caused me to find the piece of glass in my tire. Ah, good learning.

The run was anti-climatic. No flats in my shoes or anything. Also no knee pain, which is great! And I even kind of enjoyed it. That might be exaggerating, but I did always know I could run the whole thing.

So, how did I do overall? Well, I won the "two flats" division!

Incidentally, I also received an award today for the second highest attendance for the season so far. May, one of my teammates, has missed zero workouts. I have missed one, which netted me a water bottle. Sweet. If I can't win in the athletic portions of this endeavor (which I never will...) at least I can excel at something!

2005-11-20T19:55:00.000-08:00

Day Two of the hangover. I actually felt fine this morning, until I started to exercise.....

2005-11-20T19:53:00.000-08:00

This is me the morning of the hangover, just before attacking the 4 hills that make up the "Three Bears" ride. (they're not too smart out here sometimes....)

Learnings galore....

2005-11-20T18:26:00.000-08:00

It's been a big week of learning in my Ironteam program. A few standouts:

Caffeine is addictive. If you are addicted to something, it sometimes sucks to give it up. Both physically and psychologically. Guy on our team is a doc. Big into nutrition. Gives a lecture, tells us how evil caffeine, booze, and artificial sweeteners are. I laugh at his ideas. As if I will give booze or caffeine up! (as if I use artificial sweeteners! sugar is so much better! [he didn't like it so much either, but that's another story...]). Then our coach tells a horror story about they guy who starts drinking coke at rest stops on the run (a common occurance at hour 11+ in an Ironman- for the caffeine) and feels nothing. No perk up. No burst of steam. Why? Because he's a caffeine regular. I stop laughing. I will need that boost. I am instantly off caffeine. That was last Saturday. no caffeine for me in 9 days. Mostly not so bad, but I did have to chase my waitress into the kitchen this morning at breakfast to change my order to decaf. I'd forgotten that I gave it up. Ooops. Low grade headache all week. I've been a bit of a bitch all week (but what's new there?!). Sometimes incapable of complete sentances. But overall, it's ok. I guess. It damn well better pay off next August though.
Alcohol affects training. How, I can hear you asking, can I possibly have gone this long without knowing that? Simple. Up to now my training was intermittent. Hangovers affected my likelihood of showing up at practice in the first place, which I guess is an effect on training in its own right. But here's what I learned this week. Kinda cool, really, but here's a biological impact I observed: I take my resting heart rate most mornings. It's always the same. 55 beats in a minute. No more, no less. Ever. This is lying down, before getting up to pee, on the mornings where my alarm doesn't scare the wits out of me, as that would spike the heartrate, of course. So Saturday, I wake up. I think the pain in my head is what did it. (lots of wine at a slow restaurant the night before with a bunch of friends...) I roll over, watch for the minute to change on the clock, start counting and close my eyes. They feel rather dry, after all. At about 50 I open them, expecting the clock to change in 5 beats. It doesn't. I keep counting. I wonder if I mis-read the clock. Oh, wait! There- it changed. At 67. Geez. I get out of bed and head to practice. A 2 hour bike ride in the sun. Hill repeats over the "Three Bears" (inaptly named, mind you, as there are 4 hills) a 7 mile road. Back and forth, and part way back (over the-unfortunately- well-named "Papa Bear") and all the way forth. Somewhere along the way, Coach Wayne pulls up next to me on his motorcycle and asks how I am doing. I was honestly distracted by the fact that he could stay balanced on the motorcycle going LITERALLY 5.1 miles per hour. I have a computer that tells me this. Anyway, he affirmed that the spike in my heartrate was due to the de-hydration from the booze-fest. I paid for this lesson for two days- I awoke today, thinking I was well rested and re-covered from a night of water and a video. Heart rate was down to 64. At this rate I will be recovered from one night of drinking in, oh, 4 more days. Rediculous.
I need a new wetsuit. This is a good thing, actually. I swam in it for the first time in a while today. (What with the 64HR this morning I didn't feel up to braving the Bay without one, which is what I have been doing for the past several months.) So I put on my wetsuit for the first time since Wildflower in May. It was too small then. It's too big now. Which on the one hand is cool. But on the other it sucks. First of all, I could feel it slide down every time I got out of the water and stood up, thus giving me that nasty, saggy crotch thing you ladies get with panty hose. (guys- you'll just have to try to imagine...) Sucks. Second of all, wetsuits are expensive! I don't want to buy another one. I'm still losing weight! I want to wait and get one that I can do the race in! I'm putting it off for a while.
My supporters kick ass! I sent out a plea this week to the front half of my address book to push me over a preliminary fundraising deadline, and was rewarded with $290 in donations. Thank you!

IMPORTANT! NEED RESPONSE ASAP!

2005-11-14T21:22:00.000-08:00

Our first fundraising related deadline is WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 16! If I have $500 raised by then, I get an "early start" prize! I'm almost halfway there. Go ahead and make a donation now! Besides, I have less than a month to be at $1000 (December 16).

LINK RIGHT THERE -> --> ---> (says "donate now to LLS")

Thanks!

Kezar Track/Pub

2005-11-11T23:05:00.000-08:00

A lovely visual of Kezar Track and Kezar Pub that I poached off of a teammate's blog. (thanks ironderek.blogspot.com!) We'll be there a lot (both places) so you ought to have a visual. Read on to figure out which one I chose this week......

Some of you won't believe this....

2005-11-11T22:45:00.000-08:00

So I went to Kezar Track on Wednesday evening for our track workout. Rode over there with Kim, straight from the job temping at Macy's. We got there at 6:35- a few minutes late, cause someone forgot her sports bra and we had to stop to get it. (I would try to point the finger at Kim on that one, but if you know us both you realize that one of us can get away with running without a sports bra, and one of us can't......) Anyway, we got there, and it was already totally dark, and it was thundering and lightening, and a light drizzle was forming. And the track was closed.

If you live in SF then you probably know that directly across the street from Kezar track is Kezar Pub. A goodly portion of our team headed straight over to "warm up" with dinner and beer. A few hearty souls decided to do the run in the rain and dark, in the safe neighborhood there.

I know. You think you know which group I was in.

Well, a guy on our team named George, who has done several past seasons with me, had planted himself firmly in the "heading to Pub" group. And what I found interesting was that he came to stand with me so "we" could wait to see who else was joining us. There was simply no question in his mind where I would be going. And Kim turns to me and says, "a beer would be really good right now" (a very un-Kim-like statement).

And I said "no, I really need to run." And then I did run. Though not in the rain, at the gym.

Do you believe me?

Does this count as training?

2005-11-11T22:39:00.000-08:00

It sure did fill a week like training does! Here I am at my brother's wedding in NC on November 5. It was awesome. And I think that walking in heels for 2 days (don't forget the rehersal) can sure count as cross training!

2005-11-02T10:17:00.000-08:00

This morning I had what, up to now, was my most difficult psychological workout.

I am in North Carolina for my brother's wedding. I landed last night in Greensboro, picked up my rental car- a convertable! ask me for the story sometime!- drove 3 hours to Little Switzerland to my mom's house, and the location of the wedding. So, a total of 12+ hours of planes, trains and automobiles to get here.

As a committed Aluminum Woman, determined to turn Iron, I had communicated with my coaches before I left CA on how to modify my workout regime, and I called my mom to find out what was available in Little Switzerland (pop. 46) "Nothing", I was told. but nearby Spruce Pine has a full fitness club with a pool! AND my mom's a member. AND they charge no guest fees! (shoulda been my first clue...) So I showed up there this morning to do a bike ride on the stationary. I need to ride for 60 minutes, gradually increasing my cadence (pedal strokes per minute)along the way. For an extremely small town (pop just under 10,000) the gym was great, but compared to the poor-by-city-standards gym I go to in SF, it was not so good. I made my way up to the aerobic machine area It was an empty, attic-like alcove above the weight room, which was the size of a basketball court but was also empty of people. There I found one treadmill (by far in the best shape of the machines), a couple of those old wind tunnel creating stationary bikes that are loud as hell and fan you the whole time you are on them, one recumbent bike, and thankfully, two regular stationary bikes.

I picked the newer looking stationary and hopped on. I noticed immediately that the seat was crooked, which annoyed me the whole time, and I found out quickly that the old bike had basically 2 levels of difficulty rather than the 12 it advertised. There was "rediculously easy and my feet fly off the pedals" which you could select with either level 1 or 2, and there was "insanely hard" aka "practically impossible to rotate the pedals" which could be achieved with levels 3-12. OK, not what I was hoping for, but I can do this. Obviously I selected level 2, cause there was no way I could get my cadence to 105 rpms at anything higher. I started pedaling.

It was mind-numbing. There was not another soul around. There was not a poster to look at, not a window to look out. There was me and a stationary bike in a small attic-like alcove above the weight room (the size of a a basketball court, but also empty).

Oh, and there was Fox News. Loud. In fact, being blasted by stereo throughout the place. So I was afraid to change the channel, just in case there was another person there, and they like Fox News. Now, I don't want to get into a political debate here, but Fox News is not my news source of choice. I recently rented "Rupert Murdoch's War on Jounalism", an enlightening look into the world of Fox News. Check it out. Then imagine watching it for an hour with no alternative.

I thought of SO MANY reasons to stop. ("oh no, I forgot a water bottle! total rookie move, but i sure don't want to dehydrate. i should stop..." and "hmmm. amy said she'd call at 2:00 or 3:00. i'd better leave now (it's 11:00)....." and "the race is 10 months away. missing one bike ride isn't going to kill me.....") And one great reason to go on "I need to be able to handle the mind-numbing to complete a potentially 17 hour race...."

I negotiated with myself that it was ok do do 55 minutes on the bike rather than 60, if I ran the last 5 minutes on the treadmill. Given how I have always felt about running, I figured that was a fair trade. Besides, its good training for my legs to learn how to run after riding.

When I finally finished my hour (which I SWEAR took two!) I knew everything there is to know about the two escaped prisoners in South Carolina (they got out in a garbage truck and weren't discovered missing at the next role call), how Frist feels about the Democrats forcing a closed Senate meeting (not too pleased), and had seen repeated clips of Charles and Camilla being greeted by the Bushes while being told that the Brits care about this, but we Americans don't. (If that's the case, why was a full 15 minutes of my hour dedicated to nothing else?) Oh, and I knew who every speaker was in the line up at Rosa Parks' funeral. Of course, none of them were speaking yet, as that would have been a good way to spend my hour.

In fact, JUST as I was getting off the treadmill, Bill Clinton came on to speak at the funeral, and I stayed and watched. I finished my workout standing in the gym in Spruce Pine, NC crying at the death of an amazing woman.

All in all, not so bad, really.

calendar in progress

2005-10-24T22:35:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture from one of our recent calendar photo shoots. The photographer is Stephen, a TNT summer participant (he did Pacific Grove triathlon) who also happens to be a professional photographer. He volunteered his time and expertise to shoot the calendar. (incidentally, he spent enough time around me and some of the other team members that he decided to join the team. He signed up last week, taking TNT's last slot for Ironman Canada.) The model is Karen Edwards, an Ironman Canada 2005 finisher, and our team's Honoree Captain this year. (her job is to "connect us to the Cause" educating us about Leukemia and Lyphoma Society and it's mission, and introducing us to the survivors who are our team's honorees.

foreign language skills, or exercise program?

2005-10-24T12:11:00.000-07:00

So, trying to read our training schedule sometimes feels like learning a new language. Our coaches are forced to get a lot of information (our whole workout) into a tiny little square. Just to give you an idea, this is how they decribed this morning's swim workout:

Swim
Warm up
2 x (25 swim LVL4, 25 1ASOSB) NO RI
2 x (25 swim LVL5, 25BF) NO RI
100 pull
MAIN SET
1x 300 LVL5 RI 15”
4 x 100 LVL7 RI 10”
200 LVL5
Cool down
200 LVL2TOTAL yardage: 1100

Now, I've been swimming competitively for about 30 years, and it still takes me some time to decipher that. So you can imagine that when I look at a run workout, I am sometimes at a loss for what to do. After all, up til now "run" to me meant that either a) I am trying to catch the disappearing #38 bus so I don't have to wait and extra 20 minutes, or b) someone is chasing me. So when I saw this last week:

Run/Walk
“1”- 5’r3’w x 4
“2”- 10’r2’w x 3
“3”- 15’r1’w x 3
Level 2 & 3 athletes conduct a 20" pickup at lvl9 in each run period prior to walk recovery period. Fast twitch muscle activity.
Core TNG

I referred to the 'key' that came with our training plan (sometimes I need a 'key' to interpret it too!). I correctly deduced that, as a Level 1 runner (ie- not great), I was to alternate 5 minutes of running with 3 minutes of walking, repeating 4 times. Not rocket science, right?

Well, later that day I spoke with a teammate of mine who is a Level 3 runner (ie- pretty experienced, and likely to skip over referring to the 'key'). Here's how our conversation went:

him: Wow. Today's run was pretty tough, eh?
me: ahhh..... (cuz it really wasn't)
him: I mean, I was fine, hurting a little at the end, but it took forever. I don't know if I have time for this! It's our first week. (at this point I am scrambling to find the schedule to see how long the level 3 runners ran, cuz I only went for 32 minutes..... you look at it now, do the math. he shoulda run for 48 minutes. in the grand scheme of things, not that long.)
me: ahhh......
him: I mean, it took me 2 and a half hours! What will we be doing in 6 months!?

At this point, I start to realize what has happened. My poor runner friend, I am thinking, thought the "1" "2" and "3" indicated "first" "next" and "finally" rather than an "either/or". Bless his heart, he'd done the workouts for all three levels, running for a total of 2 and a half hours.

I gave him a mini lesson on reading the schedule, while silently commending myself for NOT running 5 times as far as I was supposed to.

Incidentally, at this point in the season that would likely have killed me. :)

I'll post a pic from one of this weekends calendar shoots soon.

2005-10-18T16:29:00.000-07:00

Me and my friend Steven (owner of Olive, my favorite bar AND my favorite employer!) at our first pool practice. Sunday October 16. We swam about 2100 yds that day.

Week One summary

2005-10-16T22:57:00.000-07:00

Today marked the end of the first week of our training program. That leaves me 45 weeks to go to prepare for my Ironman race. 45 weeks from today I will swim 2.4, bike 112 and run (sorta...) 26.2 miles. I found it a little disconcerting that our FIRST weekend workout as a team took us 3.5 hours. I'm not going to have a lot of free time in the next year.....

So here's how Ironteam works, for those of you who don't know already. I commit to fundraise at least $7500 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, they provide me expert coaching and a complete training plan, and travel and accommodations to the event. In addition to the fundraising, I paid the $550 fee to Ironman Canada to buy my slot in the race. (The race is sold out- the only way for you to get inspired and join me is to take one of Ironteam's 4 remaining slots and fundraise and train with me!)

Of the first $7500 that I raise, LLS guarantees that at least 75% will go directly to research, education and patient services for blood cancer patients and their families. The other 25% covers program overhead. Of course, the more we each exceed our fundraising minimum, the higher the %age to the Cause grows. There are 64 participants on our team right now, and we will add a few more in the next few weeks. Our team has the potential to raise over $400,000. That's a lot of money.

The training plan involves a DETAILED calendar that tells me everything I am supposed to do every day. Two of our workouts each week are "coached"- organized group trainings. The others are "on your own".

This week, I swam a total of 4.2 miles (in 4 workouts), biked 17 miles (one workout) and ran 4.7 miles (2 workouts). Additionally, we did a bunch of strength and core exercises, all aimed at injury prevention. I missed one bike ride because my bike is in the shop, but other than that I did everything on the schedule.

I also spent the better part of the weekend on my biggest fundraising project- the "Men of..." and "Women of Team in Training" Calendars. A friend/professional photographer and I spent all day Saturday with some great volunteers (past TNT triathletes) taking pictures of them swimming, biking and running around San Francisco. You'll have the opportunity to buy one as soon as they are out of production! In the meanwhile, I'll see if I can't get Stephen (photog) to send me a few of the pics to post.

More updates later! Please keep checking back! And If you want to help chip away at the $7500, there's a link to the right!

Thanks again for your support!
kt

kickoff!

2005-10-09T22:25:00.000-07:00

Today was kick-off for the season start! Kristy (our Team Manager and my friend) picked me up at 6:45 to head over to Berkeley. The event was at Clif Bar Headquarters and started at 10:00, but she had to get there early to set up, plus she's a little anal about punctuality.... (for those of you not familiar with Bay Area driving times, we arrived at Clif HQ at 7:15) I worked at the bar last night until 2:00, so it was a wee bit early for me!

Excitement carried me through the kickoff- meeting my coaches, many of my teammates, my mentor, and two of our honorees. I now have in hand my training plan through mid-December! Tomorrow's on-your-own practice involves a swim "marker set". We will do two 10 minute swims, seeing how far we can go for each. This gives us a baseline to compare ourselves to, as we will do it many times throughout the season.

I also recruited a few folks to be in my "Men of" and "Women of Team in Training" calendars. This is one of the many fundraisers I'll be doing to raise the minimum of $7500 in the next 10 months.....

You can check out or team website if you like. It's pretty cool. ironteam.net

i've bought a slot in the race!

2005-08-30T20:52:00.000-07:00

It's official. I have purchased a slot in Ironman Canada 2006. My race bib number 1087. The race is on August 27. I wonder how many miles I'll swim bike and run between now and then?

Kickoff for the Team in Training season is October 9. Between now and then I will be relaxing, traveling, and trying to find a job. :)

This weekend I head to Maui to do the 9 mile Maui Channel Relay Swim with 5 friends. Half of our team (not my half!) are also doing a 2.4 mile swim during the weekend. I am toying with the idea- just to see what a 2.4 mile swim feels like, but I think I'd rather lay on the beach! I'll get enough training in later, right?

Almost (but not quite) as intimidating as the event is the $7500 fundraising minimum for the event. Any ideas for fundraisers are welcome! I'd love to knock it out in a few big events early on so that I can focus on training!