view from the run course...

A few pictures

I've been pretty bad at posting pictures throughout the season, but I do have some good video saved up! Here are a few of the pictures I have though.

Waiting around in the fog for our run to start this weekend.


After one of our first long bike rides:

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go....

Ok, that’s not entirely true. I’m ready to BE in Hawaii, but I haven’t packed a thing yet. I missed today’s coached run on Mercer Island—a game of Pirates & Scallywags—because I didn’t feel 100% this morning when I woke up. One thing I have learned from all this training is that when the body speaks, it’s important to listen. I slept another hour and felt better. Guess I have been burning the candle at both ends like we all do from time to time. I had my bandanas ready to go. I was ready to talk like a pirate. I was ready to evade capture. The game, which is similar to “Sharks & Minnows”, would have been a whole lot more fun than running on the treadmill at the club, which I did later in the day.

Looking back on the past 5 months of training, I’m quite amazed at the lengths I went to for improvement in each event. Besides putting in the miles on my own and with the coach & team, I’ve taken lessons, gone to lectures, studied DVD’s, read books, read articles, gone to clinics, watched demonstrations, asked for pointers, watched YouTube videos, even dreamed about technique. Hopefully some of it has sunk in!

What I know now that I didn’t know 5 months ago: I knew there was technique to swimming. We learn different strokes as a kid and then watch the Olympic swimmers (over & over) on HD TV, who by the slightest of margins win medals or not by their technique. Who knew there was technique to running, though! I guess I’d always thought you just ran. We all came with the basics: first you learn to crawl, then stand, then walk, then run. And some people just seem to run faster than others. Then I started Team in Training and discovered heart rate monitors, strides, posture, cadence, tempo, race pace, core strength...When you pay attention to all of these you can learn to run more efficiently, faster and longer. A friend and I went to hear Scott Jurek, an ultramarathoner, talk about injury prevention. This is a guy whose resume is a mile long itself: 50 mile races, 100 mile races (and he doesn’t just run them, he sets records in all of them), and best yet—he not only ran, but WON the Greek Spartathalon twice! It’s a mere 150 mile jog from Athens to Sparta. It was a fun talk and he did have some good pointers on nutrition/hydration and form. Not sure how anyone could worry about their form after 100 miles. I’d be crawling…

Cycling has its technical side. My last bike had 21 gears. The new one, which is still en route to Hawaii, has 27 gears. The gear shifters are totally different, too. I didn’t get to ride my new bike very many times before it shipped. I tried out all the gears, but seemed to favor certain ones. It’s kind of like my dishwasher at home. It comes with a gazillion different cycles, but I tend to use my few favorites. We didn’t all come with the basics in cycling, though. One of my teammates, Bex, never learned to ride a bike as a kid growing up in Ireland. I’m in awe of her guts to learn as a young adult now—and she didn’t do it just to tool around her neighborhood, but for an Olympic distance triathlon no less! Way to go, Bex!

Still need to finish my worksheet to calculate calories of carbs and protein I will need to fuel the body during the race, milligrams of electrolytes & oz of fluids per hour I’m likely to need in the heat. Then we’re supposed to come up with a plan of what fuels and liquids meet those needs and when we will consume them during the event. Even the brain gets exercise!! Sorry for the length of this blog. I’m not very good at writing short ones. Check back here for some pictures once we get to Hawaii. They might be worth a thousand words. Aloha!

The last hurrah!

Last week we did a final long brick before dropping of our bikes to be shipped (literally, on a boat) over to Hawaii. I ended up doing my brick on my own, due to scheduling. I just went out and back on the burke gilman for both the bike and run - 20 mile bike and a 6 mile run. My main goal was to run the entire run, with no walking - I've done plenty of 6 mile runs now on their own, but this was to prove to myself that I could do it following a long bike ride. So that I would have no excuse on race day to walk.

The last two years I'd find myself walking on and off, for no valid reason (well, I was sore and tired and hot, but those are not valid reasons during a race). So during my brick I ran the whole way! I just sorta kept running, and managed to not really think about it. It felt really great! And what felt even better was stopping at the end - I was just a bit tired...

In general I'm very good at pacing myself - which means I can generally finish what I set out to do, but not as fast as possible, and I rarely wear myself out. So it was good practice for me to do a workout that actually left me really tired! Hopefully I'll do more in the future :).

And with that, I kissed my bike good bye (for two weeks) and dropped it off for its trip to the Big Island.

We are now ready for race day, and are starting to taper our workouts. Yay :).

more random thoughts...

in exactly two weeks i'll be boarding a plane to kona. hard to believe we're actually down to the home stretch now. five months later, we can say we ran and biked in sun, rain, snow and sleet!

this past weekend, i went back to my hometown edmonton, canada for my grandmother's 92nd birthday. when we got off the plane it was 9 degrees farenheit. i don't think it reached double digits the entire weekend! talk about the opposite of hawaii! one night i was walking past my grandmother's bedroom and i saw her on the floor doing arm exercises with small weights. it was inspiring. i also got a swim workout in while we were there and got a chance to go back the same swimming pool that i went to for years as a kid. its funny how everything looked so much bigger back then!

tonight is our last BRICK workout before our bikes are shipped to Hawaii on friday (yes, literally they are going by boat. at least this way the bikes don't have to be taken apart). of course that doesn't mean we get a break from running, swimming or riding via spin classes. we still have our last two weeks of training plus workouts in hawaii to get used to the weather. i think my sun-deprived-pasty white-self is going to go into shock when we land in kona!

alright...here we go!

Random Thoughts...

The bikes ship to Hawaii a week from today and we leave for Kona about a week after that. Exciting! Yesterday morning as I witnessed yet another light & brief flurry of SNOW outside my windows, I am oh, so ready for Hawaii’s sun and 81 degrees.

THE BIKE--I caved a couple weeks ago and bought a new one. I didn’t really need to do that. Guess it was one of those “stimulate the economy” moments. I’ve only ridden it a handful of times. We’ll have hardly gotten to know each other before it boards some boat for Hawaii. After last week’s ride when two teammates had flat tires, I did hang out at the bike shop the other day to learn how to change one. If only they had AAA for bikes on the course. :)

THE WATER—I wore out a swim suit! To be fair, it was one of those “hang out at the beach” suits—not one of the bullet proof Speedos. It did survive the distances, just not my new fragrance “Eau de Chlorine”. My mile time keeps improving and I really am amazed at where I am now as a swimmer compared to where I was 5 months ago.

THE PAVEMENT--I’ve done a 7 mile run now. After 5 1/2 miles the knees started to feel it a bit. Race distance is 6 miles (10K), so I think I’ll be fine. And there’s still time for improvement…and there’s always Advil & ice…

THE GYM-- Developing opposing muscle groups, balance, flexibility, core, strength…Kind of different from the old jumping jacks, sit ups, splits, touch your toes days, and I love it!

INJURIES—Worst so far has been in the water! Who on earth gets injured in the water? One klutz entrance down the steps into the pool resulted in a nasty skinned arm and bonked elbow on the tile edge. A couple of involuntary dismounts from the bike scraped the same knee and bruised a hip. Those were at a standstill, too, after I forgot my foot was still in the toe clip on my bike pedal. That’s like getting injured in the lift line at the ski hill. Nothing to brag about…

INSPIRATION--The donations (I’m nearing my goal!!), notes, emails & good wishes from family and friends. Stories of hope, courage and fight gleaned from random meetings with people who are connected to someone with leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma, or other cancers. Teammates, coaches, husband, sons & daughter-in-law who keep cheering me on---Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Hele hui!! Go team!!

4 weeks to go!

This last saturday may have been our last long bike ride before our bikes ship off to Hawaii, on March 13th. Eeek its coming up so fast!

We did a 18 or 26 mile bike ride, followed by a 4 mile run, and once again had great weather for it (though a little chilly to start with). I did the first 9 miles with my mom and Karen along the burke Gilman, then decided to continue on the 26 mile route while they turned back. I caught up with a group of 4 from our team, just in time for a humongous never ending hill. I'd see it flattening out and push myself to that bit, thinking it was over, only to turn a corner and see it go even higher... That was a long long hill...(thanks coach Cathy!). We stopped to take a few rests part way up, which helped, and then we were able to make it to the top. I did enjoy the long downhills we earned as a result of it though :).

After cutting through bothell (for that lovely hill), we hit the burke gilman again, for a 10 mile flat ride home.

With about 6 miles left, I came across Sarah changing a flat tire (with Capt'n Ande's help). I stopped and watched, and commented that I was lucky and had still never had a flat, and that I should really know how to do it... Then I hopped back on my bike, rode a mile or so, and got my first flat!! Poor Ande then had to come help me as well. We had one little scare where we thought the tube was part of the tire, cause apparently they make some fancy tires like that, but then found it was just well stuck. So I finally got it back on, and headed back to the car.

At this point it felt like I'd been out there for ever (like 3 hours) with all the stopping to figure out were we were going, and seeing two flat tires get changed, and it didn't help that I managed to forget all my liquids that day! (I left my Gatorade on the kitchen counter :( ).

I knew I needed to practice more bricks though (bike-run-ick), so I compromised and said I would do a 2 mile run. It just so happened it was a two mile loop. However, as I finished my first loop, I found cathy and 5 people cheering for me, and cheering me onto the 2nd loop! Peer pressure is totally unfair!! So I guiltily took off, and ended up doing the 4 mile run. And I ran the whole way, and didn't find it terrible! (Very exciting for me).

I'd just like to also point out that I have had two flat car tires in the last 3 months, so that is 3 flats in 3 months, and I think that is unfair!

After practice I drank lots of water, ate a lot, took a nap, and then dropped my bike off to get looking over, so it is fresh and ready for Hawaii.

Go team!