Aikido

The girls passed their yellow belt test! They are thrilled and proud. I'm proud too. They took the test very seriously, and practiced a lot in the weeks leading up to the test. The day itself they were really nervous going into it. It was hard sitting and watching them practice, seeing how anxious they were. Eleanor nearly cried when she learned that the person she was supposed to do her test with had failed to show up, and she was going to have to work with a near-stranger (and a boy, at that, ick!). Now that it's over and they know they passed, I'm so glad they had the experience, anxiety and all. How fabulous, at 8, to already know what it's like to work hard at something and achieve a goal. Instead of resting on their laurels, they are already anticipating the fall exam for the next belt. Hooray for goals!

Motivators

Several women I know have recently started the Couch to 5K running program. They are at the point I was at when I turned 40. The kids are no longer an excuse for the baby-weight or the lack of exercise, but you don’t know where to start. I am happy for them, and hope that some of them stick with it and catch the exercise bug. But I know from experience that most of them will do it for awhile then drop it. So I was thinking about what keeps me going, besides family culture and support. There seem to be several factors for me, and looking good in my wedding dress is not one of them (not that I don’t want to look good, but outward appearance has never been a strong enough motivator for me to stick with a diet or exercise plan).

Options: This is a big one. I planned to run this morning, but it turned out to be below my running temperature threshold (which is wimpy for a New Englander – it was something like 25 at 6 AM) and it had snowed last night (*&$#&%*# New England weather $#&%). I just couldn’t face it. So I hastily pulled together my gym bag, work clothes and lunch, and headed to the gym. It’s not as good a work out as a run, but it’s not bad and it’s certainly better than grabbing another cup of coffee and sinking into the couch for an hour.

Experience: I know how good I feel after working out. In fact, I was chatting with the guy at the front desk of the Y as I left today – he noted that I’m always smiling when I leave, no matter how I look when I come in. I also know how out of sorts I feel if I don’t get enough movement. I know that I’m going to largely enjoy myself while I’m working out. All those things have grown over time. I have a good base of experience to know that if I do grab another cup of coffee and sit for an hour I’m going to regret it the rest of the day, and I know that I’m going to enjoy myself as soon as I get to the gym. That’s usually enough to get me up and going when inertia is dragging me down. When it’s not enough, it usually means I’m over tired or sick, and I also have enough experience to know that I can take a day or two to rest, and I’ll get back to it when I’m feeling better. So a rest day doesn’t feel like falling off the wagon.

Ability/Endurance Level: When I started running and biking I liked how I felt, but afterward I was drained. It made it harder to motivate myself to get out the door, knowing that I was going to be tired the rest of the day. Now my regular daily workout is enough to energize me but not drag me down. So I’m not actually committing the entire day, just the hour or so when I’m exercising.

Goals: This is another big one. I’m learning about myself that I need a short term goal. The long term goals are fun, but like the wedding dress, they don’t actually get me out the door. I need a race or a long ride booked, or my workouts are aimless and less intense. Sure I’ll run, but I’ll be more casual about my distance over the week, I’ll bike when I’ve got a big chunk of time but I won’t make time for it. But I’ve got a 10K scheduled for mid-May, so I know I need to get my miles up before then so I can do well. The goal focuses me, and improves the quality of my exercise.

Active family

Abigail is taking swim lessons on Monday afternoons.  It makes for a complicated afterschool schedule, but it’s worth it – she loves swimming and these lessons are really helping her develop her stroke.  That means that this morning in addition to packing my gym bag and clothes for work, I had to grope around the still-dark garage, trying not to trip over the various bikes and bike parts, to find the bike rack. Because Dusty will bike home after work and walk with Abigail to swimming.  I will pick up Eleanor and Dusty’s commuter bike and then drive to the pool to get the others.  As I was getting my stuff together this morning, Abigail saw me putting on work shoes and asked how I was going to bike to work in my work shoes, so I went through the complicated pick up shenanigans, to explain why I wasn’t biking.  So, as I was groping around the garage, I was thinking happily about what an active family we are. 
 
This pleases me so much.  In my last marriage, I kept saying that I wanted to be more active as a family, that I wanted Eleanor to see us incorporating exercise into our lives, and I wanted to do active things with her.  But I never succeeded in making it part of our life in an ongoing way.  A lot of it was me, because I hadn’t gotten the exercise bug yet.  I tried periodically, but nothing stuck for long.  The most sustained period of fitness I had before I was 40 was in the year and a half before I got pregnant, when I was going to the gym regularly to get in shape pre-pregnancy, but I didn’t keep it up during pregnancy or afterward.  It wasn’t until I started running right before my 41 birthday that I began on the path to getting into shape for real.  I still have a way to go, but I do know that no matter what, exercise will be a part of my life on an ongoing basis.  But it’s not just my personal internal changes that have made the difference.  It’s far easier to sustain what I’m going because Dusty does it too.  He values physical activity for himself, for the girls, for us as a family.  So if I need to join a gym to get over my tendency to hibernate in the winter, he’s going to encourage me to do it even if it means leaving the house at 6:00 (okay, I never actually manage to leave at 6:00, it’s usually more like 6:20 by the time I get out the door) and leaving him to run the morning routine with the girls.  It wasn’t exactly that I had to fight to get the time in my old marriage, it was more that there was no value placed on the activity, and it was far easier to drop it than to push against our family culture of inertia.  It’s not that we didn’t ever do anything physical, but it wasn’t a regular part of our lives, and it wasn’t something we found easy to do with Eleanor.  Even when I went to the gym, I did it during my lunch hour from work, so she never saw me getting sweaty.  Now, several mornings a week her first sight of me is as I return from my run, sweaty and panting and happy.  Or I’m at home, because Dusty is on his run.  Or we are all heading to the playground to throw the Frisbee around.  No one questions that physical activity should be a priority (in fact, particularly with Abigail, if she is out of sorts we usually prescribe some physical activity, and it usually brightens her mood and brings her back to herself).  Not that my ex ever outwardly objected to the idea of exercising. It was harder to combat than that, because it was all unspoken habit and assumptions. This is not meant to be a diss of my ex. We were both part of this culture. It's just that I'm noticing how much easier it is to be active when it's part of the family culture, and how hard it is to change family culture.

New clothes!

My birthday is in a few weeks. Dusty, never very good at waiting to give a gift, gave me my birthday present early. He seems to have bought out the Title Nine workout section. I've now got a new, really flattering running skort, running capris, and two beautiful tech shirts - one long sleeved, one short. I can't wait to get out there and wear it all!

I'm not very good at spending money on myself, and work out clothes is an area where I really delay (case in point: I've needed new sports bras for almost a year, but keep making do with what I've got because they're expensive). But what this means is that I work out in whatever I've got, even if it doesn't quite fit, or if it's getting old and worn out. Mostly, I think that's okay. I'm not working out to pick up guys or impress my neighbors, after all. But it's also okay to want to look put together, to wear clothes that flatter. I whined and moaned when I saw pictures of myself at the triathlon or during the ALC in which I thought I looked bad - there are lots of things I can do about that, and wearing decent looking clothing is actually one of those things. It's surprisingly hard for me to get over myself and make an effort to look good in fitness clothing, but it's an effort worth making. So yeah, I'm pretty excited to be nudged in the right direction with this present. And now it's time to get up off the couch and go use the new clothes!

Spring update

The gym has been doing what I hoped, but I'm so glad to see spring arriving. I can run again! Last week I managed to get out for 10.5 miles total, in addition to a couple of gym sessions. This morning daylight savings time and a late bedtime conspired against me. There was no way I was getting myself moving early enough to get to the gym, but I did manage to sneak in a short fast run. I'm going to keep the gym membership for now. I like the rowing machine a lot, and the pool is great when it's not crowded, but I expect I'll go less frequently now hat I can move while outside once again. I didn't realize until this winter how deeply I hibernate in the winter. I just don't want to move when it's cold and dark. I'd be a mess if I lived in Finland.
Something I learned post-triathlon. I do far better with a specific training goal on the calendar. A general plan to, for instance, up my running miles over the winter, is not enough motivation for me. Dusty and I are signed up for a 10k in Vermont in May. I'm going to look at the summer and fall triathlon schedules and start making a plan. I'd love to do a sprint this spring and a longer triathlon in the fall, but I'd also like to train for a fall half marathon and I'm not sure whether I can do all of that plus everything else we've got planned for this year. Ladt year, Between the ALC and triathlon training, I didn't do nearly as much hiking or long bike rides as I would have liked. Plus, you kniw, the rest of my life takes some time and attention. I'm still trying to figure out how to balance training and life.

Winte hibernation

Oh yeah! I have an exercise blog! it's a challenge to keep this up when I've fallen into hibernation mode. Between the dark the cold and the snow I haven't been biking at all and barely running. When I do run I'm slow and lousy at it. Not only am I not continuing to I
Prove but I'm clearly losing ground. I may have found a cure though. I've joined the local Y. The best part is that it has a pool. I've gone swimming twice this week. Only 300/350 meters so far but if I swim twice a week the distance will go up. I'm still trying to figure out how to run successfully on the treadmill. Boring! Not helped by my initial failure to bring my iPod and today's realization that my iPod is truly on it's last legs (I destroyed the controls this summer by sweating on them too much, and now the volume is so low I couldn't hear it over the treadmill noises.)

So we will see if I can keep up my motivation to leave the house by 6:15 three or four days a week. If I can, this will be a great way to make it through the winter with minimal damage to my training goals. I'm no longer expecting improvement this winter, I just don't want to slip too much.

This blog is slow when I'm not in training mode, isn't it?
It turns out September was inadvertently something of a rest month. Between tapering for the tri, taking the next week easy, then letting myself be distracted by lousy weather and busy mornings, I didn't run or bike very much, and I haven't swum since the tri.

I'm back on track again, because I don't want to hibernate too much this winter. In a couple of weeks I'm going to be looking for a swim coach to actually get some breathing while swimming lessons. Meanwhile I'm really enjoying the running, and managing to get in one or two rides a week. I've been riding on Friday mornings with Amanda, who recently got a fancy new carbon fiber bike. I have to work really hard to keep up with her on that thing, which makes the ride more interesting!

Running speed

Just a quickie before I'm out the door for my long run of the week. I was just looking at my summer training logs. I am still a S L O W runner but it turns out I have actually sped up as I've increased my distance - just like absolutely everyone says you will! Two months ago my average pace was 12 min, 20 sec/mile (see? slow), in August my average was a full minute faster, 11 min, 37 sec. Sure it's still slow, but if I can actually shave off a minute/month, I'll be at a 7 min mile by February. Even if the rate of increase slows considerably, my winter training "plan" such as it is should have me noticeably faster come spring. Cool!

Do we ever think we're good enough?

I bumped into a friend during my morning run yesterday. We went to law school together and our daughters are in the same grade. We ran together for a short while then I headed home while she did another lap around the pond. She's faster than me so we both had to adjust our pace a bit to run together.

She told me that she runs 5 days a week, for about 45 minutes each time. I told her that I was impressed. I didn't mention that I was also intimidated by her running, but I suspect my tone gave me away. Her response? In an ashamed tone she said "but that's all I do. I don't bike, or swim, like you. "

Here we were, two busy women, lives full of work and kid responsibilities, still making time to stay (get) in shape. Instead of being proud of what we do, we each think the other is doing more, doing a better job, and we each discount what we do as not enough.

I am trying, really trying, to stop doing that. To stop judging my own efforts and accomplishments as not good enough. Trying to quiet the voice inside me that dismisses my efforts because it thinks that if I can do it it's clearly not hard enough to count.

What I don't know is, with what do I replace that voice? I think my self-criticism is part of how I keep pushing myself further. I find it hard to believe that pride and satisfaction is enough. I'd like to find out though.

Sprint Triathlon Race Report

Here it is, several days later, and I'm still high from this race. After I post this I'm going out for a run - I'm missing having a training goal but looking forward to seeing how it goes.

***

I’m a morning person, but getting up before 5 on a cold grey day is a challenge even for me. Nevertheless, we got up and managed to get going in time to get to the race site by 6:30. Everyone recommended arriving early so you can get a good spot in transition. It turns out I probably didn’t need to be that early, but given my pre-race nerves I don’t think I could have let myself arrive any later.

After getting my race packet (swim cap, timing chip, and race numbers), I found a volunteer to mark me. Getting my number marked on my arms and leg, and my age on my calf, made it all feel real. It was fascinating watching women getting ready and looking at their ages. In a few cases, I was wildly inaccurate in my estimation of a woman’s age. One woman who I would have pegged at 32, based on her physical appearance, was marked with a number 47. Her face did actually look her age, but she was incredibly strong, and held herself like someone much younger. They grouped the older Newbie wave together in the transition area, so I was surrounded by other women my age. Many of them had clearly remained in good physical condition all along, but many more looked like me: women who had woken up sometime in their 30s or 40s or even 50s and decided they were going to get in shape. In terms of strength and fitness, I looked like I was right in the middle of the group, which is what I had expected.

Setting up transition was easy and then I had lots and lots of time to wait. I had a banana, people watched, and talked and talked again about my strategy and expectations for the race. Everyone was incredibly friendly and interested in talking triathlon.

Eventually it was nearing 8:00, and the race directors gathered us together for a short talk then we walked, in our waves, to the start area of the swim. The older Newbies were the last wave, so we had to wait about half an hour before our start time. Every five minutes a wave would get into the water and start out. We clapped and cheered for each wave. Then I’d watch the swimmers, trying to figure out what it would be like when I got in the water. The really good swimmers were amazing. They shot out, so much faster than I can swim that it didn’t feel like the same sport. But in every wave I saw women doing the breast stroke, the back stroke, even holding onto the kayaks for support. I knew I could do the distance, I just didn’t have any clue how long it would take and how tired it would make me under race conditions.

By the time I got into the water, my toes were freezing. The water was warmer than the air, thankfully. Once we were all loosely gathered, they started the countdown, the bullhorn went off, and we were off. I completely forgot the advice to wait a few seconds before starting, and took off with the great mass of swimmers. It turned out not to matter, because the fast ones pulled ahead immediately, leaving me toward the back of the middle of the pack, right where I expected to be. I had planned to do as much crawl as I could do, and do the rest breast stroke. That wasn’t actually how it turned out. I did a little crawl, but as soon as I needed to breathe, I breathed in some lake water, coughed, and switched to breaststroke. I could not get my stroke right. My rhythm was completely off, and I was going far slower than in practice. At the same time I was breathing hard, and my heart rate was up. I switched to sidestroke, and found that I could control my breathing better and actually went faster than I could go with my out of rhythm breaststroke. Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out how to avoid people’s hands and legs, and periodically choking on unexpected waves. I did my best to stay to the outside of the crowd, which worked pretty well except when swimmers cut across the pack to go hang on a kayak, or swam across my path unexpectedly. I spent most of my time doing sidestroke, with a few attempts to use crawl to speed up, and breaststroke to see if I could find my rhythm (I never could). I wasn’t so much tiring myself out, as just feeling like it was taking forever and I was getting nowhere. It turns out that it was only 13 minutes, not forever. At last I saw the last buoy and the chute that headed toward the shore. When it got too shallow to swim I stood up and started walking out of the water. As soon as I hit shore, I started jogging toward the transition area.

I thought my first transition went well, but it turns out it took 2:43. I can make that faster with practice. I could have run faster from the swim, and I was pretty deliberate about getting myself ready to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I put on my helmet first, as everyone recommends, then pulled on my socks and bike shoes. Next time I’m going to bike sockless, especially if it’s a grey day. It’s really hard putting socks on wet feet, and my feet never did dry all the way. If I had gone sockless until the run they probably would have dried in the shoes and the run would have been a little more comfortable. Once I was set I ran my bike to the mounting area. I had good hustle getting out of T1. My competitive juices were up now that I had conquered the swim, and I couldn’t understand why so many women were walking their bikes.

As soon as I got on my bike, I took off fast. The course starts on a slight uphill, and a lot of riders were taking it slowly. I didn't. I pushed hard, as soon as I was pedaling. I was starting out tired but pumped up, and raced up that first hill, then went as fast as I could down the other side to the park exit. After leaving the park, the course has a fairly steep and long uphill section. I was mashing up the hill fast, passing lots of riders, including one woman who had been walking the hill and was getting back on her bike as I passed. I told her that this was the worst climb of the course, and responded “really? I love you!” Of course, worst climb does not mean only climb. The course is a typical New England ride – none of it is truly flat. But compared to my 10 mile commute, the hills were nothing. It is a beautiful course, although I barely saw it. I was deeply in my head, biking fast and aggressively, taking the down hills fast and hardly slowing on the ups. For part of the course I was trading places with two other women, both marked with 44 on their calves. It was fun to compete against them, and probably helped me keep my speed up.

As we came back into the park, we were biking past people doing their run. The last leg of the bike course is a long slow uphill. Even though I still felt great and was doing fine on the hill, it was a little intimidating to realize that I was about to get off the bike and start running. I shook off the fear, and focused on ending fast on the bike.

At the end of the bike course you have to dismount and walk or run your bike back to the transition area. Once again, I ran through this part, so pumped I barely noticed Dusty waving at me, or any of the other people around me. I really needed to pee, so I took the time to do so after getting on my running shoes. Even with the port-a-potty break I only took 2:03 for T2. Then out I went for the run.

Every warning is right. When I first started running, my legs felt weird. Not tired exactly, just tight and wrong. Someone on the sidelines cheered me on, and promised that my muscles would loosen up soon. Even though I’d heard that before, it felt good to hear it when I needed it.

I was running next to a couple of other women, and noted to them that I couldn’t figure out what pace I should be doing. I couldn’t tell if I was tired or not, or how long I had until my legs gave up. Another woman running fast past us told me that I’d find my rhythm soon. She was right. I couldn’t tell at all whether I was running fast or slow, but I found a good pace, that I felt I could keep up for a while. There were water stops at miles 1 and 2, and at each one I walked just long enough to drink a Dixie cup of water. I can’t run and drink at the same time, at least not without hurling. Other than that, I ran the whole thing, at a very steady pace. The run course snaked through the park, and eventually headed back toward the start area. When I could see the end, and there seemed to be about half a mile left, I noted to the woman running with me at the time that according to my race strategy, this was where I was supposed to kick it up for the last bit. As she started to laugh I did too, and said my hope now was to keep myself from slowing to a walk. It turned out that although I couldn’t actually speed up until the last hundred yards, I didn’t need to slow down any either. As I got to the very end, I kicked it up a little, and hurled myself through the ending arch.

That felt so good! The time clock said 2:03, and I knew it was tracking time since the first wave took off, so although I had no idea of my actual time, I knew it had to be under two hours. I had been hesitant to set a real time goal for myself because I didn’t know how to judge how I’d do in race conditions.

My expectation had been that I’d finish at the back of the middle of the pack, and my hope was that I’d do a little better than that. I did far better than that. My overall time was 1:27:53. My finishing rank was 252 out of 611 finishers, or just out of the top third. I also managed to PR in the run portion - my 5K time was my fastest ever by several minutes.

The entire race was incredibly fun. I loved hustling through the transitions, racing up and down the hills on my bike, realizing that I could in fact run even after doing everything else. I can't wait for the next one!

Results are in!

Unbelievable!  There were 750 racers. 238 in the Newbie group I was racing in.  My total time was 1:27:53. 

My swim was 13:15 (rank 405/750 which puts me right where I expected to be, at the top of the back of the pack (BOP)).

T1 was 2:43 - I thought I was faster than that, but easy enough to work on speeding that up.

My ride time was 38:14 (rank 111/750!!!).  I knew I'd killed the ride.  

T2 was 2:03, even with a port-a-potty stop.

Run time 31:39 (rank 369/750).  That's my fastest 5K ever!  

I did it!!!!

That felt FANTASTIC! I'll write a long race report later, but I wanted to mark this feeling while I'm still sort of high from the race. The swim was about how I expected. I did okay, and now I need to get better. I killed the bike course - I think I managed an 18 mph average. The run was also pretty good. Not super fast, but I was steady and strong all the way through. Transitions went well, too.

Most of all, I loved doing it. I loved running out with my bike, zipping through the crowd and making up the time I'd lost on the swim, hustling through the T2 to get out on the run, and feeling my legs loosen up over the first mile. I can't wait to do another one!

Tomorrow is it!

I am surprised that I'm not nervous yet. It mostly doesn't seem real to me at this point. I've just laid out my transition area stuff, and I'm about to go for a short warm up run,* so it's not that I'm in denial. It's possible that I'm simply feeling ready, or maybe in a couple of hours I'll freak out completely and not be able to get any sleep tonight.

This morning Dusty and I did a slow easy ten mile bike ride. It was a gorgeous day for a ride and a large part of me wanted to speed up and keep going for a couple of hours. Tomorrow's also going to be gorgeous, so hopefully I'll feel equally eager to get out there and go. In any case, I've got my race strategy set, and I've done all the training I can for now. As long as I can sleep tonight I should be all set...

* The theory being that you go for a short run the day before, to get the inevitable bad run out of your system before the race itself.

T minus 3 days!

I love tapering and carb loading. That is all. :-)

Faster run

I was recently fretting because I was afraid I wasn't really improving, that without an organized training plan, I was just exercising with no focused path toward increased speed and distance. I tried to convince myself that in fact I was doing fine just following what my body wanted to do, increasing when I had the time and the ability. But a part of me continued (continues, to be honest) to be critical of my training. A part of me is convinced that I'm not doing it right, that I'm not really working hard enough at this, that I'm not a "real" triathlete in training or I'd be doing x, y, or z.

I'm not going to keep arguing with that part of myself, as long as it doesn't stop me from training. I will, however, note the following... Last week was my longest run week since I started training. I ran 19.5 miles, much of it over the new longer run I've been trying to turn into my standard run. Then two days ago when I entered my taper week, I did my oldest standard run, which is just under 3 miles. Ohmygod fast! I cut nearly two minutes/mile off my time. I completed the entire run in 30 minutes. I felt strong and fast, and like I could have kept going, and kept up that pace.

We will ignore the fact that this morning my run went like this: okay, time to get dressed and do the same run. well, maybe I'll just do two miles. Halfway down our block: this hurts, I'm going to go sit on the couch and post to my blog instead of running. After all, I'm supposed to be tapering, aren't I? Is there a difference between tapering and sitting on the couch? I hope not...

Another goal?

Yesterday we went to a wonderful barbecue to celebrate the marriage of our friends Rob and Amy. Rob and Amy run marathons. Rob has achieved 10 states toward his goal of running a marathon in every state. They met through a local running club. Not surprisingly, there were many runners there, mostly distance runners. We drank PBR, talked about goals, and everyone made a mad dash for the burgers when they were ready (and everyone agreed that we run/bike/whatever so we can eat).

It's funny how your perspective changes when you start making goals, and when you hang out with people whose idea of fun is endurance events. Rob invited Dusty to join him in October for his New Hampshire marathon. I said I might come cheer them on. Without missing a beat, Rob suggested I join them, and run the half-marathon. Some combination of the beer, the conversations I'd been having all day, and how I've been feeling about my running lately made me surprise myself by saying yes!

Actually, at first I laughed and pointed out that my new goal for my standard running distance is 4.5 miles. Rob shrugged and said that if I can run 4.5 miles, I can do a half-marathon. He knows what he's talking about when it comes to distance running, and he's not someone to talk a friend into an impossible goal. The more I think about it, the more it seems like a good post-triathlon goal. If I have to walk some of it, that's okay. It turns out that the date of the New Hampshire marathon is not good for me, but I'm on the search for another fall half-marathon. It looks like I've got my next goal all set.

I was having a morning where I was feeling really critical of my training method. It wasn’t so much an objective evaluation of my progress, but I was fretting because I haven’t been following an official training plan, and haven’t been doing an organized ramp up of my training. I’ve increased the miles I’m running, but it’s been inconsistent, dependent more upon the events of the week than my training needs. My biking is all over the place – I’m not worried about the biking portion of this triathlon, so I bike when I can, and don’t worry about it when I can’t. This means that my biking miles vary between 7 miles/week (a serious low point) and 166 miles the week we did Cape in a Day. I’m averaging something like 18 miles/week which is too low for me to consider it training. It’s not even maintenance level. Swimming has also been inconsistent. I try to get in a swim each week, and I swam a ton when we were on vacation, but I haven’t been organized or focused.

So this morning I was thinking about this inconsistency and lack of structure, and I began to be hypercritical of myself. After all, I was supposed to take this seriously. I was supposed to experience what it feels like to push myself physically. If I had only created a plan and stuck to it, I’d be much further ahead in my training. I’d perform better on September 12, I’d be in better shape now, yadda yadda. We all know this emotional drill, don’t we?

I was telling Dusty all about these thoughts while we ran together this morning. While we did a 4.5 mile run that, a few weeks ago, we did as a run/walk, with far more walking than running. He tried every possible argument to get me to get over myself. He pointed out that I’m 44 and started getting in shape at 40, and therefore need to go slowly and expect it to take time to whip myself into racing shape. He reminded me that I don’t want to have a catastrophic accident or a heart attack, both of which are possibilities if I push myself too hard. He pointed out that I’m doing great and am in the best shape of my life. He argued that most women my age are not picking up triathlon training as a new hobby, and I should feel proud of myself. None of this was working particularly well. Then he reminded me that one year ago, he and I did a three day bike ride from Boston to New Paltz, NY. The longest day was a hair under a century, and it nearly killed me. I had a great time on the ride, but it was well out of my comfort zone, and I walked all the tough hills. Since then I’ve done the ALC (7 days/560 miles) and Cape in a Day (140 miles in a day, and a stupidly hot day at that), and I’m physically ready enough for my tri that I know I’m going to finish it. If we did the New Paltz ride again, we’d do it in two days instead of three, and I wouldn’t blink at the hills we had to climb. That discussion was what I needed. Comparing where I was one year ago, and where I am now is such a good benchmark. I didn’t do much training at all during the intervening winter, and I am still in substantially better shape now than I was then. This winter I have every intention of continuing to run, and will be looking for swimming opportunities. I will make a realistic plan so I don’t lose too much ground during hibernation, and I’ll come out next spring with goals in mind, and the knowledge that I can reach them. I don’t know if I’ll make the same huge leap forward in the next year that I made this one, but I know I’m still moving forward. Hell, I’m still moving my goal post. I haven’t found my end goal yet (if there is such a thing).

Also, I may not be very organized, but I have definitely made running progress. When I got back from the ALC and started training, my “regular” run (which I did not do regularly) was slightly under 3 miles, and I found it hard. My summer regular run is not quite 4 miles, and much hillier than the old one. I think it’s time to make this morning’s run my new “regular” run, and turn the old one into my easy day. Six months ago, I ran sometimes because it’s a good way to stay in shape, but I didn’t like it and wasn’t very good at it. If you had told me then that I would be going into the fall intending to run 18 miles/week every week, I wouldn’t have believed I could get there.

catching up

I have fallen behind on my training blog, but not on my training! I have so much I want to write about, but very little time to get it all down.
This past week I biked to Mystic Lake and did a 666 yard swim with Amanda (we then biked home - the bike ride was going to be longer but we were too hungry!), I did my first bike/run brick, complete with wind sprints on the bike, and I took part in an incredibly illuminating beginner swim clinic with 100 other triathlon newbies.

I also got depressed and down on myself that I'm not further along in my training (I should be increasing my distance and speed on the run! I'm not running enough! I'm going to be further back in the standings than I should be because I'm not training hard enough), and then managed to get over it, at least a little bit. I have a freaking lot of training to do before I can start worrying whether I should be faster stronger better. I'm a lousy, slow swimmer, but I was not at the absolute back of the group last night. Given where I started, and how much time I actually have for training, I'm right where I should be. Which is at the very end of the middle of the pack or the very front of the back of the pack. :-)

What I really need to do is get over myself, accept that this is where I am right now, and go train some more.

My training has continued to be inconsistent, but heading in the right direction. Because of the girls' camp schedules, I've had to drive to work every day, which badly cuts into my available biking time. I have been able to run a decent amount. I am up to about 17 miles/week on a consistent basis, and believe I can increase that to 20 without too much pain. My standard run is slightly under 4 miles, but very very hilly. I think it's time to increase it to slightly over 4 miles, and see what happens.

The opportunity to swim regularly while on vacation was fantastic. Last night Amanda and I biked to a nearby lake and did a 662 yard swim, then biked home. I definitely could have gone further than that if she had wanted to keep going.* I was slow, but not ridiculously so. I do need to learn freestyle if I'm going to keep competing, but for this first one, the breast stroke will get me where I want to be just fine.

*I still have the same damn problem with psyching myself out at the end. I wasn't wiped out, but as we got near shore, my stroke started falling apart, I did some back stroke and some side stroke, and I generally stopped doing a good job on the swim. I do the same thing at the end of my runs. Once I can see the end point, I lose energy and motivation. It wasn't simply tiredness: if the swim had been 800 yards, I would have run out of steam at the same point on the way back to shore. When I should be pushing myself to pour on the last of my energy, instead I decide emotionally that I'm done, and lose my energy.

Sharing the prize

The World Triathlon Corporation has recently instituted a new rule, requiring that finishers cross the line with a time within 8% of the winner's time or they don't get prize money.

In two recent half Ironman races, the winning women hung out near the finish line, delaying their win, to make it easier for the next few women to satisfy the 8% rule. (Williamson Sat at Steelhead Finish Line to Help Other Pros Julie Dibens waits for 5 minutes before crossing finish line and winning Ironman 70.3 Boulder)

I think that's fantastic. (I also think it's something male athletes would be less likely to do.) It hurts their time, and presumably could hurt their career stats and therefore their earnings/endorsement potential, but they have done it anyway, because it's the right thing to do. These are the kind of athletes I'd like to see the girls emulate.