Goose's Training Update...

I am feeling like a lean, mean, sprint triathlete machine! I feel like if the race was tomorrow I could get through it, although I still have a lot of work to do to learn what it feels like to put all three together simultaneously and swim/bike/run. I am training so well for this tri right now, that I hope I can keep it up for when it really counts, because technically I could have gone from couch to training starting in say March and still be fine. Will I lose my mojo at some point? probably. Consistency has to be the theme of my life this year. Keep getting back on the horse.

I have fallen into a rhythm of 3 runs, 2 bikes, 1 swim a week. And I'm still doing the shred. I no longer hate Jillian. I love her.

When I cold-turkey started biking the 12 miles, it took me 50 min. I have been whittling that down little by little, and yesterday I rode the 12 miles in 45 min!

Swimming will be my ace in the hole, hopefully. I discovered my first session swimming laps that I am a natural in the pool. I love being in the water swimming laps and I can see that Evie's mad skills in the pool are not just a gene-pool anomoly, but actually can be traced back to me. I did try swim team for awhile as a teen, but had such severe sinus issues I had to quit. But I remember loving it then too. I just do not get bored swimming laps in the pool, and I don't really even get all that tired doing it either. I wonder how it will differ in a lake. Well for sure I will not be able to do flip turns, and there will be people pounding around me, I wonder how that will affect my time.

Anyway, my fist 16 laps (equiv of 1/4 mi) I did in the pool after not swimming laps for years and years, I did in 10 min...I did it again and did it in 9 min. Last week when H and I went to swim laps I did it in 7 min, over and over again. We swim laps for 40 min when we go. I also did some kicking laps with the kick board, and that really felt like a workout for my legs more than just the lap swimming did.

So, I am excited for the swimming portion of the race. And hoping that I can whittle another couple mins off my biking. The run, who knows, I think I run 3 in maybe a little less than 30 min, but haven't been on a treadmill to know for sure. I have a new course that I run now...more hills and longer distance, I've been running for about 35 min without stopping and want to get that up to 40 min. In the spring I will start putting the training together and do a bike run, or a swim bike, to see what those transitions feel like.

I am within like a pound of my goal weight and feel really good, and want to just continue to work on strengthening my muscles in my arms and legs and abs and core, along with keeping up the cardio to maintain my massive efforts to pull my body back together!

My pre-cycle week last week was a total disaster with food. Good grief, seriously a wreck! Now suddenly I am not even thinking about food. It truly is the cycle. So annoying. I think I will track this month to see how I feel each week about life and eating and exercising. It will help me not to give up when I have a bad week and eat 4 slices of pizza, or snarf the rest of the bag of potato chips. I will know its because I am a female who does not respond well to horomonal fluctuations and it will pass in a few days. hahaha.

Keep up the good work girls!! I want to FOR SURE have us signed up for something for when we are up in MN this summer. And I really would like to try the TC duathlon this fall if possible.

Goose Ouuuuuuuut.

Training a Goose

Feeling very excited about being registered for my first sprint tri, which is aptly named "My First Triathlon". It is at Lake Lanier Islands in Georgia, on June 5th. I am thrilled that Maverick is coming down to join me!

It will involve a 1/4 mile swim along the shoreline of Lake Lanier, which is the equivalent of about 16 laps in a 25 yd pool, a 12 mile bike ride, and a 3 mile run.

Maverick was wondering about goal times. I looked up on the site the 2008 times by age group. I am in the 35-39 and Mav will cross over into the 40-44 even though she won't hit the big 4-0 until Nov, you compete based on your age as of Dec. 31 of THIS year, 2010.

So...
In both age groups in 2008 the fastest time was about 1 hr, 23 min. The slowest time was about 2 hours, 23 min.

Maverick, I agree that your primary goal should be under 2 hours, as is mine. I like to kick it a bit and think I will make my goal 1 hr, 45 min, which would be the middle of the pack.

Breaking it down...

Swimming - I am not worried about the swimming even though I have not swam a lap since last summer. I think I am a natural swimmer and have a strong freestyle stroke. Basically my plan is, starting in March or April, to buy some lap swims at my daughters swim club and go swim laps to build up my endurance to 16 laps. Now my 10 year old swimmer can swim a 500 yd freestyle, which is 100 yds more than we will be swimming, in 6 min. 59 sec. I have no lofty goals such as this. I would like to do the swim in 10 min or less.

Swim Goal: 10 min or less

Biking - This is my weak area, I am not a biker at all, don't even own one. But I have already started training and find that I like to bike for exercise, even though I have only done a stationary bike so far. I am so lucky in that my dear friend H, who is also doing the tri with us-and will be in your age group, Mav-has a husband who is basically Lance Armstrong with a day job. He is a mega serious biker and they have all kinds of fancy biking workout equipment in their home gym. I have been going over there at least 2 times a week to bike on the actual bike I will be doing the tri on. H has been teaching me about cadence and pushing myself. As the weather is already getting nice here, we will start heading outside where H will try to kill me in a nearby n'hood with lots of hills. I know I will be ready for the bike portion by June. I currently ride 12 miles in 50 minutes. By the time of the tri I would like to shave that down to 45 min.

Bike Goal: 45 min.

Running - I am not worried about the running portion other than to hope that my body does not poop out after the swim and bike. When you first get off the bike your legs feel like bricks, so I will have to train by biking and then running to get a feel for how long it takes my legs to recover from the biking as I run. I can already run 3 miles easily, so my training goal will be to bike and transition to running. In my training I would like to start running 4 mi more consistently, so the 3 mi feels like a piece of cake. Like Mav I know I can run 3 mi in 30 min, but after swimming and biking, I am not so sure. I will have a goal of 35-40 min. That seems long for 3 miles but who knows how I'll be feeling by this leg. I will know better as I start training biking and running simultaneously.

Running Goal: 35-40 min

So that adds up to 10+45+40= 1 hr. 35 min, add in a couple minutes each for the transitions. I think a reasonable goal for me to set for myself is 1 hr. 45 min. or less.

Goose Sprint Triathlon Goal: 1 hour and 45 minutes or less for 1/4 mile swim, 12 mile bike, 3 mile run.

Goose Out.

Training

OK I am signed up for a triathlon.  This is serious.  I think we need a countdown on the side bar of this blog.  Anyone know how to make that happen?  Iceman?  We have approximately 4-1/2  months to completely heal my knee so I am confident of the run, master faster biking and learn to swim.  At least learn to swim more than one lap without having to stop to catch my breath.  I am certainly motivated to get in my workout each day.  Right now I am doing body pump 2 days a week followed by 30 minutes of elipticle, cycle class once a week and running 2 days a week.

Here is a break down of my thoughts on each area of the tri:

Number one:  Running.  I am really only running 1-2 times a week at the moment because I am trying to let my knee continue to heal.  It is definately improved over last fall when I was in quite a bit of pain after 1 mile but still gets sore.  I asked the personal trainer who reminded me that no blood goes to tendons like it does to muscles so while it is healing it will take significantly longer than a muscle.  In the mean time I have been rolling out my muscles and tendons every time I go to the Y and before and after my runs.  Definately seems to be helping.  My friends are laughing at me that I seem obsessed with rolling my muscles.  Whenever I have a new pain I tell them I will roll it out.  I am trying to figure out how to roll my tricept muscle at the moment.  The right one seems to stiffen up more than the left when I work them.

I also am running quite slow right now.  I have decided for the rest of the winter to simple focus on maintaining running fitness rather than speed.

Biking:  I am taking a spin class which I am loving.  As I speed down the flat roads or push up the hills I think about kicking my sisters butt on this triathlon.  Ha ha ha.  Actually I fully expect her to kick mine because she is far more intense than I am but it does motivate me during class so I will take it.  It will be hard for me to get outside on a bike much before the race since the roads will be slushy until about a month before.  However, I do have a master biker in my husband who will hopefully push me as we do some biking around town.  I will say that I did ride my bike to work a couple times last year with Isabelle in a trailer behind me which included a killer hill near our home and I did great.  Riding without that extra weight should seem like a breeze in comparisson.

Swimming:  I am currently doing nothing about this.  There is a triathlon training group that starts in April at the Y that I plan to join but I am wondering if I should sign up for a swim lesson before then just to get started.  I did some lap swimming with Iceman several years ago and we both discovered that fitness in one area of your life does not translate to fitness in swimming.  While I do feel like I improved during our weekly meetings I am wondering if I will need more than a few weeks to work up to the 1/4 mile I will have to swim.  I do anticipate this being the event that takes me the longest.  I can make it up on the bike or run.

The big question...How long will it take me?  What should my time goal be?  Part of me wants to say 30 minutes per event but reality tells me that isn't likely.  Can I say under 2 hours?  I think that is where I will start.  Once I am outside on the bike I will have a better feel for how long 12 miles will take me.  And once I start swimming I will have a better feel for if I will survive 1/4 mile of swimming.  I already know how to run and while I know I could do 3 miles in 30 minutes I am thinking of saying I will do that in 40 minutes because it is last and I will be tired.

How about Goose?  What are your goals? She has already informed me that she will not be by my side through the race encouraging me and letting me encourage her.  She is competitive and will be self motivating to the end.  I do have a friend who did a tri with her sister and the two of them stuck together the entire time motivating one another and accomplishing a goal together and even though they weren't in the same age group the younger started back with the older so they could go together.  But Goose doesn't have to do that with me because I will just be happy to be there (having driven all the way across country to do this "with" her) and to accomplish this goal I have desired to tackle for a couple years now. (Just a little passive agressive guilt to keep it real.  I am in full acceptance of doing it on my own and feel fine about it.)

IT WAS HORRIBLE! I think I will do it again Monday.

Today I went back to the Y with my neighbor for "Body Pump". She talks about it all the time so I was looking forward to trying it out.

I arrive late and we sneak in just as they are already "warming up", doing a few squats with a weight bar in their shoulders. We proceed to go from squats to chest presses to triceps to biceps to shoulders to lunges, because the squats weren't evil enough, to back to abs. After an hour of pain they let you go. Of course I could hardly walk afterward.

I had told Goose I would weigh myself while there today since I don't have a home scale and therefore no idea where I am. I figure as long as my clothes are comfy I am fine. I will simply say I am in the zone I seem to always be in and that is just fine. I would be lying if I said I didn't want to weigh 5-10 less but I would just have to buy all new pants so why get too excited. My goal here is primarily health and not weight loss and I definitely feel like I made some improvements to my health today.

On the way home from the Y I was talking with John and had to get off the phone with him because I literally could not hold the phone up on my ear any longer. It is only a 3 mile drive! I probably should not go downstairs again today since I have almost fallen when my leg muscles failed me. I am afraid to think of how I will feel in the morning.

I would like to do a walk/run tomorrow and am mentally trying to prepare to do so in the frozen tundra. I have done it before, have the correct clothing and don't plan to do more than 2 miles. I even think I can convince my winter run loving hubby to join me. It should be good.

In keeping with my desire for health and not weight loss I will confess to some very yummy, extra crispy french fries last night on date night. My goal is to be able to live my life. I realize that french fries don't really fall under the healthy category any more than the weight loss category but I am just saying that if overall I am healthy then a few fries once a week won't throw me off too much. John and I go out every Thursday night and split a snack of some sort. Often it is the brownie Sundae which is quite yummy but when I am off sugar we do the french fries. Truth is I am more of a salt than sugar girl so it is satisfying to me. I knew I had worked out yesterday and knew I was going to go again today and so I didn't feel guilty about it. So there.

With all this extra energy and clarity in my brain from getting back in the exercise kick I realized this week how lazy I have gotten and unfocused with my time. After picking up the house I tend to wander. Today with a noon workout I might have been tempted to bum around all morning and not start my day until mid afternoon when I had finished the work out, eaten and showered. But instead I picked a task I wanted to work on, wrapping gifts, and got started. I feel great to be almost done wrapping all the gifts I already have and armed with a list of wrapping supplies I need to complete the rest.

This is why we get healthy. Not just to look good but to be able to engage in our lives, get things done, be productive people. I don't want to spend my life on the couch. I want to live it!

Maverick Out

You spin me round, round baby

I took my second spin class today. Since my knee won't let me do the runs I like to do I am in search of new forms of cardio. I like the idea of a spin class because I dream of doing a mini triathlon so I can tell myself this is part of that training.

My first class last week was OK. My quads were burning almost the entire time, I turned on the monitor wrong so I never knew my speed, I wore sweat pants which flopped around, made me quite warm and had no padding on my butt and I had no sense of what kind of resistance or exertion I was supposed to be experiencing. At the end of the class I don't know if I did anything right but at the same time I was unsure I would be able to walk up the stairs to go home.

Today I was a pro. I knew what to expect. I wore my bike shorts with the padded butt, correctly turned on the monitor and was more aware of how much or little resistance I wanted during each transition. It felt like a real workout and I imagine that I will be better at keeping up with my hubby next summer.

This class is at the YMCA near my house. My neighbor has quite a few guest passes she needs to use before the end of the year and has invited me to join her. We are discussing taking a different class tomorrow called "body pump". She talks about this class all the time and I am interested to see how confused and uncoordinated I can be during that one.

Isabelle loves the childcare at the Y. She starts off in one room where they do some sort of cute craft each day and by the end of the class she is in the kids gym where they have the usual plastic slide experience but also lots of mats around to roll around on and a rope hanging from the ceiling that the kids can swing from. I have to drag her out of there every time.

I spent the last year working in childcare at a different health club and I can tell you the kids didn't have nearly as much fun. No structure at all just a bunch of free for all play. I am trying to get my job back starting in January but if it doesn't work out I definitely think I will join the Y. If my daughter is happy my workouts will be so much more enjoyable.

So day 3 of my body feeling sore and I am loving it. I feel stronger. I feel more in control. I feel like I will be able to regain my health. And I am finding myself feeling capable in other areas of my life as well. I can imagine myself finishing some projects in my office closet. I can imagine myself being more disciplined with my quiet times and bible study materials. I can imagine myself taking on more responsibilities at our church, in John's business. I can imagine myself taking charge of a 4 year old who is really starting to wear me out.

I haven't begun to plan dinner yet but I know that needs to be my next step if I am going to continue to be successful. If I don't know what we are having for dinner in the next 20 minutes I likely will make a bad choice when the time does come.