adventures from training to be an ironman

2012-01-29T16:38:00.000-08:00

i'm officially a triathlete. my first "unoffical" olympic distance event is done and as such here is the obligatory race report. now i've read some super detailed race reports from fellow teammates who can remember ever detail of ever second. and i've be relayed race report stories of a guy who may have raced for 30 minutes and made the report about an hour long...but here's mine.

i swam & survived. i crushed it on the bike. and then i ran and ran some more and felt pretty good. what? not enough details? okay. fine. here goes.

this was the 10th annual memorial louie tri. it's dedicated to a teammate from LLS' Team in Training Ironteam who passed away 10 years ago this month from leukemia. Louie's story is inspirational and his mantra of "live life to the fullest" has inspired many people in their efforts to train for Ironman. This year the event took place in Pleasant Hill, CA. I had packed up everything the night before and had my bike waiting to get loaded onto the car in the morning. I got up at 4:45a.m. to eat breakfast, get dressed, put the bike on the car, then drive over to Colin's to pick him up and get to the event for the athlete check in at 7am. We arrived before the sun was even up. yawn! The silicon valley team and the san fran team were to do the event together so that meant somewhere between 75 and 100 of us on the course. we wanted to get there at the start of check in so we could get our stuff set up and then have some time to mentally get ready. looked like that was everyone else's idea since the parking lot was full of folks waiting to get into the pool area. Once we got into the pool area we headed straight to check-in. I think we were one of the first folks since Colin was #25 & I was #30. There was a gal there doing body marking (which means writing your race number on your arms, legs, and also your age on one of your legs). i laughed and told the girl "lots of luck" with the arm numbers and when i took off my sweatshirt she laughed and said she's just write it on there even though no one could really read it.

i found a spot to park my bike in the racks and tried to eavesdrop on what other folks where doing. i laid down a little towel, put my helmet and sunglasses on my handlebars like the guy next to me, put my bag of running clothes at the back of the towel. in front of the running bag, i laid out my running shoes, watch, and water belt. my water belt was already packed with gels and my asthma inhaler in case i needed it. in front of the running shoes were my cycling shoes with my cycling socks stuffed in side. in the front i had my bag of cycling clothes and my race belt attached to it. that way i could pick it all up and run inside the locker room to get changed. inside my cycling bag i had already stuffed my jersey pocket with a spare tube, my tire iron since i doesn't fit in my tool bag, and some sports beans. i think the layout worked pretty well for me especially since it's the winter and i wanted to have layers. i think once it gets to spring and summer i'll wear a trisuit and will just have that laid out in front to remove one of the steps. this time i swam in a bathing suit but when we get to the open water swim i'm going to play around with some options i've heard other gals say they do including wearing a sports bra and jog shorts under the wetsuit and then just putting your one-sy, i mean skin suit, on over top of that.

The transition area

the swim was in a pool. it's january in california and even though our air temp isn't too bad an open water swim may not be so pleasant this early in the year...plus we haven't even tried that yet so throwing it on race day wouldn't have been very nice. instead of having us swim in lanes we had 4 buoys set up in the pool that we had to swim 16 laps around to make the distance around 0.9 miles. it was meant to simulate the chaos of the mass start swim we'll experience at Ironman Canada. Since I'm not a good swimmer yet I asked what I should do and the advice was get in the water last. Well given the pool lap isn't too big that worked somewhat okay until the speedy swimmers were lapping me. so we jump in and i'm nervous. it's a lot of people and i've never swam anything like this before and i'm seriously still learning how to do the stroke correctly. the whistle went off and we started swimming. just a few things i remember.

that many swimmers in a small pool makes a big whirlpool. i've heard about getting pulled into the draft of other swimmers, but i think this effect was magnified by the situation. the result was the pull helped me to calm down a little bit
i'm really bad at sighting. i had no idea where i was. i ended up swimming pretty much hugging the wall most of the time which made my swim a bit longer than folks who swam in about 10 feet along the buoys.
somewhere around lap 9 i thought, oh wow i'm
just keep swimming. even if it's that froggy type move to keep your head above water and get your barrings...just keep swimming
getting stuck in the armpit area of someone is really unnerving. there was this one guy i kept getting trapped by and i couldn't get around him.
hearing your coaches and captains cheer you on is super encouraging!

me & swim captain sam during set up

it was a good experience because in a real event the start will be chaos. except at the event i hear it will spread out and that the duration of this chaos will be a lot less than the event we just did. i was somewhere between the second half of the pack and 2/3 of the way back getting out of the pool. my transition was a bit slow as i wasn't exactly sure what i wanted to wear. i opted to go with the base layer, the jersey, the wind jacket, the bib shorts, skullcap, and arm warmers. somewhere in my scramble i totally forgot to put on my knee warmers. soon into the ride i regretted not having realized that sooner. my old cycling coach used to say never ride with your knees uncovered if it was below 70 (and i've heard 65 from others). it was definitely below 65 that early in the morning so my legs were a bit cold.

John G riding in memory of his daughter Marie

the ride was seriously tough. it was very hilly and never seemed to let up except for say the first mile near the school where we had our transitions. i decided the ride is my strength so i would work on moving my way up through the group. it was a fun game to play with myself because i'd try to guess how long it would take me to catch the next person ahead of me. i also realized i'm pretty good at being motivated to keep pushing even when my legs are hurting from the effort. i also realized that i'm not so bad at climbing hills. it's been a long time since i spent some serious time on the uphills and it's one of the things i'm looking forward to doing this year more of. i was pretty smart with not pushing too hard although i was pushing. i haven't done my lactic threshold in a long while but when i had done it previously i was around 168. i figured i'd dial it back a little bit and try to stick around 165 bpm for the hills. this seemed to suit me well. on the way back there was one area where the hill was super steep and it seemed like the headwind was whipping up over the top of the hill directly in my face. colin has got this crazy triple with a 30 tooth cog so he was just pedaling his way up the hill. i had to get up and stand. now, since i haven't been climbing in forever i was afraid my legs would revolt pretty quickly while standing but luckily they didn't. i used to love doing mt. eden repeats standing the whole way. maybe i'll have to go back to doing those now that i've got a little confidence boost from being able to prance up that tough spot by standing up. i was pretty pleased with my stats when i downloaded the garmin data. average speed was around 15mph which isn't too bad since the hills were tough. my average heart rate was 160 which meant i did a good job saving something for the run. and my average cadence was 83 which i was excited about because i've been trying to spin faster up the hills and this wasn't too bad.

honoree board listing out a bunch of the
people we ride in honor and in memory of

the run was a nice out and back pretty much flat course. i decided to just keep my cycling outfit on as i didn't want to hassle with the change. i wasn't really sure how my legs were going to feel after the challenging ride but surprisingly they were good. i'm a bit slow to warm up on the run so i opted to do a 5 minute run/1 minute walk interval. after two intervals i started to feel pretty good and tried to pick up my running pace (i started out somewhere around 10.5 minutes per mile when i got off the bike but i knew i wanted to go faster if i could manage it). after about 2 miles the swim coach started to run with me and we talked about the swim. i was really starting to feel good and realized we were picking up the pace very nicely. when we got to the return water stop coach karen stopped to wait for some other folks. i was feeling good and kept with the same 8.5 or 9 minute pace for awhile. that felt awesome. as i was getting close to the school i started sprinting and crossed the finish line smiling. all in all a good day and a great opportunity to learn some helpful tips.

hello stroke mate. will you be my new best friend? please check yes or no.

2012-01-25T11:48:00.000-08:00

swimming is hard. way harder than any other sport i've done before. i was reading no limits by michael phelps and there is a part in there where he says his friends always challenged him on just how hard swimming really is; they think it couldn't be that difficult but Phelps backs it up with the world record stats for various distances in the water versus on the running track. he's got a point. he also challenged his friends to show up at his workouts and try to make it through the warm up but no one ever showed up. nice!

i think swimming is hard because there are so many individual things you need to think about and get them all right so that you are efficient. in my case, i'm just trying to get a few of them to be decent so that i stay above water. focusing on how far you are pushing & the position of your hand at the extension or how high your elbows are is tough when you are just trying to make sure you are sucking down a mouthful of water ever time you turn your head. but that's where training equipment comes in...

this morning i met a new piece of training equipment called the stoke mate. it's this hard plastic loop that you slip your hand through and it positions your wrists and hands correctly. it forces you to think about shrugging up with your shoulders, keeping your elbows high, and then once you get into the pull it gets you to bend your elbow and pull with your forearm and hand. it's pretty cool, and feels really weird

from http://www.mailsports.co.uk/finis/

80/20 Rule to Not Looking Like a Rookie

2012-01-18T09:19:00.000-08:00

this morning i had a difficult time at my swim lesson. i thought about staying in bed and sleeping an extra hour this morning but since everything was packed and ready to go, i got myself out of bed and to the pool. it was an exceptionally cold morning (only 30degrees!) and you could really see the steam coming off the pool more than ever before. when i arrived i was directed to jump into the deep lanes...i think this one is about 7 feet or so. eep!!! once i got my goggles and cap on, i cannon balled into the pool. that was fun!

bye bye mr. nose plug

after a 200 yard warm up, i started in on drills with fins. arms ahead, chest down. sword fish. shoulder shrug. catchup up with finger tip drill. zipper. snap. (OMG, i feel like a real swimmer. all these things now have a meaning to me!) quickly i started to feel like i was swimming into a current, like i couldn't catch my breath, and was completely aware of my lack of coordination. usually i can focus on one or two things to improve each lap, but today i just couldn't get there. it felt like there was so much going on & my body wasn't doing what my brain was telling it to do. after drills there was 3x100 yards and 2x200 yards. at that point i had to take a moment to just float on my back to try to reset...to which my coach Lucas realized i was mentally and physically done. i took the opportunity to ask him some questions about breathing as i felt like now that i sort of know, in theory, how my stroke should be, but the breathing things still seems illusive. we talked through it & decided it was time to lose the nose plug (yes, it was my security blanket, but it was time to lose it and move on.) surprisingly it wasn't so bad...all of a sudden i felt like i could pace my breathing better and the memory of all the water up my nose during my last attempt at learning to swim seemed to quickly fade. sure, i did have a few times where i "neti-potted" myself with the a chlorine wash...but all in all today's big accomplishment was swimming without the nose plug. even on the days we feel the worst working out, we can still make great strides.

i'm a big fan of learning about the sport you are in. yeah, once upon a time i had my heart broken when a friend of mine got accepted to a cycling team who thought i was too aggressive (to which my guy cycling friends told me not to fret because "it is racing not a tea party, right?!?")...anyhow, one of the first team camps she had scheduled was learning to sprint from an amazing female pro on the team. while my friend was telling me about her new team & their upcoming camp (and i swear, i was totally excited for her, seriously, even though i was a little bummed for me not getting the same opportunity, but i was so thrilled she was going to get to learn from a lot of really talented ladies) she said "yeah, we are going to learn from some girl, um, her name is XXXX something or other, i think she is a pro." i had to pick up my jaw and my first thought was "holy moly, how can she not know who XXXX XXXXX is?!? she's just like one of the most talented female sprinters ever and she lives in our own backyard and is on your team" :-(

(and friend, if you are reading this and remember this happening i'm so sorry but i was really thinking OMG, are you serious? but then it was so cool to hear about all that you learned during the team camp & all the adventures you and the team had over the season!)

okay, so i think part of any plan to not look like a total rookie in your new found love of sport is done in doing your homework. it's like the 80/20 rule that business applies to like, seriously, everything. "It's 80% preparing for the meeting, 20% getting through the review"; "it's 80% planning and 20% execution"; "it's 80% due diligence, 20% negotiating". have you ever googled 80/20 rule? you'll get articles like "What Is The 80/20 Rule And Why It Will Change Your Life", there is even a book about Living The 80/20 Way, and the 80/20 Rule with Women...ummm, really, it's gender specific? there is an 80/20 rule for dating, marriage, why did i get married, for mortgage, and how many shoes you should own. holy, moly. so today i will add my own 80/20 Rule.

Beth Lubov's 80/20 Rule to Not Looking Like a Rookie:
It's 80% mentally doing your homework of learning about the sport, who's who, listening to your coaches, visualizing success and 20% apply and practicing all the stuff you've learned. but don't get me wrong, that 20% of the physical application of your preparation is a killer workout and 1000x more sole & body crushing than the homework part.

while i was on a business trip the other week, i picked up triathlete magazine at the airport. it was a great issue with lots of articles tailored toward the beginner triathlete. there was even an article about the difference between pros and everybody else and displacing the myths. my favorite was that pros are just great because all they do is train; pro's response is that the biggest difference is pros take time to really recover/relax and get massages while the rest of us weekend warriors are off hunched over our laptops working away. i promptly signed up for a subscription and added the website triathlete.com to my bookmarks.

for xmas my aunt gave me an incredible book 17 Hours to Glory: Extraordinary Stories from the Heart of Triathlon which i've been trying to read a story or two every week to get inspiration during my training. the stories are just a few pages long and highlight the lives of everyday athletes doing something incredible, to those who are overcoming great feats to compete in the Ironman, to some of the renowned pros who have competed at Kona. i think it's such a great book because the stories are engaging and you learn so much from hearing about other people's experiences. i'd rather not read a "how to" but learn from other's tales. plus the coaching aspect, i find that i'd rather work with someone 1:1 and them walk me through what i should be doing or join a team like Team in Training

the other day i was thinking about what other sorts of books are out there that could help me understand training and mastering swimming. sure there were some interesting ones on the shelves about the bio mechanics of swimming and swimming for dummies and how to lose the swimmies, but i wanted to read about what it was like for other people who were passionate about excelling at swimming. I figured what other story to check out other than Micheal Phelps. okay, i know he got a lot of bad rap post his amazing Beijing Olympics...something to do with him smoking pot at a party and letting people video tape it and putting it out there on the Internet, but still...he's a talented swimmer and you can't argue that one. bad judgement at times, yes, but still a focused and talented athlete. I remember seeing interviews with him right after the Olympics where he was talking about a book he had written that went through his dedication to training and everyone being shocked at just how much food he consumed in a day. i think it was this one: No Limits: The Will to Succeed. I went to my local book store to pick it up and was surprised when they didn't have it on their shelves. i mean really, the Olympics are just around the corner and subway is pushing Mr. Phelps pretty hard right now so how could barnes and nobles not have a full lineup of the books by him or about him? anyhow, B&N called me yesterday to say the book is in...i hope it's a good read! now to just figure out when i'm going to have time to pick it up....

animal print, (bathing suit) out of control

2012-01-17T13:25:00.000-08:00

i found the key to relaxing while swimming. are you ready for the secret? okay, it's a real doozy. ready? the key to relaxing while you are swimming is being able to laugh at yourself. yup, it's that easy. For me i'm generally always laughing at myself for any countless reason(did i really just say that, omg you are such a klutz, what were you thinking), but this time i brought in a prop. a ridiculous swimsuit. and by ridiculous i mean "that's how i roll, animal print, pants out of control"

okay, maybe i'm not rocking an awesome speedo tanning my cheeks (WHAT?!?) but my laughter inducing outfit is sorta like a speedo...except it's made by Funkies. See that amazing animal print one? the one that is blue with shiny pink print? oh yeah, that's it. that's my secret suit. it really is as if this suit was made just for me. see how ridiculously? i'm sure that's why it was only $16 on sale, on top of discount, on top of reduced price from Sports Basement.

i'm starting to really like this swimming thing...i'm starting to feel like i'm getting the hang of it a little bit better every time i get in the water. January is going to be all about getting used to the intensity of training and learning the basics of swimming. Next month, I want to focus on increasing my strength and stability through more weight training & continue to refine my swimming stroke, loose the nose plug (i know, but it's like my safety blanket right now...i can only really focus on one thing at a time and right now i've just moved beyond the fear of sinking to getting the timing of my arms right). Then there is working on getting my cycling intensity back up and improving my running speed...and building endurance, and learning how to eat for three sports, and figuring out transitions...but that's just much to much to think about right now. so in the words of a wise coach i once had, pick one thing and focus on it for a few weeks. Once you feel like it's starting to come more naturally, tackle the next thing you need to improve on. Going after it all at once is a sure fire recipe for failure. it's all about being dedicated to being focused.

Rolling out for Saturday's ride

this weekend my roommate told me i was one of the most dedicated people he knows. i guess i hadn't really thought about it that way, but when i do think it through it's dedication that is the essential component needed for any athlete training to complete their goals. it's dedication that gets you out there when you'd rather be in bed. and it's dedication that's needed to keep you going even when you know you've got a long learning curve ahead.

last week was the first week where i initiated my plan of attack to try to stay ahead of everything with this ironman training, do the things i need to do so i stay strong and avoid injury, and so i plain old don't loose my mind trying to balance life, work, and training. Here's what the week looked like. i realized the more i have on my plate, the more i need to be organized, and the more motivated i am to get stuff done like errands and coordinating getting my stuff planned out so i can have time to relax. it's going to be a crazy busy year, especially since our coaches have reiterated that this is "Just the Beginning!" eeep!

Monday

5AM: get up & get going
5:45-7AM: swim lessons
7-7:45AM: commute to work. ugh! 87 & 101 traffic is the worst...must find a better way
7:45-8:15: shower, get ready, get to my desk
Work till 5pm, then home and get stuff ready for tomorrow, relax

Tuesday

5AM: get up & get going
5:30AM: walk to the gym & weight training
7:00AM: get ready for work, commute
8-5PM: work
6:30PM: team workout - spin & core

Wednesday

5AM: get up & get going
5:45-7AM: swim lessons
commute, get showered/ready for the day at my work gym, work, commute
7-8:30PM: team workout - swim practice in menlo park

Thursday

5AM: get up & get going
6AM: run 5 miles at campbell track. it's so early and so cold there is frost!
get ready for work, commute, work, commute
thought about getting in an evening swim but opted to relax instead :-)

Friday

5AM: get up & get going
5:45-7AM: swim lessons
commute, shower, work from home
1:30-3pm: late lunchtime easy ride
work, stay in and watch movies night :-)

Saturday

Sleep in until 6AM: get up & get going
8AM: Team workout - 2 hour rolling hills ride (ouch!), 20 minute run (double ouch!)
out to lunch for burritos with the boys, relax, watch movies

Sunday

Sleep in until 6AM: get up & get going
8AM: Team workout - 1.5 hour swim, core workout, 6 mile run
take a nap
out to dinner for tacos with marc - yum!

Sunday's Core Workout

All The Days You Don’t See

2012-01-10T14:17:00.000-08:00

On my most recent business trip, I picked up a copy of Triathlete magazine. I figured if i'm going to do this sport right, I ought to read about it more. The website is pretty good too. I found this video on their and really enjoyed it so i thought i'd share it with you too. It features Jan Frodeno a champion triathlete and is call "I am Made of All the Day You Don't See." Reminds me of when my cycling coach telling me early on when i started riding that "hill repeats & weight lifting are what competitive cyclists do when no one is watching."

the book of swimming revelations

2012-01-08T14:17:00.000-08:00

today was my first ever swim-ride brick. it was also a day of getting a lot of instruction and feeling like i really improved my form (or at least have a better idea of what i should be doing). the coaches also filmed each of us swimming a 50yard freestyle effort and i'm looking forward to seeing it and getting input...and hopefully the video will not confirm my worst fear related to swimming: looking like a hippo floundering around in the water

okay maybe i'm a little better at learning to swim that baby hippo Adhama, but it's still a tough road i'm on. the first thing i always wondered about is when people show you how to swim on land; their arms always seemed to be timed differently than mine when i'm in the water. Coach Ron told me i was swimming like a windmill rather than like a swimmer who's trying to glide gracefully. i wasn't delaying my front hand from pulling down and pushing against the water until after my back elbow is out of the water. i realized that all along i thought it was the hand that just entered the water that was leading my timing, but it's really my arm that is existing the water that is indicating when i should start pushing the water down along my body.

Revelation #1

understanding this helped me to get a better glide down. i also realized that my breathing had been all out of time then and because of the position of my arms i always felt like my butt was sinking when i was breathing because i was. the key is to wait to turn to breathe until after your elbow is out of the water. Coach Dan told me that i should basically be seeing my hand come past my face as i'm breathing. here's a drill to help work on the timing

Catch-ups. Basically you have both of your hands meet at the top of your stroke before you continue on. Man, this guy makes it look sooo easy. And then there is the "almost catch up" drill which forces you to think about the timing of your hands when they are both moving together.

the other thing Coach Dan noticed I do is that when i'm extending to reach into the water my elbow is slapping on top of the water before my hand is entering the water. if you have this problem too, here's a good drill to try.

Head taps: when you are bringing your back arm out of the water, lift high at the elbow then tap your head before you enter the water with your finger tips, wrist, forearm, elbow, bicep

Revelation #2

My left arm/shoulder/chest/back is super stiff...well basically the whole left side of my body is a bit dumb so this doesn't come as too much of a surprise. i need to spend more time doing specific stretches for this side. i'm already doing the one where you lock your hands behind your back and roll your shoulders back, but i also need to do the one in the doorway where you help open up the front of the shoulder

Revelation #3

I need to get faster at swimming/learn very quickly so i'm not in the slowest lane and therefor the last lane to put the pool covers back on and therefor the last person out of the pool into transition. putting on running or riding clothes and still being wet stinks...especially when you see everyone who's been out of the water for like over 10 minutes taking their time and putting clothes on that they are totally dry. me on the other hand, i'm in a rush because i gotta rip off the wet suit and dress since now all the coaches are yelling to get it together and lets go. it's super stressful. so i must get faster at swimming asap so i can reduce my overall transition stress level

The other transition related thing i prepped pretty well for this week was having everything organized as to exactly what i was going to wear and only carrying that in my bag to the locker room. i left all my alternative clothing options in the trunk of my car in case i needed them. jersey pockets could have been pre-stuff with nutrition, ID, tie irons ahead of time so i wasn't worried about forgetting anything since i felt super rushed. i'm thinking that's going to a good change to make in the future to ensure nothing is forgotten. i'm also thinking i'm going to bring my bike in to the pool rather than keep it locked on my car so that once dressed i can just jump on and go rather than having to go to the car and get my bike lock undone and then get the bike off the roof rack and together. ugh.

Revelation #4!

the clothes i would normally put on for a ride at a particular temperature are probably too heavy for a ride after a swim. it was around 50 when we went to ride and my jacket was much too much by the time we got out a few minutes on the ride. this rookie is gonna err on the side of fewer layers in the future (but maybe pack my windjacket in my back pocket just in cast).

Revelation #5!

Ride like a cyclist. Triathletes are notorious for their less-than-stellar cycling skills and etiquette. i don't want to learn any bad habits so i'm saying it now and going to remind myself every time we ride...don't forget the good practices you've learned over the thousands of miles i've rode already as a cyclist. stay as far left when it's just you so people have room to pass. be predictable. point out stuff to fellow riders. spin-spin-spin up the hills till i can't spin anymore...then crush it up the hill and pass everyone who blew past me at the bottom of the hill. me and hills will be bff's again, it's just a matter of getting the muscles to remember how terrible it feels to climb hills and still keep pushing through it.

"soul crusher" workouts are why i really like my coaches

2012-01-07T18:23:00.000-08:00

last week i missed our team's coached track workout on wednesday evening because i was in chicago for work. instead of making up my own workout and doing it on the treadmill or at the crack of dawn before my flight, i opted for an additional day of rest. in retrospect i think it was a good move because me and planes don't mix (i feel all puffy and tired after flying) & i was logging my 14th hour of air travel in a week by Thursday evening.

i'm loving the track workouts we do on the ironteam! they are a great mix of track running at intensity and crushing core workouts. below is the one i missed last week and it sounds so good i'm going to do it as a make-up run next week during some of the on my own training days. the coach affectionately has named this one the "new year's resolution soul crusher workout." oh man, he's such a great coach!

Warm-up

10 minutes or 4 laps
10 minutes active stretching (i.e. high knees, butt kickers, leg swings, windmills)

Main set

800 meters build up

All reps to be performed as such: 400 meters at level 5 (of 10) intensity, 300 meters slow build to level 7 intensity, 100 meters at level 5

60 seconds - plank from hell front
800 meters build up
45 seconds - plank crunches right side
800 meters build up
45 second - plank crunches left side
Repeat the above circuit 2 more times
800 meters build up
90 second - standard plank

Cool down

2 laps
10 minutes static stretches (i.e. calf stretch, hamstring stretch, quad stretch, glute stretch)

So what is a "plank from hell" you ask? you mean a regular old run of the mill plank isn't hellish enough? nope. it's not. that's why the ab crushing super cut jillian michael's of the world created the plank from hell. it's essentially doing a plank and then raising your knee to the oppositie elbow without raising or dropping your hips. sounds easy in theory but it is anything but.

For the side plank crunches, there are two options you can do. if you have any sort of issues with your back opt for the augmented version where you are balanced on your knees instead of your feet.

pigtails are a heart breaker

2012-01-07T17:37:00.000-08:00

i went and did it! i signed up for a bunch of events for next year so that when it comes time to do my big goal event for the year, the canada ironman, i don't go making all sorts of rookie mistakes and the crowds and fellow lunatics, i mean ironman hopefuls, point and leer at me calling me all sorts of names that define my lack of experience & then i cry, and not because i'm "riding till i cry" like my personal cycling mantra, rather it's tears of total embarrassment

two of the races i want to do are sanctioned by USA Triathlon and require that i either have an annual license or a day license to compete. it's sort of like in bike racing when you have a USA Cycling race license and they track your results (hopefully the results get tracked and displayed as clearly as USA Cycling Rider Results but the results are a little more accurate...grrr, i guess that is why the local races moved to timing chips last year...but i digress).

I didn't opt for an USAT annual license just yet; rather i got day licenses for the two races i'm doing that are USAT sanctioned events. i also didn't renew my USA Cycling license for this year either, although i'm thinking about doing a few time trials or pursuits but will have to wait for the calendar of events to get updated on the Northern California and Nevada Cycling Association site first.

so here's what's on the list for sure:

April 22 - San Jose Olympic Distance Metro Triathlon Presented by Threshold Racing
May 5 - Wildflower Triathlon - Long Course
July 28 - Barb's Race - Half Ironman
and of course August 26 - Ironman Canada

i'm thinking there will need to be a few other events along the way...perhaps a half marathon in march or april, strawberry fields metric century in May, maybe another half marathon or full marathon in June, and then the beat the clock time trials in april, may, or july. of course those would all be training events and i go back and forth on if its worth doing an event for training but i think the answer is yes...but why? well, i think events make you excited. so no matter how good and consistent you are in your training, when it comes to race day you are going to get a little more excited because of the crowd and the competitors. and me, i'm super competitive & while i joke that i love to break the boys hearts, i'm also totally honest in that claim. there really isn't anything better than blowing past a super fit guy while riding or running. and if you are going to do it while riding, the best way to do it is with your most girlie high-pitched sweet-as-sugar voice saying "on your left." and if you want to add a little bit of playful insults, you'll also do this while flipping your cute blond pigtails over your shoulder and winking at the guy.

My go-to cycling hair style

wait, did i really just tell you all that? yes, i guess i did because truth is, i am competitive and i'm motivated by the opportunity to break boys hearts. now hopefully i don't get my heart broken by learning to swim & getting back into cycling shape & riding and running on loads of hills & by making loads of rookie triathlete mistakes along the way to ironman canada

end of the year insights

2011-12-29T10:25:00.000-08:00

it's almost the end of the year, so i've been taking some time to reflect on all the things that happened this past year. work, sports, home, and family have all had changes...some changes were good and some not as good...but all in all, it's been a wonderful year of new experiences, new friends, and new challenges

here are a few of the wisdoms i've learned this year & would love to share with you

first and foremost, swimming and manicures don't mix.

i know, i know...i love getting dolled up just as much as any gal and dresses are my total go to outfit, and for as low maintenance as i am this gal has found manicures to be just one of those little splurges i really enjoy. but alas, the chlorine must react with the polish and the paint instantly cracks off. so until this ironman is done, no more manicures
dresses as go to outfits, you say??? here's the secret, since i'm feeling especially nice and like sharing some of my best kept secrets. gals, dresses are the best options ever,hands down. you know why? they take so little effort and you look like you really did put time into putting yourself together. seriously, have you ever seen a gal in a good looking dress look like a slob? nah, most likely not. all you got to do is put on a dress, some decent shoes, brush your hair and go.

pedicures on the other hand...they are the perfect way to avoid mucking up your toe nails on long runs. the one and only long run i did without a pedicure, my big toe nails got all scratched up and looked just sad. pedicures = happier runs.
when you are feeling burnt out, don't ever stop working out. when you find life is getting too crazy because your work has a major shake-up & your project requires about 5x more focus than you thought it would and your plate was already too full to begin with, and then you decide to move because your upstairs neighbors have 3x more people living there than is allowed by law...or whatever is going on for you...don't ever think the answer is to take time away from working out to make time for everything else. exercise really does have a huge powerful impact on your overall well being and outlook

having to find time to schedule workouts helps, in some funny way, to give more order & prioritization to all the zillion things on your to-do list.

have a goal. the carrot of knowing you have to be trained and ready to go for a certain event is a powerful motivator...or maybe it's the fear of my own failure that is probably the single most inspiration to never give up. but either way, having an obtainable goal is important
when you think you can't, you can. really. just keep going. whatever mantra you need...be it "hey fatties, there is cake at the finish line" (seriously, i saw that poster at the philly marathon) or the lady you don't know yelling at you from the sidelines of the san jose rock n roll half marathon that "you can push through this kind of pain if you can get that many tattoos" or my personal favorite "you can do anything for [fill in the distance or time]."
take some time to relax, don't do it. don't run, don't ride, don't stress.

one of the gals i work with asked me if i ever just sit around at home and watch tv and the answer is absolutely, 100%. even though the days seem crazy structured with work, training, and my crazy entertaining dating life (yeah, that needs to be a comedy blog all unto itself...) you need to take time to do nothing. here is my favorite treat from this past year - the moor mud spa treatment at watercourse way in palo alto CA. it's amazing.

thank you for reading my blog this past year and coming along for the running adventures and the ironman training adventures. i've hope you enjoyed reading it and found it as funny as my mom does (thanks mom, i love you!) and i hope you'll keep reading along next year as i try to take my own advice.

happy new year!

xoxo

beth lubov

clam diggity! we are back to the basics

2011-12-20T11:03:00.000-08:00

a few weeks ago i realized that perhaps all my knee issues weren't getting better because i was treating just the symptoms and not the root cause. i made an appt to see my doctor and go to the physical therapist. yup, there are definately some root causes i wasn't really addressing. cycling and running require a lot of forward motion, but often times you forget about the weight training that will stregnthen your big muscles...your glutes...which eventually help keep everything playing nicely together and your joints feeling happy.

so it's back to the basics for awhile. it feels really 101 to be doing these exercises, but i assure you as easy as they sound on paper and the people in these videos make them look...they are real butt kickers!

Clam shells - the point is to engage the butt muscle as you hinge your legs at the hip and keep feet together. if you put your hand on your hip, you can put your thumb on your glute muscle to see if it's firing. 3 sets of 10 on each side. ouch! feel the burn.

Bridges - think about having your spine be flat. that may mean you need to concentrate on rotating your pelvis forward; which may then hinder your ability to raise your bridge so high but it will be forcing your glute muscles to fire. an alternative you don't see in the video is a level of difficulty between the two legged bridge and the single leg bridge. what you do is move one foot further forward - it simulates the feeling you will evenutally get when your glutes are strong enough to allow you to do the single leg bridge without wobbling or using your quads or hips instead of your glutes.

And then there is the calf raise. these will start a fire in your legs for sure. i'm not sure you'll get legs of steel like the dudes in this video, but if that happens hey that's okay...i don't mind having some killer calves when i'm rocking the heels with my dresses. okay, so this video is just entertaining...i don't know why there are so many 4+ minute long videos when you youtube search for calf raises. it's pretty simple exercise really. stand up straight, keep your core and glutes engaged and lift up at the calf muscle by raising your heel. do both legs together than single legs. 3 sets of 10 each. ouch!

lastly there are squats. standard squats and my favorite single leg squats. ouch! the hardest part for me is not to break my form and let my hips go uneven. i like to do these close to the wall so i don't fall over. after 3 sets of 10 each i am not so balanced.

Shoulder shruggs are not just for dancing anymore

2011-12-16T08:11:00.000-08:00

i love a good dance party...in fact, i think i spent the majority of my 20s living in Philly being a total scenester and cutting a major rug. there are all sorts of moves i default to like:

driving the car
the hand dance
the Brooklyn stomp
twiggy knees
men's jacket removal
grabbin' the tie

if i wasn't writing this entry in my pjs from bed, maybe i would take some photos to demonstrate all those moves, but then again i might be afraid you'd copy my moves and try to claim them as your own. anyhow, a few of those moves incorporate a shoulder shrug keeping time to the beat. well, last night i learned a shoulder shrug can not just help you keep rhythm, but it can also help keep you afloat and swimming powerfully. who would have thought?!?

so here is your exercise - not a dance move at all...please, please, please never do this on the dance floor.

stand up straight and tall
shrug your right shoulder while rotating it towards your chin
hit your chin with your shoulder (okay, maybe you will need to move your chin a tiny bit unless you have some crazy flexibility)
move right shoulder back to neutral while shrugging left shoulder and rotating it towards your chin
repeat, repeat, repeat

now see how that feels? it should feel a bit like that when you are underwater. your shoulders will be rotating, your body will naturally roll a little bit. now all of a sudden it's way easier to breathe on both sides. amazing, right?!?! in no time you will be swimming like a champ

Now I just have to figure out how to make the breathing part easier. i understand the form...but i'm still getting way out of breathe after 50m. hopefully in time i'll build up the ability to maintain a slow steady pace and build the lung strength too so i don't feel like i'm gasping for air. last night swim coach Karen and our guest coach Lucas were telling me about breathing out slower and exhaling all of the air just before you turn to the side to take a breath. hmmm...

other thing on my mind is joining a masters swim program. the one we heard from last night said there is usually only a handful of people in the class so that means a lot of attention and help while you are learning to swim or learning to perfect your swimming.

Takin' names & bustin' butt

2011-12-15T22:43:00.000-08:00

Last night our team had the first running track workout of the season. When I was on the run team over the summer, we had a track workout every week. except none of those workouts were quite like this one. i've heard all the jokes about ironmen team going the distance, but it's not just about distance, it's also been about intensity too. i'd have to say it was a pretty tough workout between the running & core workout....especially for week #2 of training, but hey no pain no gain, right?!? good thing i'm not easily intimidated!

Coach Jerald sent out a description to the team so we could remember his "Sinister Track Workout" so that when we repeat it in say 6-8 weeks we'll realize how long we've come. So if you've got, say 2an hour and a half to two hours on your hands and want to bust your butt here's what you can do.

Warm-up

10-minute or 4-laps
10-minutes stretching

Main Set

400m

15 Crunches

800m

15 Crunches
15 Jump Squats

1200m

15 Crunches

15 Jump Squats

15 Walk Out/Push Up to Swivel/Walk In

1600m

15 Crunches

15 Jump Squats

15 Walk Out/Push Up to Swivel/Walk In

60 second plank

1200m

15 Crunches

15 Jump Squats

15 Walk Out/Push Up to Swivel/Walk In

800m

15 Crunches
15 Jump Squats

400m

15 Crunches

Cool-Down

2-laps
10-minutes stretch

And the weirdest part of the workout was i had a load of fun! okay, maybe that's not so weird. running is way more fun when you have friends and teammates to enjoy it with and have them help push you along. i was fortunate enough to get to run along with Lydia and Sue...both of whom are faster than me over a half marathon and full marathon. i had a lot of fun running along side them, then pacing behind them once i started to have trouble keeping up the pace.

okay, time for the most important part of training...getting some sleep!
nite nite.

embarrasing moments in training

2011-12-13T16:29:00.000-08:00

First week of ironman training down & I survived! woohoo! i know it was supposed to be a week of jumping in and getting used to working out this much, but someone forgot to tell my body that. i felt like i was in the midst of race phase between the exhaustion and the hunger!

Sunday we swam and swam and swam and swam. Then ran for good measure.
Monday - it was already a rest day! i like rest days and i'm sure i will like them even more in the upcoming months
Tuesday - spin and core. 45 minutes of some intervals of "hills" then sprint, throw in some single leg drills, we pretty much covered it all from the library of spinerval training DVDs. we really packed it in in the community room at sports basement!
Wednesday - we swam and swam and swam and swam some more.
Thursday - got up at the crack of dawn and ran
Friday - rode for about an hour then ran for 10 minutes immediately after. my first official "brick"
Saturday - cycling skills clinic followed by a hilly hilly ride through some of my favorite neighborhoods in los altos hills
Sunday - we swam and swam and swam some more...then ran again.

i am pretty confident that i swam more in this one week than i think i have in my entire life!!!

This past week was also filled with a few embarrassing moments in sports. lucky for me none were caught on film this week i experienced moments one and number two.i think i'll have to keep a running tally throughout the season. i hope you'll enjoy laughing at me and my misfortunes...they are pretty funny in retrospect

Embarrassing moment #1: you may have seen my post on facebook last Wednesday about clothes lining myself on the pool. well, here's how it went down.

foggy tent over pool + dark goggles that are fogged up + me being a
bad swimmer + overfull pool + waves headed in my direction

beth swimming out of the pool and clocking my neck on the edge of the pool while i was turned to breath and slightly looking forward to figure out where the end of the pool was.

Learning from embarrassing moment #1: Note your pool lane and the markings that help you avoid said unfortunate incidents

Embarrassing moment #2: very aptly named number two (i love me some potty humor...i know grosser than gross!) as it's all about knowing where your potties are. we did our swim and i was last one out of the pool. compression socks are difficult to get on just on a regular day then throw them on some damp legs and they are impossible. so i missed out on any opportunity to go to the potty before we took off for a run. there were no potties on the route so i ended up stopping into a store and saying all sorts of embarrassing things because i had to go.

beth: (looking for shop keep and said in whispered tone) hello? hello? (slightly panicking now)

shop keep: hi (coming from the refrigerator case)

beth: do you have a potty? (said while doing potty dance)

shop keep: no, there isn't one in here

beth: (close to tears) "oh my god I'm going to potty in my pants." (seriously, i totally said that out loud)

Shop keep: (said while walking towards counter and reaching in under the register...he sort of moseyed on over there not really taking the urgency of my situation into consideration) there is one around the side, watch out for the gate

beth: running quickly. if i had taken a moment to appreciate his kindness i likely would have reacted like then upon entering the not so well maintained potty

key learnings from embarrassing moment #2 - aside from the obvious about knowing the golden rule (haha, i love potty humor) of know where "thy potty lay", must get faster at swimming!

Tony Little said "You can do it" and he was right

2011-12-07T12:08:00.000-08:00

This past Sunday was the first official Iron Team training. I can't lie. I was super duper nervous. Not because it was a bunch of new people I didnt' know or because it meant I am really going to train for this thing, but because it meant i was swimming. See, i've had a pool pretty much my entire life but never really learned how to swim. Sure I can doggy paddle and stay above water and I can swim underwater, but the freestyle/side stroke/butterfly, they all are foreign to me.

I think part of my not learning is attributed for my major dislike of a few key factors that come into play while swimming:

i don't like getting water up my nose
i hate when my hair turns green from the chlorine
water in my ears is irritating
me and the cold don't mix

but the other part is I never really learned the strokes. well, okay, truth be told, i sort of learned the strokes a few years ago at that fall semester class at foothill college but it wasn't pretty. i learned the freestyle and backstroke but wasn't very good at swimming...if there weren't fins or kickboards involved i couldn't make it across the short distance of the pool lane (i think it was 25 yards at best). i lasted until around late November, until that time we showed up and the pool heater was turned way down and the water was in the 60s and we still swam.

This Sunday, we got to the pool for an 8am start and it was really cold! yeah, that gauge in the pix does read 35 degrees. brrrrr!!!!! did i mention the other reason i avoided learning to swim as a kid was my major dislike of the cold?!? fortunately this is CA and like every high school has its own pool and the ones we swim at do a good job at keeping the pool at a toasty temperature year round.

the first thing was to get into the pool. seriously, just like jump on in?!? i didn't really know what to do so i got in with the total newbies and waited for swim coach Karen to come help us out. The direction was to go warm up and i thought 'oh no, i have to swim now...what am i doing???? can i do this??? what was i thinking?" Honoree Keith and I were in the same swim lane and he was just as bad off in the swim category as me so i felt a little better because misery does love company. we set off on our first lap and you know what, just like Tony Little said "You Can Do It!" We both made it to the other end of the pool without stopping...the form may not have been so great but we got there. we were so excited that we high 10'ed at the end of the pool ever lap.

after the warm up we had 15 minutes of swimming and counting our laps. i think i made it a total of 7 laps (out and back) and was pretty much felt done then. after that we did a bunch of swimming drills like 6-3-6 (6 side kicks, 3 free styles, 6 side kicks), swimming on our back and just kicking, the catch-up drill (where you swim free style but you don't alternate your arms, you have them both meet in front of you before you do a stroke with each arm), and some other ones i forget. now i was really cooked and my shoulders were starting to get sore. but we weren't done...we had pyramids to do. 200 yards, 300 yards, 400 yards, 500 yards, 600 yards, then back down. i made it through to the 400 yards and called it quits. all in all, my first day ever swimming without fins and without a kickboard went pretty well. See, I can totally swim, umm...wade water!

After our first swim, it was the first transition. i'm gonna have to get used to this peeling off wet bathing suits and then putting on running/riding clothes. i got all hung up in my sports bra and had to get a team mate to get me untangled. i guess this is going to be the first of many awkward situations i'm going to find myself in with my new teammates :-) after getting out of the locker room as one of the last folks out, we set off for a 40 minute run. i had the chance to run with Colin and catch up. he had been my first every cycling mentor when i joined team in training when i moved to California in 2006...and now we are training for the ironman together!

time off is making me nervous. there is just too much time to think!

2011-11-29T14:14:00.000-08:00

i decided to take some time off after the marathon before the training for ironman begins. it's really weird though because i know forced time off before the start of your basemile training is important, but it's sort of driving me crazy. i just don't know what to do with myself with all the spare time! i think not working out is way harder than working out. here's why

my house is really cold and pg&e isn't coming to turn on the pilot for my heat until friday evening...hence, i don't want to go home after work because i need to bundle up so i end up sitting under the blankets in bed and watching TV
i don't want to go to the mall because i'll end up spending too much money probably on dresses for me when i should be doing holiday shopping for other people
going on the internet in the evenings is the one thing i try to avoid doing at all costs so that i can maintain some form of work/life balance...otherwise i'm tempted to start checking and responding to work email...that means shopping online is out of the question
i'd be baking but that means i'd be eating a lot too. anyone want some baked goods?
cleaning out the closets is an option, but i'm such a minimalist i don't think there is much to get rid of
maybe doing some DIY home projects is in order...like seeking out cheapo porcelain figurines i can paint and make a display on my dresser...hmmmm.....but i'm so not nick-knacky

now that i'm thinking about all the things i don't want to be doing while i'm waiting for training to start up this weekend, i am spending too much time thinking about what training is going to be like. OMG!

WHAT DID I SIGN UP FOR?!?

the next week should be exciting and i'm sure there will be some really funny stories coming out of my first swim practice. here's what's in store:

Saturday: Team kick-off & information overload. Then going home to sign up for a bunch of events through out the road to the ironman...probably some half marathons, shorter distance tris, maybe a few time trial races
Sunday: 2000M swim followed by 40 minute run
Monday: rest day - cook lunches/dinners for the week
Tuesday: spin 45' & run 15'
Wednesday: 1500M swim
Thursday: run 4 miles
Friday: 1 hour + ride with some LT intervals followed by 10' run

why am i so nervous!?! i've done the ride thing for years, i've been running a few months now...but this whole swimming thing...it's been awhile and i didn't master the freestyle at my classes at foothill college a few years back.

these poor little piggies...

2011-11-21T08:10:00.000-08:00

Here is me and Bobby at the end of the philadelphia marathon looking very happy (because it's over!). Although it may have been my big idea to go run a full marathon, i'll still tell my brother it was his idea that we go run at all. Last xmas he said if i ever wanted to run, he'd do an event with me & I held him to it with the San Jose Half Marathon & the Philly full Marathon this year...both of which he kicked my butt at!

I think I made two critical mistakes. The first was bringing my phone along with me in my water bottle belt. it was the first time i had ever done that and it ended up rubbing up against my lower back the whole run. not enough where i could tell what was going on while i was running, but enough that i'm bruised today and wondering if it had anything to do with the pain in my knees. The second mistake was not pulling off at the half. I think running a full marathon is better suited for someone who has been running for years than someone who has cardio fitness from other sports and takes a few months to get to the finish line. it's easy to run too fast early because of the crowd and the excitement and you aren't breathing hard so you keep pushing. i think my first 7 miles were pretty fast, then i waited in line for 20+ minutes to use the potty around west philly and never really got my momentum going again after that.

a bit into the second leg of the full my knees were really killing me so i decided to sort of speed walk. i had a really good pace going until that started to hurt too much too. then i think my legs weren't really working right at all because people kept asking if i was cramping or i wanted to SAG in :-( i think my legs sort of had that pony like weird trot motion going on because my IT Bands hurt causing my butt and outer knees to throb with ever step. ugh, running is just a little bit of plain old crazy.

at the finish line there was a lady with a banner that said "If it was easy, everyone would do it." right on lady! somehow i never did find the lady who at 3 miles had a sign declaring "hey fatties, we have cake at the finish line." my other favorite part of the race (other than going down memory lane and remembering all sorts of stuff i had forgotten about like places and random things i had done with friends,) was having my name on my bib and the crowd cheering me on my name. how cool is that?!?

today i'm saying never again and wondering how i'm ever going to make it through the full marathon after the 2.4 mile swim and the 112 mile bike ride of Canada Ironman in August next year. I think it's back to focusing on some shorter runs for awhile and enjoying those and getting the knee pain thing sorted out.

who wants to run a half in a few months when i've forgotten about how much my feet and legs hurt yesterday and today?

i miss me my hippies

2011-11-16T17:44:00.000-08:00

awhile ago my doctor told me i had asthma. she said i should use a daily inhaler and then have an emergency inhaler too. since asthma is often caused by excess mucus there is some thought about combating the effects with a vegan diet and with the ancient secret of the neti pot. i figured, what do i have to lose and bought myself one of those neti pots at whole foods. being that i live in california there are no less than half a dozen options for the pot itself and then at least a dozen options for the salts. now that i'm home for the philly marathon and didn't want to stick my neti pot in my already overstuffed luggage i thought i'd pick up the travel version at the whole foods here in marlton, nj. sure. no problem. except there isn't the same hippie:square ratio here in NJ. my options were one version of the neti pot and if i wanted to buy salts one jar...both of which were the most expensive options that I could have gotten in CA. i never thought i would say this, but i miss me my hippies.

the one thing i don't get about the neti pot is why even the hippies are going to lie to you in their advertising. seriously, i thought they had some ruling about being zen and thou shall not mislead my brothers and sisters. but no, the hippies will lie to you just the same. just take a look at this really happy lady who is flushing salt water through her nose.

really?!? smiling?!? now i'm guessing this is some seriously photoshopped imagery. have you ever tried a neti pot before? well, i'm not really sure what i look like when i'm doing it because my eyes are closed shut so tightly and i'm trying to avoid having the water come too much out of my mouth and make me feel all gross like i have water going in my nose and to my brain. and i'm pretty sure the water is all over the place too. and i think i'm breathing out of my mouth and making a gasping unpleasant noise while i try to "mouth breathe" per the neti pot instruction book. however, the 60 seconds of my life that are miserable with water going up my nose on purpose have lead to me being able to breathe a lot better...maybe it's real or maybe it's psychosomatic but net-net, even if the hippies are going to lie to me i'll forgive them this time since i can breathe after using the netipot.

when i fly i usually pick up some terrible magazine at the airport to pass the time on the flight. since we've got a pile of brainiac magazines that come to the house every month (thank you all the media publishers i work with) i usually pick up something like the latest trash rag. this time i decided to go for something a little more relevant to my upcoming weekend, latest issue of runner's world - the one dedicated to the stories of everyday runners and why they run things. the article about people running is great and there are a few people in there that are really inspiring. in one of the articles along the way (can't remember which one) it said that a common mistake runners and other athletes make is that often times we tend to overdo it on our pre-race hydration...that in the days leading up to the event we drink too much water and actually end up harming ourselves by washing away the electrolytes that we need.

Here's an article that is pretty crazy...not the one i read on the plane, but another one from runnersworld.com that talks about how much is just right to drink during a marathon (13.5-27 fluid oz/hr). if you take in too much water , known as hyponatremia, you can throw off your sodium balance and it can actually cause some serious issues and even death. while at whole foods i did pick up some electrolyte enhanced water. now i'm not really sure if this is another ploy of my kinfolk,the advertisers, but i'll give it a shot and see if it helps me in my pre-race hydration.

we are so close!!!

"run down memory lane" marathon...i mean philly marathon

2011-11-11T11:04:00.000-08:00

the philly marathon is soon...really, really soon. a few minutes ago it was 8 days, 19 hours, 54 minutes, and 8 seconds ago...and now it's even closer than that! i'm totally excited to finish my last big event before the Ironman Team training officially kicks off. and i'm totally excited to be running through my old neighborhoods. seriously, this run is going to be like a run through memory lane...and did i mention that i'm really glad that tour is super flat (minus that long slog out to west philly that looks flat but from a year of riding a junky bmx bike from class to "the big house" i can tell you it is totally not flat at all)

Here's a look at the full map. The first half is going to be lots of familiar territory. The second half is going to be a nice long run out from the art museum down kelly drive where there are a lot of trees, the river, and beautiful views. it doesn't feel like the city at all, which is probably why when i lived there i didn't go out there much...with the exception of two really fun times. First the day I got my first serious bike. I bought it at a shop in north jersey because it meant we could make a stop to eat a singing cowboy at the awesome vegan resturaunt up in some beach town that i've long forgotten the name of, and it meant no tax. it was an area with a poor economy so the state had removed sales tax in a hopes that it would pull in visitors and shoppers. fortunately for me it meant that my very first big purchase, a bike that cost about $1,400 at the time, was tax free. woohoo! the evening we got back from the beach me, the bf at the time, and his bff went for a ride along the bike path on kelly drive. in the pitch black. it was my first time in clipless pedals and i said lets go slow. they laughed at me because i ended up blowing them out of the water and wanted to ride fast. you know when you go from riding a junky tank of a mountain bike to a real deal road bike you instantly get like 8x faster. the second memory i'll have while running down kelly drive is going to be about mr. cossman. this one year i really wanted to go up to coney island for the mermaid day parade but i ended up having to go to work because the gal who shared weekends with me didn't really share the weekends with me. i had my rollerskating mermaid outfit all set up and ready to go (a 50s style bathingsuit with skirt, a green sequin belt, and rollerskates covered in green sequins). since i was so bummed about having to work, steve and i went out for our own mermaid day parade along kelly drive. i skated and he skated boarded while wearing a tshirt that said i (heart) mermaids. how fun!

on closer inspection you can start to see all the place i've lived that fall so close to the course. we'll be starting right near x806x "we have more friends than you" apartment on the parkway where i had amazing roommates pojo & michelle from the g*hetto. they were the two most different girls ever but we had the most fun living in the apartment together. we'll run down the parkway to LOVE park where i remember watching Marc skateboard when i first moved to the city & remember going there so early in the morning one day when we had all stayed up all night long. not a soul was stirring, a rare sight to see in smack dab middle of town. then past the PNB building where i had my first job in the city and loved what i did and didn't realize how great it was until years later. then past the troc where we went to a million shows while in highschool and then years later i dated the sound guy and got to go to loads of shows and sit at the boards or the boards on stage (how fun!) . we'll run down columbus boulevard which i distinctively remember avoiding at all cost because of the meat market clubs, but there were a few rare occassions where folks i knew put on shows or events down there and it would be a funny mix of the usual crowd for the area and the punk rock kids showing up.

we'll run past the big old cruise ship that had been the spot all the celebs went in its heyday but is now sitting and costing thousands of dollars a day to dock (the story in the city paper years ago shocked me!). Then up front street which I think is where hodges and lori once lived with a gal we had worked with at kinkos. there were some exciting stories that came out of that terrible job and experience, but i'll try to forget that memory and remember how awesome hodge's hamburber phone was!

then down south street...i've heard it's nothing like it had once been. even when i worked there and it was a really close knit community of folks from the shops it had even started to stray from the days of when this awesome punk rock shop named Veem had been the spot my friends and i loved to go and we were always amazed by the guy who worked there with the biggest liberty spikes you've ever seen. i'll pass by the spot that had been zipperhead and remember my friends there and will liekly sing a bit of the dead milkmen's punkrock girl in my head.

then we'll pass tattooed mom's my favorite bar in the city for how divey it is and how it has perogi tuesdays and the world's best grilled cheese ever. then passed the spot that had been time zone, where i had worked for years and the write up online about how the people who worked there were too totally cool always made me laugh. we'll head back up to chestnut and through the gayborhood. i'll like about the time i was sitting on my stoop and the nightwalker asked me what name she should go by that night and then seeing her later talking to some guy by the corner store that i'm sure didn't realize she was a man. then it'll be out over the bridge to west philly. up 34th street and go right past my first living situation in the city - the drexel dorms on race street. i'll probably remember the fun show i put on with wkdu in the quad or the feeling i had looking at the dorm, being totally sick, and seeing a film crew shooting our building. i didn't know it at the time but my upstairs neighbor had passed away from menengitus which will remind me of that time i went to a party and left before ed kissed like every girl there and became known as edengitus because he came down with menengitus within 24 hours. which will remind me of slegel and then of that awesome zombie ball i threw at 11th and ellesworth where slegel was the best zombie business man i ever met.

anyway, it'll be tons of fun and even as i sit here thinking about all the memories i'm sure to during my run i'm getting home sick. i love california, but philly does really feel like it is where i became me. there are lots of fun things i miss about the city but the biggest one is being close to my family and easily being able to jump on the high speed line and be home to visit.

i'm looking forward to running and then doing my best rocky impression. you know, in all the years i lived in philly i never once ran up the the steps but i have seen the footprint plaque & have definately enjoyed the view from the top of the steps at the art museum over looking the city. i'm pretty sure there will be no more run after the marathon, but maybe i'll move quickly up those steps and go for the rocky pose.

the problem with having a cyclist's butt...

2011-11-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

there are a few draw backs to having a cyclist's butt and thighs...they are big. they are powerful, but although fergie thinks that means your humps will look good in seven jeans, it really means it's tough to find any jeans that fit well. i just didn't realize it also meant that running shorts would be tough to buy too

i decided that my full marathon photo needs to look good. i looked really nerdy in my half marathon finish photo...i mean really, did you see the outfit i had on? i looked like an upside down grape - lime green knee high socks. pale purple shorts and bright purple jersey. in retrospect i should have gone for black socks and black shorts but i figured if i was gonna look goofy wearing knee highs i might as well go all the way. and boy, did i go all the way!

since it was my bday the day I went shopping i decided i should buy a totally awesome running outfit for the marathon to celebrate. I tried on these nike pro compression shorts that were navy blue with a little bit of a pattern on them and the matching sports bra.

cute pattern, except on the shorts when you put them on. well, the pattern was okay it was the material that was the real problem. once that pattern stretched over my big old cycling butt it was all over. seriously, the label is ironed on the inside and you could literally read it through the stretched fabric. and the blue color now became a mix of whitish blue. ugh. not a good look.

anyway, i ended up buy the sports bra and a pretty cute running skirt. it's by Nike - basic, black, short skirt, with compression shorts built in. for sunday's run i rocked the skirt, with a black sleeveless top, my lime green socks (buy a pair here or at Sports Basement if you wanna look like a total running geek with me), and new waterbelt by nathan. my not-so-bad looking running outfit had me inspired to just keep running. if you look good, you feel good, right. well i guess it's more like if you don't look so bad, you won't feel so bad!

a waterbelt?!? wait, did you say you did the one cardinal running style sin you swore you would never do?!?! did you actually give in and buy a water belt fanny pack?!?!

YES. I did. and you know what, i think i love my nerdy running style fanny pack wearing water belt. you know why? my knees didn't hurt on my run at all. from cycle i learned that sometimes it's the strangest tiny adjustment that will make all the world of difference in the way you feel and perform on a ride. so i figured while running carrying a water bottle in one hand the majority of the time is likely to cause some sort of oddity to your upper body rotation, which would likely result in some sort of hip alignment issue, which would result in some sort of imbalance and knee pain. i think my theory was accurate. i ran, and ran, and ran. i ran into bestie marc and he asked me what my goal was and i told him to just keep running. i got to vasona park and i felt great. i knew if i kept going i'd eventually get into los gatos downtown and then eventually out to the lexington reservoir. i knew that the path would get a bit steep and it would be a challenging run, but what i didn't know was just how far away it was. long story short i had set my running watch up for bike riding and forgot to change it back to my running settings. i didn't realize it until somewhere around vasona...so likely 4ish miles on the trail and maybe 1ish miles from home. once i turned it on i started to take note of the mile markers and found out that the stone markers on the los gatos creek trail start at 0 up on the hill near vasona. if you run to campbell park and take the backside path from the last bridge into the park it's 8 miles. about 7.5 if you take the front path. once i got home, i calculated the course including my bit at the reservoir to go run across the road in search of more water and the extra for running from my house. i came in just over 18 miles. and NO KNEE PAIN. well, maybe some stiffness, but come on that is totally expected after hours of running.

thanks to my waterbelt, i am now feeling ready to get out there and do the full marathon. no more fretting about not being able to swap to the half, i can do this thing. just a few more weeks till FM (full marathon) day!

what's on tap until then:

- 9-10 miles this weekend & a long ride

- 4-5 miles next weekend & another long ride

- 2 morning runs this week and next of around 4 miles

- some bootcamp classes

- and a whole lot of making a marathon mix

i missed you old friend

2011-10-13T15:05:00.000-07:00

last night i went to the weight room...the first time in many many months and i forgot how much i liked it. it was the first time lifting weights at the club one silicon valley instead of the location i used to go to in almaden valley.

pros silicon valley: close to work, lot of weights, big group class room and small classes.

from http://www.clubone.com/

cons silicon valley: limited weekend hours, must bring a lock (can't use gym card to lock lockers), no pool

johnny!

pros almaden valley: less equipment but everything you need, big open feeling, outdoor pool, a lot more class options, open late & good hours on the weekends.
cons almaden valley: not on a direct route from my house, killer traffic to go right after work, johnny doesn't work there anymore

second day soreness is setting in early and i can feel some spots on my sides close to my back and arm pit that are feeling it & i have no idea which exercise worked that spot. i'm no expert on what weights you should do as a runner so i did some of the exercises i used in the off season while riding. i'm hoping that these will help strenghten my hip/glutes and help improve my knee issues while running. and maybe help give me some riding strength for when i start getting into some long distances again during ironman training.

in no particular order, here's the sort of stuff i did:

4x7 lunges with 10lb dumbbells
5x8 military burpees - the ones with the push up and the jump
5x6 @50% lat put downs
2xside planks, 2x standard planks, 2x bridges
2x20 crunches
4x10 pushups...real deal pushups, not the girlie ones.
4x8 @50% leg press
5x6 back extensions
4x7 @50% squats on the squat rack not the smith machine. why? cause i'm tough as nails

if you've got any advice on weight lifting for running, i'd love to hear. i'm looking forward to doing more weight training & starting this BCOR bootcamp I got on groupon. It meets at the track near my house after work and I am registered to start going next week. woohoo. fun!

i'm one difficult lady...

2011-10-10T21:20:00.000-07:00

this weekend i went over to running revolution in campbell to get some advice on why my knees have been hurting so much on long distance runs. i know pain is part of sports and i'm no stranger to that, but this is a very nagging pain that literally results in my knees no longer working properly which forces me to walk and even that becomes painful. my initial diagnosis after seeing the folks at sports medicine institute is that the issue has to do with my IT band.

the gal at the running shop asked a few things and my answers left her stumped for a solution

do my shoes need replacing?
am i using the foam roller?
am i icing?
am i using sports tape?
what sort of shoes am i currently wearing?

I am on my second pair of shoes this season and this pair only had maybe 50 miles on them. after getting my leg worked on at SMI and getting to a point that my muscles were loosened up, i've been religious about using the foam roller as i did't want to get into this situation again. dedicating time to rolling has also helped me catch up on loads of bad tv shows as there isn't much else i can manage to do while rolling other than reading mindless articles/humorous books & watching brainless shows. my sports therapist eva recommended rolling both before and after running and that had seemed to help for a while, that is until my event. me & the foam roller = BFFs, even if it's got some bloody fangs drawn on the side to symbolize how evil it really is at heart. i'm been pretty good at icing after longs runs and i'm sure the new velcro ice packs from sports basement should help make icing easier since they'll keep the ice in the right spot....i could do a better job on actually taking an ice bath after the long runs though (remind me to mention something about ice baths later). and i've been using rocktape all season. i just bumped up to the "big daddy" tape which is ideal for taping your IT band.

the shoes i was wearing had a neutral pronation because my running style is pretty normally pronated (yeah, i'm normal!!!!). the sole was pretty hard which is generally what the experts at the shop recommend.

i tried on two new pairs of shoes. a pair of nikes that felt really similar to my current shoes, just a bit wider in a part of my foot that didn't feel like it needed to be wider. the other pair was the asics gel-landreth 7. the shoe has a lot more cushion than my other shoes and i'm hoping this will help reduce some of the shock on my knees.

in looking into some other solutions, i read a quick article in runner's world that called "Kneed to Know" that provides four simple exercises that are supposed to help strengthen your hips which will help to a reduction in knee pain. as the sports doctor at kaiser told me when i had some knee pain while riding years ago, knee pain is seldom caused by the actual knee. it's usually an issue somewhere between the ankle and the hips and it's often difficult to identify the root cause. it's been awhile since i've built in a regime of squats, deadlifts, leg curls, or hamstring curls so i think it's time to hit the gym again. lucky for me, i've got a voucher from groupon for a 6 week bootcamp class that i bought months ago and it's burning a hole on my fridge. the group meets at the track 4 doors down from my house every monday, wednesday, and thursday evening. i'm totally stoked! i have to go to a mandatory orientation this saturday where they'll asses new student's ability levels....no getting a pass on the evaluation (boo hiss!)

long term i think it's going to wise for me to build in 1-2 days a week of weight training at my gym over the course of my ironman training so i don't run into any issues that result from muscle imbalances or weak hips. i also got some great tips from one of the running coaches from the Team in Training marathon season who's done several ironmans & is a therapist at SMI. she said for swimming, since training will largely revolve around freestyle that it is important to cross train strokes so as to keep your arm/back/pectoral muscles balanced. when you aren't doing organized swim training, mix in the backstroke as it's the reverse movement from freestyle and the butterfly is a complementary stroke. now to just transfer my gym membership over to a location that has a pool and get in there and get a few swims in before our official season kick off. i just picked up one of those swim buoys that is supposed to help you focus on your stroke so please tell me know that you won't laugh at me when i tell you all about me trying to figure out how it actually works.

so the last thing i wanted to tell you before i go head off to watch house and roll on the foam roller is about the ice bath. marc shared a good piece of wisdom with me about ice bathing...be sure to wear your sweatshirt, winter hat, and gloves while you are in there. no need for your whole body to suffer while you are trying to get your legs some much needed comforting. i'm thinking i ought to pick up something like this the next time i make it to an army surplus store. heheh

I did it! but i'm also a tech nucklehead...

2011-10-06T19:33:00.000-07:00

I did it! I finished the SJ Rock N Roll Half Marathon last weekend. unfortunately i don't have any really great finish photos because i had a bit of a user error when i was downloading photos from my mom's camera onto my computer and now they are no where to be found. once i can teach her how to download them and email them to me i'll post them up...but it might be awhile :-) (I love you mom!) in the meanwhile, i hijacked these from ilya via facebook...

Trying to run with Marc

Mile 12ish. Trying to run with Randy

my parents came out last week and we had a little holiday before the run. my brother came out friday night so we'd have saturday to spend some time together and get ready for the run. saturday morning we checked in for the race and got our bib numbers and timing chips. the folks who put on the RNR series really do have the process down & are a marketing machine. we spent some time going through the expo and i bought a new pair of compression socks for the run. since they didn't have my size in black i decided if i'm gonna look goofy in knee high socks, let's go all out and get the lime green ones. HOT! haha.

sunday morning we arrived early and i felt a bit overwhelmed with all the people hanging out in the corrals. i've done tons of organized bike rides but i've never actually started a big charity ride at the start gate...i've usually just joined the route somewhere along the way so i avoided the mass chaos at the start. fortunately the run start wasn't too chaotic, just a load of people.

the run went really well...at least for awhile. my brother started a few corrals before me as he expected to finish in around 2 hours. i started my run with bestie marc at 08:02:23. i didn't really stick to the plan early on of doing run walk intervals too well but it was chaotic and i was feeling kinda lousy so i figured it would be like riding. go hard when you feel like your legs are lead...then you get some of the gunk out and you are good to go. we passed by the first 5k check point (3.1 miles) at 00:33:33 which meant i had been doing 11 minute miles in my warm up. around mile 4 my legs started feeling better so i thought cool, i can totally do this. at 9:09:09, I passed over the 10K (6.2 miles) with a time of 1:06:46. at that point i still felt pretty good and like i could do this thing no problem.

all that would change at mile 7 when my right knee started to hurt. i thought it was just sore and we could get through this. i focused on my form and relaxing and keeping my hips forward and my shoulders back. a mile later my left knee joined in on the party and now both were killing me with every step. at mile 9 i was really starting to struggle but i was trying to stick to my run-walk intervals really diligently now. by mile 10 it was a lost cause. we hit that mark at 10:00:42; 01:58:19 minutes of run time so far. my pace was falling and i was feeling the need to walk a lot more. soon my running pace was about as fast as my walking pace but i thought if i stuck with the movement maybe everything would get back on track. i think it was around mile 12 when i decided we really had to walk almost exclusively. as we rounded back into town i thought let's jog the last .2 miles. as i set my eyes on the mark to start running a really sharp pain surged through my knee and i knew i needed to walk it across the finish line.

i didn't hit my goal of making it in 2:15, but i did finish. my final time was 02:53:21. good news is that means i set the bar really low for the next one.

i'm planning on looking into some new shoes this weekend and ask around about other ideas on helping my bio mechanics improve. i saw a bunch of those magnetic bracelets and necklaces at the race and i have a teammate that is wearing a retainer that funny enough improves her posture...who would have thought tension in your jaw could impact your running form. anyway, i don't know if that stuff will really work or not but it's worth a try looking into it. i'll let you know what i find out about that stuff in a post next week. i've still got the philly full marathon on the calendar for november 20 and i'm hoping i can go the full distance...if i can't work out the knee stuff in the next week or so i may have to consider doing just another half distance. either way, i finished one run and with a smile on my face.

thank you marc for running with me! you are the best!

ready freddy

2011-09-26T13:50:00.000-07:00

Just look at this...

What beautiful weather forecasted for this Sunday's run!!! I know it's still 6 days away and the forecast is likely to change,but i hope if it does it's only slightly. a cool, partly cloudy, low humidty morning will be perfect for running a half marathon. i'm feeling ready freddy, now it's just a few more hours until i'm off on vacation and then a few more hours till i'm picking my parents up at the airport and then my brother gets into town and then we run.

if you are in san jose and want to come out to cheer (or even if you wanna mock me) below is a map of where you'll be able to find me. the finish line is at Park Ave. just before Plaza de Cesar Chavez in downtown San Jose. the race starts at 8am. i'm thinking this thing is gonna take me between 2 hours 15 minutes and 2 hours 30 minutes to complete. The route is relatively flat and i've heard it is a pretty fast run so hopefully maintaining my marathon pace won't be an issue.

interactive map here: http://runrocknroll.competitor.com/files/2011/03/SJ_11_CourseMap.pdf

this season i've learned many things. the biggest one is probably understanding just how hard running is and gaining a new level of appreciation for all those folks who do marathon after marathon. today i can't really say i'm 100% the runner or 100% the cyclist, but instead i can relate to both...

to TT or not to TT...

2011-09-23T20:29:00.000-07:00

Just a little over a week to my first official half marathon and in stead of getting nervous about hte run i'm already thinking about the all important issues that must be resolved in the next 11 months of training for the ironman.

what do i wear?

AND

what do i ride?

i know, i know....i've got plenty of time to figure it out but seriously, who cares about just finishing, i wanna look good for my finishing photo. haha. i've started polling a few folks on what they rode or plan to ride in their ironman. and i've gotten some good input from friends - like kim, she said if you are only gonna do it once, don't let your equipment hold you back or have regrets about what if i had done something differently.

i'm thinking about maybe going with a cervelo p3, the tt version of my t3 track bike. it's the identical geometry as the bike i raced on all last year so the set up should feel pretty good, but is a tt bike really a necessity for the race? would i be compelled to race all the NCNCA Time Trials next year, would i want to race track persuit again (watch sarah hammer vs cari higgins)...oh there are so many options. so back to thinking about the bike, and not about all the racing i didn't do this year. the p3 is a good idea

except one big difference...the color scheme is just not so hot

i mean really, how could you mess with the perfection of speed demon blazin hot red???

off to have sweet dreams of running along the ocean tomorrow morning. must remember to run with camera!

event wisdom from unlikely sources

2011-09-15T13:02:00.000-07:00

today i volunteered through a community involvement day that my employer, Intel, was hosting. i chose to particpate in the volunteering opportunity at Sacred Heart Community Service ( a really amazing organization if you are looking for volunteering opportunities - they have a food bank, clothing closet, housing assistance program, as well as educational programs and career counceling/placement assistance)

the team i was working wiht was comprised of 3 other folks from all differnt parts of Intel. While we were sorting & bagging produce our team talked about many things. one of which was running! two of the guys had done a lot of running and the one lady had a brother who did several iron mans. the one guy shared a great piece of wisdom for marathons...

station your friends and family along the course and know where they'll be. give them food and clothing so that you can get it if you need it. he told me about one event where the temperature shifted drastically. fortunately he had family out on the course with jackets and extra food so he managed just fine.

i'm looking forward to running the full marathon in philadelphia in november. my brother and i will have to coordinate all our aunts, uncles, and cousins all along the route to support team butrymowicz. hopefully they'll be excited to do so.

Thank you for all of your support!

2011-09-09T11:50:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

I wanted to make a heart felt thank you to all of you for the support & donations to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society throughout my training for the San Jose Rock and Roll Half Marathon. I have reached my fundraising goal and couldn't have done it without you!

The event is only a few weeks away and i'm feeling ready. This weekend we have a long run planned in San Francisco and then i'm headed up to Lake Tahoe to do the Bike Big Blue ride. Then it's only a few weeks of more running until the Philadelphia full marathon in November. I'm a bit nervous about that event but I feel like i've got a handle on the distance thing but I just have to bump it up past that 18 mile threshold. I've heard if you can do 18 you can do a full...it's sort like in riding if you can do anything over 75 it feels just like 100.

So what am I going to do with myself after that???

Well, if you noticed the change in my blog's title you'll have guess right. I'm signed up to train for the Ironman Canada 2012 with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society starting this winter! If you had wanted to make a donation to my run but didn't get a chance to, you aren't out of luck. i'm still fundraising! You can make a donation to my Ironman season's fundraising efforts. I just set up my page at http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/ironca13/bethlubov

i'm going to keep writing my blog and hopefully you'll still enjoy reading. i'm not a very good swimmer (in fact all i can do is stay afloat or do the backstroke) so there should be some pretty funny material coming out of learning to swim, learning to put on a wet suit, hearing stories about people doing the unthinkable during training and racing...i'm looking forward to the new adventure!

cough cough, excuse me, cough cough...

2011-09-02T14:33:00.000-07:00

WARNING - this post isn't going to be my usual funny self (or at least i like to think of myself as relatively humorous). but sometimes you got to take the awesome with the not so awesome, right? so here's what's going on in my world lately...

a cough, a never ending cough.

Wait, okay, maybe i'll share a few funnies first..like mustaches. mustaches are very very very funny. did you know that there is a Beard and Mustache Championship every year?!? Seriously. Check it out: http://www.worldbeardchampionships.com/ Who knew there were so many categories of mustaches?!? But in my opinion, i'm shocked that they could have missed the most important category of all, the ironic mustache? I mean, really, hasn't anyone seen the hipster olympics before?

i've had this rotten cough for weeks and i don't feel at all sick or congested or whatnot. and if you or i make myself laugh, i start to cough and it's a bit uncontrolable. which usually doesn't happen when you get sick. last week my ears started to feel stuffy which was making my hearing get wierd so i called the doctor. my PCP was out so i had a substitute doctor call me who told me to take some expectorant, decongestant, cough medicine and if it didn't go away in a week to call back. the cough still stuck around and by this point i was certain i didn't have a cold. my pcp was back in the office but i couldn't get in to see her. fortunately i could get a phone appt with her on tuesday evening. she didn't like the sound of my symptoms or my cough and sent me for a chest x-ray that night and although she didn't have any appointments available on Wednesday she told me to come in and she'd find time to see me in between patients. so i figured if she was that concerned, there is no way i should show my face at track practice this week. i decided to go home and relax and read a good book that night after the xray. sometimes i may not be the best at listening to my body, but i'll usually listen to the experts who know way more than me.

Wednesday I went in to see the doctor and she said my chest xrays looked great so that ruled out a load of stuff. yeah! she listened to my lungs and heard wheezing, which i couldn't at all fell. that's not a good thing she said and ordered me to go down the hall for a breathing treatment. the first round opened my lungs up (and made me really jittery) which resulted in me now feeling the wheezing. she came in an listened to my lungs again and apparently my lungs were so tight previously that it was constricting stuff so badly that the wheezing wasn't as audible until things got relaxed. now she could really hear it and i could really feel it. after that i did a second round of treatment in the office and she sent me home with a diagnosis of asthma and ordered me to get inhalers. what?!? seriously? how is that possible, i thought, i do tons of sports...how could i have asthma? ends up you can have it and not really know it. and based on some of the symptoms and way i've been feeling while working out the last year or so.

here's some of the symptoms (from http://www.webmd.com/asthma/guide/asthma-symptoms)

Coughing, especially at night
Wheezing
Shortness of breath
Chest tightness, pain, or pressure

but i never really experienced those...or at least i didn't really realize it. however, symptoms vary widly by person and even sometime over time. I read about all sorts of other symptoms on a bunch of other sites. Below are a few I found interesting:

unusual fatigue during exercise.

yup, this i noticed and more so in the last year. things that used to be really easy seemed to be a lot harder and i just assumed i was over training or stressed or tired or not eating enough

decreased athletic performance

well, yes. count that as true too. i really started to notice it this past winter that it was much harder to keep up with people who i usually had no problem riding with

altered level of conciousness while exercising

hmmm, i've been feeling like i've been bonking but know i've been eating and drinking enough so i just started playing more and more with how much i was eating and drinking. it's a funny feeling where my pinky starts getting tingly and then eventually my head starts to feel a bit detached from my body and eating more doesn't help it go away.

difficulty sleeping

yup. often. but i thought that was part of being an adult with lots of responsibiities.

difficulty concentrating

what? huh? oh yeah. that's true too. but somehow i just thought it was how i've got a lot on my plate and not enought time to get it all done.

chronic cough, often after exercise

i should have listened to my mom who has been telling me for years i should get my cough checked out and i always just thought it was nothing because i had done a hard workout earlier that day.

so hopefully this is an accurate diagnosis and now i can start treating it properly and get back to being a kick butt athlete. after all i did just sign up to do IRONMAN CANADA!!! Good news is swimming is an ideal sport for people with asthma. so if i can just learn that piece and add it on to my running and riding ability i'm all set. more on ironman later.

One last little thing I found interesting (from http://www.webmd.com/asthma/guide/exercise-induced-asthma)

" In fact, many athletes -- even Olympic athletes -- compete with asthma. For example, in the 1996 Olympic Games, one out of every six athletes had asthma. These Olympians competed in a variety of sports such as track and field, mountain biking, kayaking, cycling, and rowing. The following is an abbreviated list of athletes who have competed despite their asthma.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee - track and field
Jerome Bettis - NFL running back
Amy Van Dyken - swimming
Dennis Rodman - NBA basketball
Ray Bourque - NHL hockey "

Hopefully it'll be just a few more days to get things under control and i can get back to training. Asthma may stinks, but it's not nearly as bad as cancer. i am so lucky to be able to run in honor of the people who have faught and are fighting cancers and the great work that the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society is doing.

patty stanger is my foam rollering inspiration

2011-08-29T13:01:00.000-07:00

This week I learned what a load of foam rollering will do for you:

catch you up on all sorts of terrible garbage TV. Why? well, when you are rolling there isn't much else you can concentrate on when it hurts that bad. I'm convinced that when the pain receptors are in overload the brain can't read any signols other than mindless gossip shows and reality tv programming
catch you up on strange articles in science and art magazines. Once the rollering goes from extreme pain to mild discomfort you can divert your attention away from Millionare Matchmaker and actually do something that will stimulate your mind. i caught up on the japanese inspired design issue of dwell and read all about light bulbs in wired
and eventually it will help you realize that even if you muscles feel loose, sometimes they are not. if you sit on the softball on the top of your IT band for a few minutes, eventually it will loosen up and then the real pain will start so you can alleviate it

going into saturday's run i was skeptical. i've had this awful cough for 2 weeks and haven't been running at all. the weekend before i made it half a mile before i had to quit because of teh pain in my knee. Thursday night i made it 2 miles before i gave in to admiting it wasn't just mild discomfort. what was in store, i had no idea but was trying to will myself into having a good run.

i decided to do the shortest distance run of the day - 8 miles for the half marathoners. that also meant i got to sleep in a little bit, spend time on the foam roller, than make it out for my start at 9am. when i got there it was me and two other people setting off. at first i was bummed by the thought of running 8 miles by myself than i realized it was probably a good plan. i took my pace a bit slower and i did a 5 minute run/1 minute walk interval. at the top of each walk i paused for a few seconds to stretch out my IT bands. i made it 3/4 miles and was good. then i made it to the potties at 1.5 miles and was good. then i made it to the rest stop at 2.5 miles and was good. awesome! i think i can do this. whenever i got to a hill i either walked up or took tiny strides up. at one steep downhill i actually walked backwards to not make the knee hurt (but i did end up almost toppling over when i ended up walking off the trail. so note, when walking backwards on a hill to avoid knee pain and have a head cold so have terrible balance...keep a look out on where you are going or the only place you are going to end up is on your butt). then i started to see more and more of my teammates and friends who were out for their 16 mile run. it was so great to see smiling faces! then i made it to the turn around (it sort of looked something like this).

what? why so sad mister turn around spot? not me, i'm jumping for joy! i just ran 4 miles and my knee wasn't hurting yet. i made it back the next 4 miles and was feeling pretty good. as soon as i was done i jumped on the foam roller and spent some time doing some serious stretching. it felt a little wierd to be doing this in a parking lot but it's sort of like my mantra...when it comes to sports i have no shame. dirty porta pottie...no problem. dirty/muddy/stinky/sweaty...hey that's a real athlete. making the muscles feel good...necessary asap so don't appologize for laying down the yoga mat and busting out the foam roller where ever you are when you finish your run.

this week we've got a timed 3 mile run on Tuesday so we can see how far we've come. The last time we did this it was 90+ degrees and I still managed to do it in 30 minutes. i'm not sure that my time will be much faster but we'll see. Thurday is 60-90 minute tempo run. Saturday is a buddy run. There will be some cycling for cross training to keep the muscles loose, and appt at SMI, and a boxing mitts class (watch out wierdos on the almaden trail who live in the bushes and say they are going to get us...i know my jab, cross, hook, hook, uppercut now!)

running men, ice skaters, and wood choppers...

2011-08-24T16:03:00.000-07:00

So first off, let me express my total and absolute amazment. who would have thought that the running man from the 80s would now be part of an incredible movement of Aussies who are busting moves in parking garages?!?

last night was a curcuit workout at the track. since my knee is still not 100% and i got it worked on yesterday, i set off on a really easy paced warm-up jog and then opted to do some walking circuits. Coaches Kris and Tim ran us through the drills we'd be doing every 2.5 minutes...lo and behold, we were starting with THE RUNNING MAN, okay wait...i think they said running man which the running man they are talking about is totally different

seriously, i not going to get to bust out my jams and show off my awesome moves. imagine my disappintment to learn that the next moves included crab walks (i dont' like seafood) and there would be no poppin' and lockin' exercises. man, all the time i've spent practicing my moves whenever we are driving in matt's car and listening to the the "rap" shuffle on the ipod that came with his car (and it is a HILARIOUSLY terrible mix!) are going to waste.

Here is a selection of the moves we did that help work on your core muscles...

plank walk outs
crab walks
dive bomer pushup
regular pushups
woodchoppers
walking lunges
ice skaters
jump squats
planks
side planks
bridges

I heart core workouts

Milestones

2011-08-22T15:09:00.000-07:00

I've been down the last week about my knee hurting and having a really awful cough. I realized that I needed to take a step back and take some time to savor the accomplishments and put it all into perspective...

I've already ran over 135 miles this season!

"Look mom, I am a runner!"
A few miles into our Santa Cruz run, before my right knee started to hurt

I'm only $250 shy of my fundraising goal for the season!

Thank you to everyone who has made a donation so far. I'm almost to my goal and that's so very exciting. As a team, the summer season marathoners have raised over $217K already!

I went out for a jog this weekend and unfortunately my knee wasn't feeling ready for it. I made the best of it and had a really great long walk with Marc. We even saw a bunch of friends from TNT who were out training, including Ron the upcoming captain for the Iron Man 2012 season (and yes, he's totally got me convinced to sign up...but i'll tell you more about that next week). I spent a large portion of yesterday on the foam roller and it's going to be a large portion of my evening tonight. Tomorrow i've got a lunch date with Eva at sports medicine institute followed by a dunk in the ice bath. Hopefully a few more days of intensive work on the muscles of my right leg will make everything feel just fine.

Tomorrow evening the team is having a circuit training workout and i'm really looking forward to it. Not enough cross training is often a cause for knee pains popping up. The last few weeks I was running I didn't had the chance to ride so i'm hoping that adding that back in a day or two will help. Thursday evening i'll give a short run a try and if all goes well I'm hoping to be able to make the run this Saturday in Coyote Creek. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

bad week bears

2011-08-16T08:58:00.000-07:00

i used to have this cycling jacket that has a phrase written on the waist band. it said "there is never a bad day to ride." i augmented it in my mind to say "there are just bad clothing choices." truth be told, there really are just some times that it ends up being a basic, plain and simple, bad day on a bike. this weekend, i experience my first basic, plain and simple, bad day on a run.

marc and i decided to go get lost on the paths at rancho san antonio last weekend. he's never been there and i've basically just played follow the leader on my runs out there. all the paths sort of lead around in big loops so we figured we couldn't get that badly lost and if we ended up too far out there we could always walk back (well, at least i thought all the paths looped around but for some reason i'm terrible at reading maps when they are of nature. give me city streets and highway maps and i'm just fine). the mistake i made in this plan is that rancho san antonio is hilly, really really hilly so not knowing where you are going could result in you ending up on some super steep territory that seems like it never comes down. we went out one path and followed the cut-through-the-woods sign over to the direction of the PG&E trail. well, this thing was steep. so steep it sent visions through my mind of my achilles tendon snapping in half or me tripping and doing summersaults all the way down the hil. jogging it set my heart rate going sky high so i turned in my "big wimp" card and walked on up that...or maybe i crawled....i don't remember, it was super duper steep. even after walking my heart rate was still sky high...and then i started to feel sick to my stomach...and the path still continued to go uphill...and i still continued to feel worse. Marc was a good sport and let me walk while he'd jog up to the next clearing. he turned the day into some intervals while i tried to keep my pb&j down.

that part of the run seemed to last forever. eventually we got to the slight downhill and i started to run again and feel much better. the rest of the run seemed to go great. we saw some amazing views, chatted, and got 5 miles on the books.

last thursday's buddy run was uninspiring from a workout perspective, but i did have a great time running and chatting with marc and sue. a fairly easy paced 5 miles running 5 minute/walking 1 minute. since i wasn't feeling so hot all week i decided that the unispiring 5er was still a pretty good accomplishment...even if i did fall off of my buddy's pace for the last half mile.

then came saturday...the day i was fearing. a 14 mile run in santa cruz after a week of feeling lowsy. the first 2 miles from Natural Bridges along the bluffs was beautiful! a foggy morning, the sound of waves crashing, and some amazing super modern houses with large windows overlooking the ocean. then it was 2 miles out on a path until we got to the first water stop. somewhere about a quarter mile to the stop my "good" knee started to hurt. a bad pain, just like the angry IT Band pain i used to get in my left knee. i stopped, stretched, used my water bottle & palms to attempt to massage out my leg muscle. i started to jog again and the pain was intense. stopped, stretched some more, and gave in an walked a bit to see if i could loosen stuff up. i got to the water stop and stretched for a good 15 minutes then tried to set off again. this time the pain was so bad i coldn't walk very well.

i sucked it up and stayed at the water stop with some ice on my knee. i decided attempting to walk back 2 miles was not an option so i waited for someone to come drive me back to the start. i wasn't too super bummed about it until a bunch of my friends came in then i got really sad and i started to cry, just a little bit. while i know it just means i need to suck it up and do better at using the foam roller and stretching, i still was really disappointed to be missing a wonderful run along the ocean.

the plan now is a few stops at sports medicine institute, morning and evening sessions on the foam roller until i get this in a good spot, pre and post run session on the foam roller always. ice. stay off the legs this week until at least thursday.

to make up for feeling so bummed saturday i went out and bought a running watch sunday. it's pretty good i think...complete with a foot pod to track your distance, training intervals, and a heart rate monitor. unfortunately the shop was out of the all black one so i ended up with the girly pink and white one (who designs this stuff??? it certainly can't be seriously athletic women! i want to look like a bad*ss not a prissy girlie girl when i'm working out). i'm looking forward to running intervals on this weekend's run and playing around with my pace. just crossing my fingers all the therapy this week will make a run possible.

6 1/2 weeks till my half marathon
13 1/2 weeks till my full marathon

holy heat and humidity...how to run in the summer on the east coast

2011-07-28T08:10:00.000-07:00

for such a small state, new jersey sure does pack a mean punch with the heat and humidity. so far i've been relatively fortunate...i've been running in between heat waves (sure does feel like a heat wave to me, but technically a heatwave is 90 degrees plus for more than 3/sometimes defined by 5 days). even if this isn't technically a heat wave, it is still far hotter and much more humid than any of the training i've been doing in california. this morning's run felt like it was swealtering although the temp was only 77 degrees. add on 80% humidity and the "real feel" was 86 degrees. so, how does one adjust for the heat and how am i going to manage my super long run this saturday when they are calling for a heat advisory warning now through saturday evening?

from http://www.amphipod.com/products/hydration/
bottles-handhelds/handhelds/hydraform-handheld

there are a load of great resources on runner's world right now for how to run in the heat. i know i'm going to go early and that's the plan i've been sticking to this week so far. i know i'm going to be carrying my totally awesome ergonomicly designed handheld water bottle contraption because i refuse to wear one of those fanny pack inspired water belts that's got the four bottles all around your waste but i still need to drink water so i don't shrivel up like a human raisin. and i knew i was going to SLOW DOWN - Every five-degree rise in temperature over 60 degrees results in an additional 20 to 30 seconds per mile. I've been training at a chit-chatty 10 minute mile pace in CA. this means i was going to be out there doing 12 minute miles at a minimum this morning. i didn't like the sound of it, but funny enough my body definately seems to be smarter than the little devil inside that says you need to run faster. i used the my tracks app and took a look at my first mile...i was at a 12 minute pace. my head figured it's got to be because this is my warm-up pace...but sure enough when ever i'd check in i was running at 12 minute mile pace. although i was going slower, i felt like i was working at the same pace as my standard marathon pace at home in CA! ugh, the heat stinks. i don't wanna be slow :-(

from http://mytracks.appspot.com/features

other insights for running where it's hot is to run in water. well, we don't have a swimming pool at the house i grew up in anymore so that's out. instead i took every chance to run through any sprinklers that were on. however being that i'm a responsible adult and all, i refrained from running on their lawns, i just took to the sidewalk and slowed down a bit to get wet.

here's another interseting recommendation. Walk more. for my shorter runs i don't walk at all so i added in a few 30 second walk spots after every mile or so. i've only just started the run-walk way for my last 12 mile run and i'm hoping to do that again this weekend. since i did a 5 minute run, 1 minute walk interval in CA at around 70 degrees, the theory is i should drop down 1 minute of running for each additional 10 degrees. ugh, i hope i can get up early enough so it's cool enough that i'm not doing a lot of walking. or maybe we'll just have to cut the distance down since it's going to be so hot.

and lots and lots of sunscreen. when you get sun burnt your body has a harder time cooling yourself down so it can lead to heat exhaustion. plus, looking like a lobster is so not fun.

from http://comfortablehomelife.com/2011/06/15/lobster-and-sunburns/

pain versus PAIN!!!!

2011-07-27T06:51:00.000-07:00

last saturday i did a 12 mile run. it was my first run doing a run-walk pace. i decided to stick with sue as long as i could...she's a fast lady! she does a 5 minute run and 1 minute walk pace which sounded like a good mix to me. we took of slowly to warm up for the first 1-2 miles then started to pick up the pace. the route was a "double out and back" meaning we left balzer field in los gatos and ran down the trail towards lexington reservoir. the warm up was beautiful and challanging. we have a very steep section with loose gravel before we got to our turn-around/rest stop. the morning was cool and we even got to see rowers out on the reservoir. after our warm-up i felt great. we headed back to the start to then continue out towards the dam in vasona park. somewhere around mile 6 my knee started to feel a bit odd. by mile 8 my hip flexor and it band were also starting to hurt. i dropped off of sue's pace and tried to settle into a slower pace and mange the pain. by the last mile i think my interval was more like 1 minute slow jog, 5 minute walk. it was ugly, but i got it done. my longest run ever!

i ought to back up a bit. on thursday afternoon i had an appointment at sports medicine institute. i'm a huge fan as they have helped me through pain in the past and taught me when to start in on some serious foam roller action and other fun stuff like the golf ball and soft ball to other sore spots (ouch!) usually you want to wait 24-48 hours before doing any sports. i was close to the 48 hour mark, but i think i was still sore from the preventative injury treatment. so the spots that started to hurt were all associated with spots we had been working on. and the pain was only localized to those areas on my left leg, the one we worked on, while my right leg felt fine. i was still worried about though. so my question was how do i know it's just pain i should work through rather than PAIN i should be worried about?

could this be runner's knee? well the site says causes are overuse, trauma, misalignment, problems with the feet, and weak thighs. well, we can rule out weak thighs. have you seen my drumsticks? yeah, not weak thighs. feet issues - i had a great fit with my shoes and even had them do the slow mo video of my gate at running revolution in campbell so i'm sure it's not the feet. no trauma that i know of. that leaves us with overuse and misalignment. it could have been either. how do you treat these? R.I.C.E.

rest. ice. compression. elevation. i've heard this plenty of times before while training hard while riding, but it wasn't until i started running and got afraid of being injured that i took it seriously. in running they say you are one of two types of cylists...one who has broken their collarbone and one who is going to break their collarbone. in running i've heard something slightly similar...but it's more along the lines of you are going to get injured it's just part of running. ugh, i am trying to avoid that as much as possible.

unfortunately after my run i couldn't rest or ice too much as we already had plans for the day. i was definately feeling it on sunday. and then i got on a plane. after a cross country flight my legs felt even more like garbage. although i usually run on tuesdays, thursdays, and saturdays i took tuesday off too in order to figure out if this was just a really bad pain while running or the PAIN of injury. luckily i think it was the former. yeah!

i did my track workout this morning at my old high school. wow the place has changed a lot. but the track and field is still really nice and i'm looking forward to doing a cross country run there tomorrow.

today's workout was:

10 minute warm-up jog
active stretching
5x800 meters at a pace faster than your marathon pace (i went with 8 minute mile pace), with 2 minutes recovery in between efforts (sounds a lot like cycling track workouts to me!)
cool down
stretch

my dad came out to the track with me and did a morning walk then he read the paper while i finished up my efforts. then we did a cool down walk together and walked around the campus. what a lovely morning indeed!

bob cats, rattle snakes, and moutain lions....oh my

2011-07-18T21:54:00.000-07:00

The Jersey Devil

it's been awhile since my last post. why the delay???...well, are you ready for this post? you may want to sit down and call your loved ones close. this is going to be the most frightening topic i've prepared to address all season.

animals....lots of wild animals.

and this isn't like in new jersey where we have to fear the jersey devil when we go out into the pinebarrens although we know that JD probably doesn't exit (except my few friends that swear to have seen it...no seriously, they have!) no, this post is going to be about mountains and mountain lions.

a few weeks back I decided to try my hand at a hilly route and join some teammates for a 4-6 mile loop at Rancho San Antonio. Upon entering the park I saw this sign

The shrinking range of the cougar
aka mountain lion

Holy moly. you mean there are mountain lions here?!? i had heard the random stories of sightings of moutain lions on some lower range hills like old la honda, but i didn't actually put the two words together...MOUNTAIN and LION. this isn't like a bobcat that looks like a big cat but is fierce...this is like a huge-ass lion who lives in the mountain near me. and even though i'm now from california and i live in a valley surrounded by mountains, i don't ever think of these hilly areas as in fact mountains. but did you know that mountain lions live all over the western coast of north america. well they do...there aren't any mountain lions any where close to where i grew up so oh boy, now i have to figure out how to deal with mountain lions

so I got to reading about mountain lions to try to elimnate my irrational fear of getting eatten alive (you know i am totally the city mouse right?!?)...and everything says mountain lions are pretty much shy and elusive but the threat of being attacked is real, albeit really slim. so the rules of thumbs are run in groups, talk real loud, never run from a mountain lion (great! i'm running this season!), never turn your back on it, and always give it an escape route (like i'd be thinking about it's escape route instead of mine?!?!).

luckily we didn't see any mountain lions on our run but i think i made certain of that by talking everyone's ears off and trying to scare off any living thing in the hills around us. (after all, we are supposed to run hard enough but still be able to hold a conversation, right?). the only wierd wildlife we saw were some huge beetles and a big fat lizard trying to cross the path. at the end of our run we ran into Garett Lau who was out there to run and take pictures...he even ran across a huge snake in the parking lot. So, now i've got mountain lions and snakes to worry about...great...

But outside the wildlife & terrible parking conditions on Saturday mornings, Rancho is awesome for training. My new running shoes look sort of beat up now because they are all dirty but i'm sure the hills are helping make me stronger. Oh, and you get to run by the cute fat hairy piggy at the Deer Hollow Farm on your way out and about the park.

One thing i realized is while i am really good at getting around the city and have a fairly good sense of direction, when it comes to looking at camping and hiking maps i can't tell you what is up or down. So on the map below, i think we took the coyote trail out past the farm, and then maybe the wildcat loop trail and part of the pg&e trail. i am hoping to keep going back and running hills with the group and learning the other paths. the one we've been doing on thursday is a great after work run as it's mostly under tree covered paths...the route i did up a big hill one weekend was challanging but totally exposed to the sun so a better option for an early morning run when i've got fresh legs and loads of sunscreen on.

This week i am going to miss our track workout due to a work event. i ought to get to bed so i can get up early and do the workout on my own. Thursday i hope to hit the hills again then Sunday i've got an 11 mile run! i am going to make it to the 100 miles of training mark soon!

good night. sweet dreams. xo

nosce te ipsum

2011-06-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

let's start with a little ditty by kenny rogers on knowing when to make which decision

on knowing when to say when, aka "calling it quits-ys" and convincing myself it's okay...

a few years ago i had some major knee issues. i'd get on my bike and ride and there would be this aching on the inside of my left knee. eventually it got so bad that i pulled out of a race, limped my way back to the car, and immediately called the doctor certain that something was broken, pulled, strained, or otherwise completely exploded and rendered useless. turns out the body is a crazy thing and you can be in absolute tear-jerking pain and it be caused by your muscles being too strong in one place and too weak in another. when it comes to knees, the problem usually isn't the knee itself, rather my doctor said it's any myriad of things from the ankle to the hip all working in cunjuction to make your very, very unhappy. i got diagnosed with Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome and since the causes aren't absolutely certain i started to do a bunch of different things to counteract it....mainly stabalizing exercises, using the foam roller and going to Sports Medicine Institute for a sports massage when i feel the tightness in my joint.

it's hard to describe exactly what it feels like but it's sort of like if my leg was made of rubber bands and they had started to deteroriate and can't really contract all the way anymore. it's sort of like when you want to put on a pair of tight jeans and you pull them up over legs that just got lotioned and everything feels all out of alignment and like the jeans don't fit over your legs although you know they do, there is no way you could have gained that much weight since the last time you wore them last week or yesterday. yeah, it's sort of like the flesh feels like it doesn't fit the leg quite right.

my leg started to get that too-tight-jeans-on-lotioned-leg feeling and the foam roller wasn't cutting it. i made an appt with Eva at SMI to gemy legs worked on. i hadn't been there in over a year and this time we paid attention to some of the tightnesses that i didn't really make too seriously when i was jsut riding - my ankle and planter fascia. holy moly, ouch! when you hit on a knot in your foot, it feels like it's on fire and burns up in through the middle of your foot. the old tennis ball trick wasn't cutting it and Eva told me i should start using a golf ball instead. the hard surface of the golf ball does a much more efficient job of getting deeper into the muscle. so, now that i know that, i need to do this golf ball thing so i never feel that burning again. ouch. (not the trifecta of torture should be updated to replace tennis ball with golf ball)

generally speaking when you get your muscles worked on this seriously you need to take 24-48 hours off from exercise. this is nothing like a relaxing massage on your vacation and it'd not even like a deep tissue massage...this is like "i'm-wincing-in-pain-and-i-know-this-is-going-to-be-good-for-me-in-the-long-run-but-how-did-i-get-myself-in-such-a-state" sort of massage.

being that i'm a hard head, i didn't listen to the 24-48 hour warning and i figured 'nah, i can still go ride tonight' which i did and went up hicks. <--you should totally go to that link...you are going to think i'm such a bad*ss for riding that hill

the climb up hicks felt great and i think i may truly heart hills again. it was a warm night and i had a great time riding with a women from the run team and chatting with her about all sorts of life's great lessons. but by thursday afternoon, Hicks and SMI had caught up with me and i was cursing my own arogance for wanting to ride. after work, i went home to go get ready for our weekly buddy run at Campbell Park. I didn't feel like going but i rallyed...afterall fighting cancer is way harder than running 4 miles. i should have known i wasn't ready for it because my personal indicators were all on high alert...

the voice in my head kept saying i don't want to go and my rally voice couldn't convince it to stop talking
i was really grumpy during a phone call just before i was setting of to leave for the park
i arrived at the park and still didn't want to bet there

for me these are sure fire signs it's time for a rest day. so i decided to call it quits-ys and i went home and walked a movie and feel good about my decision to rest. not everyone has the same signols, but these are mine for knowing when to get my legs worked on and when my body needs a rest. there are some more scientific indicators like resting heart rate measures that say when you are out of your normal range it's time to take a day off, but i think it's easier to get to know yourself and listen to what your body is saying.

on knowing when to say go...or "lets crush this thing you monster"...

i'm finding running not nearly as impossible as i had thought it would be in my head. i'm not intimidated by the half marathon distance and i'm really looking forward to running it. as such, i decided i should go for a full before the end of the year because now that distance, i still do find that intidating. (as you know, i tend to be a hardhead so it was pretty inevitable i would do a full someday) I am now signed up to do the Philadelphia Marathon! Go me!

Saturday I had in my head that i would run 6 miles but the head coach recommended I go for 7, which basically planted the seed in my head that i needed to run that far (hardhead!) The theory is every other weekend is a long week run and on those weekends we increase our distance by 2 miles over our longest run to that point in training. On the off weekends we go back to a recovery distance of 3-5 miles. so since i had been training up to 5 miles the two weeks before, i though my realistic goal was 6 miles and 7 miles would be my stretch. you know what, i felt awesome at the turn around for 6 miles so i went for the 7, my longest single run in my entire life!

Tonight is a track workout and i'm looking forward to it. i'm getting mentally prepped for it now...

sweltering summer solstice + hot as heck intervals

2011-06-23T08:57:00.000-07:00

tuesday night was the longest day of the year, and by far the hottest of the year. when i rolled up to the running track at 6PM the themometer was still reading mid 90s. all day i had been getting texts and seeing photos on facebook of people taking photos of the temperarture readings in their car. given that i knew it was going to be a sweltering week, i had been drinking loads of extra water since monday. which unfortunately meant i had to pee like every 30 minutes...and my work is re-doing the bathroom near me so i either had to run to the other side of the building or go to another floor. i choose the other floor option which meant i got in at least a mile of stair climbing over the course of each day. guess that is my jump start to getting my squats back on.

but holy heck it was so hot! i could have been straight infusing myself with water for 48 hours and i'm still certain that wouldn't have helped. ugh. accuweather had all sorts of alerts about heat warnings but i threw caution to the wind and went running anyway.

the workout was 8x400 meter intervals (full laps) to be run faster than endurance speed but slower than an all out sprint. the first 4 i ran by how i felt and it was great. only on the forth did i feel like i was quickly approaching the golden bucket territory. and by golden bucket territory, i mean the you just worked so hard you barfed award. but this wasn't really a barf-worthy effort it was more an equation of:

which translates to hella hot people drinking sports drink need barbi barf bags sometimes.

OMG. have you ever google imaged barfed? the results are hillarious. my favorite has to be this animated gif of the most glorious rainbow ever

which gets me to want to post another video but i can't believe no one could have put the most glorious rainbow ever quote from ron burgundy on youtube...so instead you can enjoy this little delight

Okay, so back to the point of what i learned other than the need for hydration. we focused on cadence. just as there is in cycling, there is cadence in running and it's an important measure to ensure you are running as efficiently as possible. for endurance runs, the cadence should be around 90. in cycling there are alll sort of bike computers that will tell you your cadence, and perhaps there is something for running too, but we did the good old fashion way. mentally counting each time your right foot hit the pavement. the first time around, i paced the head coach and i could get the pace down without a problem except my lap was now :30 seconds slower than when i was running by feel. the next time around i paced someone who was my speed but wasn't getting the cadence right. i then spent the next two rounds overthinking it and trying to play with how hard i pushed off to stay at the right cadence and speed. net-net is, i didn't figure it out yet. i bet it'll be some sort of mix of running by how i feel and just naturally falling into the right cadence when my legs don't get that shin pain caused by taking too big a stride. so we'll see. once i figure it out i'll let you know. for now, know there is a principle of efficency and a 90 cadence is ideal.

tonight's run is already calling...6:30pm, a slightly cooler night, and 4-5miles.

my detailed training calendar has been replaced by a directional set of instructions

2011-06-17T21:03:00.000-07:00

last year i was training hard, a lot of the time...okay, well pretty much all of the time. a typical week around this time last year was something like:

2 days with double workouts: track cycling workouts in the morning. 2-3 hours of evening miles with some lactic threshold work or maybe some jumps thrown in for good measure
2 days of long rides with either sprints or 5-8 minute zone 4 efforts incorporated in somewhere after the first hour on the bike
1 day of racing at the track
1 day with some light riding on the rollers, aka active recovery
1 day of full on rest

throw in a workweek of typically 9-10 hour work days, add in a little bit of business travel here and my diehard need for 8 hours of sleep and i think i actually achieved nature defying feats of streatching the day out to 30 hours.

My very tiring life in 2010

i kept melticulus accounts of my workouts and what i was eating...i knew what my goals were for every workout and what must be accomplished. i knew my goals for the season and the microgoals to get there. by focusing on the goals and the steps to accomplishment, i didn't have to put any other thought into it other than go faster, go harder, get stronger.

unfortunately for me, the result of all this was i did get a lot stronger and a lot faster but the price was i got totally burnt out by early winter. by that time i was riding hard and doing a load of international travel which just crushed me. in retrospect, i did walk away with a valuable lesson...to have once bonked, you will never do it again. to have once over trained and not listened to your body enough, you will never again go down that path.

this year my approach to training couldn't be any more different. i've got a generic table on the refridgerator that says roughly what i should be doing...and when i say roughly, i really mean vaguely (i.e. cross train for 40 minutes). i'm not riding or running with any heart rate monitors, speed or cadence sensors...no power data. i don't have a running watch so i only know how far we've gone because i'm following friends. nothing, no data, nothing. i'm going in it with fun on the mind. i've been considering ballet cross training (this is my teacher's site) and trying to do Iyengar Yoga once a week at Club One considering that my core exercises. i've been planning rides and runs with friends and focusing on chit chatting...you'll never imagine all the amazing things i've learned about some folks i've been working out with for years. when you are heads down, busting your gut to stick on that wheel in front of you and the red eyed machine of agony replaces your face there isn't much you can process other than "must keep going." the 2010 mantras of "you can do anything for another light post" or "the harder you work to get on that wheel the easier it will be in just a few minutes because you'll get to draft" have been replaced by "cancer is way harder than this" and "girls just wanna have fun."

i've been thinking about all the stuff the normal person has to balance in their lives and am thinking about how it really is true that to be the best in sport there is a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. but the part that people don't really own up to or talk about so much is the part of being alone. you are alone in the hard work, you are training alone, and you've made tons of sacrafices to succeed which may mean you've put some people or parts of your life on hold too. i definately put a lot of stuff on hold because i wanted to be the best bike racer i could be last year. i still want to be the best at everything, but this time i've set my goal differently. for me, to be my best at running means i'm smiling the whole way, i'm supporting finding a cure for cancer, and i'm meeting a load of new people and learning new things about the people i already know. i don't really have a time goal and although some folks have asked me, i'm reluctant to set one. i think my goal is to run at a steady consistent pace...be that 8 minute or 12 minute miles, i just want to be smooth and smiling.

i am a hard head, but i bet you aren't surprised by that...

2011-06-15T03:06:00.000-07:00

during last week's buddy run, marc asked me what my fatal flaw was. the response is fairly easy...i am a hard head when it comes to sports. when i first moved to california and signed up to ride a century with team in training, i worked my butt off to stick with the fastest boys there. i experienced the dreaded "barf aerobics" and totally blew up in an absolutely unglamorous fashion on at least one ride on Calavares or Palomares and that route has pretty much been my nemesis ever since.

barf aerobics - adj. exercising beyond one's anaerobic threshold

(and likely close to or at one's max heart rate) for an impossibly long duration.

the end result is "vomit-in-the-mouth" syndrome, and often times actual vomiting.

the inability to say no often comes with the hardhead territory. before i had even rode my first century, my mentor colin mentioned that there was a double century in solvang just 3 weeks after our century in the same town (yup, a double...that really is a 200 mile ride - all in one sitting). naturally i couldn't say no, i mean really...if man created a ride that long of course i should do it. fortunately for me it was a great experience and i even had one of the volunteers ask me if i really had rode 200 miles because i looked so fresh when i checked out. i think that's what great teammates & having your parents at the finish line to cheer for you will do for you though!

After completing the Solvang Double Century 2007, the first of three doubles
I would ride that year. What a great team! Larry, me, Scott, Jay, and Colin

i went to saturday's run with my heart set on running 4 miles. i checked in saying i was going to run 4 miles. i went to the start line saying i was going to run 4 miles. but as we were waiting for the 6 miles to set off and the 5 milers got called, rose started to walk over and shouts at me to run with her. of course i hesitate, ho-hum, and then my inner-hard head calls me to the start line. surprisingly the 5 miles felt great. and when we got to the turn around and rose said she was going to do 6 miles, i hesitated for a second thinking should i go...but this time i decided to tell my inner hard head "no, there is still almost 4 months of training to go. are you seriously considering the full marathon you crazy hard head...stick with the original plan. halves-y! halves-y!"

My first 5 mile run ever and it was great! the best thing was i finished and felt like i certainly could have done the 6.

Elizabeth, me, and Rose after the run.
These ladies rock! They went for 6 miles, I went for 5.

the trifecta of torture

2011-06-08T08:28:00.000-07:00

every endurance athlete should have their own arsenal of the trifecta of torture. here's your shopping list

tennis balls
softball
foam roller
optional: the stick

tennis balls make the perfect feet massagers. you can spend lots of money on special foot massaging devices or you can buy yourself some tennis balls at target for like $5 and have a multi-purpose tool (practice your serve, wash and dry your duvet, massage your feet). yesterday i even brought my tennis balls to work and got my foot-massage-on under my desk at work. that rocked, and helped to reduce work stress by maybe a fraction of a percent.

softballs are a pretty big step up in the scale of torture. this is ideal for IT band and massaging out the tightness at the connection up in your hip. i like to roll on this to get the start of my leg massage going. it's not a big movement...it's about the pressure that starts to relieve the tension. when i go see eva at sports medicine institute this is how she usually starts the work on my leg so it's as close as i'll get to a pro sports massage at home.

next up is the foam roller. oh boy, the first time i was introduced to the foam roller i was reduced to a tearful whining little girl on the floor of the PT at kaiser permanente. it was horrible, but it started me on the road to recovery and knowing that without the torture you can't keep pushing and pushing your muscles to their limits. the roller is great for all sorts of tightness in your body, but i usually just stick to the legs. it's ideal because you can use your own body weight to push you into going more into your muscles. check out this guide for all the best advice from the experts: SMI presents A guide to the foam roller

and then there is the stick...the marketing materials call it dental floss for your muscles. i think it works best on your calves as it's sort of hard to balance and get the right pressure on the calf using the foam roller. ouch.

all of this is best done while watching some mindless movie on tv :-)

soggy sally is no sissy

2011-06-04T12:50:00.000-07:00

i love california weather...our winter lasts about one month (March) and it rains instead of snows. but it's not like those east coast turrential downpours with lightening and thunder and flash flooding...no, it's more like misting cold rain and we all stay in doors for about 2 hours until it passes. except something is totally wacky in the CA and i think we are getting cursed for our habitual weather gloating

check out the last month compared to our historical averages (the little number on the bottom of each date block). now that is a load of low 60s when we should be in the upper 70s. oh weather men of the sf bay area, why are you damning me so?!?

i woke up this morning to a heavy downpour and i thought, oh man this is gonna be a messy run. you know, if i was riding i probably would have stayed in bed...and i know for a fact that the TNT Summer cycling team met and didn't ride.* We on the running team, we are no sissy sallys! we are just soggy sallys who were born to run (or at least that is what i keep telling myself). so you see the yellow area on the radar map? well that's the heavy rain and it was just making it's way overhead as we were wrapping up our run and stretching. the run was wet, but not as bad as it could have been.

Before the run, I attended an informational session for new runners and we talked about the "run-walk way" (oh wait, that's not the right link...try this one instead). the idea is that you run and walk from the start of your marathon and then by the end you haven't totally crushed your legs yet so you can run your last 6-8 miles a lot faster than you would have if you had just been running from the beginning. so i started thinking, should i do this whole marathon thing..whoaaa, whoooaa, don't get ahead of yourself just yet.

me and marc - good luck at the San Diego Rock n Roll Marathon
tomorrow 6/5. i'll be cheering 'go bestie go!' from norcal

the head coach tim talked about running in time increments and for him 4 minutes running and 1 minute walking is his ideal. the reason being is even in the later parts of his marathon, when he looks down at his watch and sees that only 2.5 minutes has passed he can tell himself "you can do anything for 90 seconds." what, was he reading my mind? you know how many times i have told myself in a pursuit or in a crit "you can do anything for a lap"? maybe the mental games of running are a little more like the mental games of running than i had initially suspected.

net-net is, i'm not yet sold on the idea of doing the "run-walk way" for a half marathon. right now i'm thinking, it's 13.1 miles and that is manageable and i can totally run that. i figure i should make a better evaluation on it once we get up to 8 or 9 miles. Today's 4 miles using the run-walk way (7 min run, 1 min walk) was definately a faster running pace than i've done so far, but i'm not sure if it felt harder overall because of the cold and rain or because of the pace. we'll see how things go from here...

me and randy - he's paying it forward. i coached him in riding summer
season years ago & now he gets to mentor me in my fundraising and
push me to get to my running goals!

*very smart decision by the cycling team not to ride today! riding in the rain can be dangerous for anyone, not just new cyclist, because cars have a more difficult time seeing you even when you are wearing the most wretched brilliantly yellow colored rain jacket...but when running we are on paths and there are no cars around and so far, i haven't seen too many dangers in the wet run...but i did hear a story about a marathon and orange peels after the feed stops...they had the same effect like the comedic banana peel, but in real life it's just not so funny.

not all track workouts are created equal

2011-06-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

this past sunday i made it out to the hellyer velodrome in san jose for the first time since last fall. my track workout consisted of something i've done plenty of times before, but my legs felt like it was all brand new:

group warm up - 40 laps, increasing in tempo, full lap pulls until the last 5 laps which become half lap pulls
2x seated jumps, 2x standing sprints - quarter lap in distance
2x flying 200s
2x flying 3 lap efforts in TT bars
standing starts
cool down - 20-30 laps

...boy, was it way harder than i remember it ever being. being that sundays' track workout was so tough, i wasn't expecting much of myself from last night's running track workout with Team in Training.  i know, i know...not all track workouts are created equal but i figured this running thing was going to be pretty killer.

the point of last night's running workout was to focus on strength, stretching, and speed.   we did an "unknown end relay workout" which sort of reminded me of that one race at the track that you have no idea how many laps you are doing and you have no idea how many times the bell is going to ring for a sprint. so one thing the running track and riding track folks have in common - we are gluttons for punishment. ouch!

Here's how the  "unknown-end relay workout" went:

Break into groups of 3.
Number yourselfs 1, 2, 3.
One and Three go to the front side of the track. Two goes to the back end of the track.
One starts running and completes half a lap, and tags two to run half a lap, who then tags three to run half a lap.
run, run, run, run until your coaches tell you that we are done.

The idea is to run hard and be out of breath each time you get to the tag-off, but not to do a full out sprint. You get 2/3 time to recover and then you run again. hopefully you picked teammates who are not super stud runners or your recovery time is nil.

Leg Swings

And then there was this thing called stretching...stretching, what's stretching? Well, there are two kinds. The kind you do before you run and the kind you do after you run. We started with 10 minutes slow jog to get warmed up, then we moved into active stretches (okay, the stretches in this video aren't what we actually did, we did windmills & the leg swings you see in the pix but the video options look way more pro).

Buddy leg swings moving left and right

after the workout we did static stretches like the one for your IT band, hamstrings, and quads. Here is a great guide for static stretches from the Sports Medicine Institute in Palo Alto. One day i'll write a blog about all the great things i've learned by going to SMI for painful knees and muscles. they are excellent, you usually leave in tears and just a little bit bruised but in the long run your muscles feel way better. and if you were smart, and had probably stretched you wouldn't have ended up there in the first place with guitar string hamstrings and knotty quads.

tomorrow evening is our first buddy run and i'm looking forward to trying out one of the local running trails near my house. so far, this running thing isn't so bad at all!

becoming one with my inner chatty cathy

2011-05-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

this morning was our first coached run with Team in Training. we met at hellyer park and to my surprise there really is a huge park area outside of the hellyer velodrome!...it includes a really nice running path and a pond (complete with a whole load of canadian geese).

here's the key highlights from today:

I RAN A WHOLE 3 MILES STRAIGHT!!!! without stopping to walk any portion of it like i've been doing at the track the last few weeks
the key is to run like an endurance runner. if you aren't able to chat the whole time, you are running too hard for a distance runner
running distance on paved trails is way more enjoyable than cranking it out at the track
you should keep your body loose, arms at 90 degree angles being sure you are pivoting in your shoulder socket straight back and forth (your knees will follow the trend your arm sets), and hands should be loose like you are holding a bag of chips and you don't want to crush any of those yummy ruffled and salted potatoes from heaven

we started our run near the cottonwood lake and ran towards anderson resevoir, turned around (1 mile) ran around the cottonwood lake, ran past our start line (2 miles) and then did an out and back on the part of the path that runs towards the velodrome (3 miles)

we had the option of doing 2-4 miles so i started out with the goal to make it 3 miles with the hopes of running 2 miles straight and walking the rest. when we took off i found a few folks to try to keep pace with. after awhile we started to break into smaller groups and i asked the one gal if she wanted to keep together. it was pretty great...rose and i were about the same pace and we chit-chatted the whole time. see, i was really skeptical about my ability to run and talk at the same time. running is hard and i thought running and talking was going to be impossible. but low and behold, i really could do these two things and i learned a bit about one of my teammates and the route seemed to fly by. when we got to the 2 mile point i figured this has been great so far, so let's go for that stretch goal and run the whole darned 3 miles.

instead of being a heads-down rider who is a bit of a hardhead and will turn myself inside out to stick with a fast group, i'm going to take on this running thing with a whole different attitude. i want to run like an endurance runner and be a chatty cathy...and for those of you who know me well, i bet you aren't surprised by the ease that i can fall into this chatty thing

up this week - i'm headed to the velodrome for a orkout after a long hiatus tomorrow, taking on my first running track speed & strength workout on tuesday, and enjoying a buddy run with folks from TNT on thursday evening.

avoiding running "fred-ism"

2011-05-27T07:24:00.000-07:00

i've logged hundreds of miles a week on my bike for the last few years. that much time out on the road, you realize that there are basically 3 categories of cyclists

expert cyclists

subcateory triathaletes: most noticably indicated by their presence of bad fashion choices, mainly arm warmers with a tank top jersey

people on bikes: maybe they are just trying to be "green" or or maybe they don't have a car and the public transportation system is underserving them
the novice cyclist (AKA "Fred"): someone who rides a bit but hasn't had the fortune of learning key tips from an expert cyclist or a local high-quality bicycle shop

you can usually spot Fred from a thousand yards away. key signals are usually either there is something wrong with his/her bike fit and/or there is something wierd about their cycling clothes. The fashion faux pas usually make me giggle with my personal favorites being bib short worn over no shirt or bibshorts worn overtop of a t-shirt. However, the bike fit issues often make me cringe knowing that soon that person's knees, butt, or other parts to be unmentioned are going to be very, very unhappy.

so as a new runner, i'm sure i'm trying to avoid making "Fred mistakes" by learning as much as possible from the expert runners around me & hopefully I can share those learnings with you in case you ever get the crazy idea to go out for a run. This week I learned how to buy and wear shoes like a true runner. What, you ask, does a true runner do that is different than the random guy/gal wearing sneakers and running circles around the local track? Well, like an expert cyclists spends time obsessing over details of bike geometry and getting the perfect fit, so too does an expert runner focus on first and foremost buying the right shoes & getting the right fit.

this week the folks at Running Revolution in Campbell taught me what I will hereby call the "Anti-Fred Step-by-Step Guide Buying a Pair of Running Shoes"

go to a running specific store to buy your running shoes.

the owner at Running Revolution first put me on a machine that analyized my arch and the pressure points of my foot. he also measured my foot to determine what size & width i should be (see step 2). the theory is not to buy shoes that look good, but let the sales person bring you out shoes that will fit your foot appropriately. try a bunch, go outside and run down the block, if they don't feel perfect now they never will. after narrowing down my selection to two options, i went for a run with one of each shoe on in order to make a final selection. from there, i ran on the treadmill while being filmed. we looked at the video slowed way down to check how my foot mechanics worked with the selected shoe & we had a winner..and fortunately for me, they weren't too ugly either!

buy a pair of shoes that is half a size, sometimes even a size, too big

unlike cycling where i've been told you want your shoes to fit like a glove, in running you want your shoe to fit like a slipper. you need plenty of room for your foot to swell over the course of your long distance run. while getting a half size to a full size too big should help you avoid getting black and blue toe nails it also poses the issue of your foot moving around too much in the heel (see step 3).

learn to tie your shoes like a real runner

you need room in the toe box, but a tight grip on your heel is essential to keep your foot from moving aound too much. how is that possible? ever wonder what that second set of lace holes are for on your shoe, the ones up high near your ankle and if you cross lace your shoes the laces press up on your ankle...well, if you tie your shoes just right they will keep your shoe in place.

First cross lace your shoe all the way up to the second to last eyelet
Take the left lace and thread from the top down into the left top-most eyelet. Repeat for the right side
Don't tighten all the way down, make big bunny ear loops
take end of lace and cross lace through the bunny ear loops
the result: a runner specific shoe tie that keeps your heal in place and avoids the laces rubbing up against your heel in an uncomfortable fashion.

Advanced lesson: understand how many miles you can log in your running shoes before they need replacing.

all shoes break down over time, and depending on the type you buy, how much you weigh, and how heavy you land, the amount of miles varies. The shoes I picked up should last about 400 miles, or approximately 5-6 months...which coincidentally should get me through all of my training and completion of my half marathon on october 2. if one buys shoes for a full marathon, they'll likely last about 4 months becuase the training load is heavier. the experts recommend going back and buying the same exact shoes you trained in for your event. the less variables you change for race day, the less chance you have of something unforseen ruining your day.

A visual "Anti-Fred Step-by-Step Guide Buying a Pair of Running Shoes"

extra eyelet found here

Cross lace like an ordinary shoe

Bunny ear loops

Cross lace through bunny ear loops

Voilà! Just like a real runner

did you really just say you are running???

2011-05-26T18:59:00.000-07:00

yes, i am running. a half marathon on october 2 to be exact. that's 13.1 miles. 13.1 really long miles. and what on earth inspired me, a self proclaimed runner-hater cyclist to sign up for a half marathon? well, basically i was looking for something different to do for a little while that would allow me to train given the crazy work and travel schedule i've had this year.

since i've never done a run like this before, i figured i better find a group to run with. while there are loads of groups in california to run with, for me the natural choice was with the leukemia and lymphoma society's team in training. it's an organization i've been involved with since i moved to California 5 years ago. i trained for my first century bike ride with TNT and then kept coming back as a mentor and later as a cycling coach. in exchange for learning to run from some expert runners, i'll be raising money to help find a cure for blood cancers.

i'm hoping to use this blog to share all sorts of crazy stories about the stuff i'm learning while i'm learning to run (like how runners should buy & tie their shoes and the wierd products runners should never live without)...and hopefully my will inspire someone to get involved with TNT in the future or to make a donation to this great cause.

so today i start my training count:
miles logged to date - 3 (1.5 run, 1.5 walked)

xo
-beth lubov