Just me, my Garmin and the sun

After yesterdays big fat zero in the log book, I was happy to get out in the 50 degree temps for a solid 4 hours in the saddle with fresh legs and bright sunshine.
What a treat!

A Riderless Bike is a Sad Bike

It never broke 30 degrees outside and surprise surprise the wind was howling again and I didn't have an ounce of mojo or the legs for that matter to jump on my Computrainer. So my bike just sat there,looking pitiful and lonely.
Quite frankly, my legs are like wood, stiff and sore and they are lacking in the zip zip zippy department. An unscheduled rest day it was. I blame this solely on myself thinking or rather not thinking of training hard on Thursday,coupled with a 2:13 long run yesterday that I slogged through in the rain then I thought I would do a 3 hour ride today AND a indoor tt at the New England Multisport Expo tomorrow.
My legs are like... uh uh. No way. So instead
I cleaned like a mofo
I shopped the same way. Helllllo BJ's! I'm stocked like the plague is coming.
I cleaned some more
and I'm now making homemade pizza.


Tomorrow is another day and my legs are forever thankful.



oh.. and this... this has GOT TO GO.

It's slated for a passenger side ride to
work with Mr. TGP come Monday morning.

Random-ness

Seems to be the trend, so I'm jumpin' on board.

Easter is over and I ate too much.
I love chocolate and peanut butter too Jen.
I bought a new toy last week and it just came in the mail today here at work. I got a Garmin 305. I opted out of waiting for the new 405 that is coming out and from what I've read,is behind in production and people are getting emails after ordering, they have to wait until August. Huh? Someones head is probably on the chopping block at Garmin I would presume. Race season is RAPIDLY approaching and people want their toys.
Anyway, the 305 as bulky as it is, will only be used for run training and not for racing so I could care less about the slick new 405 size. $206 sits with me just fine including free shipping. I think this will be a nice tool to see my pace as well as my HR when I'm running.

I managed a 2:45 ride outside in the wind tunnel on Friday. I saw one other rider out there with me and
I think I almost got off my bike to hug him. I rode toward Wachusette Mountain which is kinda hilly following Kerrie's suggestion to ride 2 hours into the wind but turned around at 1:30 instead of 2 hours. I did have somewhat of a teeny tiny tailwind, but the wind just seemed to be every which way coming back home and I had some rather large hills to contend with as well hence the 1:30 turnaround.

I'm sore today after a 2 hour run in Hilly Bedford NY visiting family.

Did I mention I loved peanut butter and chocolate as much as Jen?

I'm so happy to hear Marit is doing better.

I just ordered Skinny Bitch and Daniels Running Formula on Amazon

I'm in a swimming rut right now. Friday I got pummeled by my late mates and I left
the pool feeling dejected and turtle slow. They all seemed fresh as a daisy and I was swimming as fast as I could to make the intervals and almost got lapped.


I tend to swim following hard workout days and so fresh I am not. It does piss me off that I put the time and effort in and I'm consistent with my swimming so I feel I deserve to be able to swim just as fast as anyone in my lane.
Just doesn't work like that!


Pinky, my Elite T-class is in bike surgery at the moment. She's getting Dura Ace components and some FSA crank set(FSA K-Force Light Compact with ceramic bearings in a 172.5,I've been informed) that my mechanic Chris foams at the mouth over and convinced me I needed. We won't talk about how much it was. I asked two questions: Does it come in pink and I can't see the stupid
bearings,why do I need this expensive one?

oh.. and Happy Easter

Who wants to ride outside with me today?

Details for Friday, March 21

Sunny with gusty winds. High 39F. Winds WNW at 25 to 35 mph. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph.

Rome wasn't built in day

Fourth of July 2007


and that goes the same for my run speed. I'm always amazed at how good of shape people are in this early in the season especially triathletes in terms of running. I find it takes me months and months to get back into any state of physical and mental run preparedness. It's just a long gradual process for me that I notice it seems to takes much longer than others around me. I just don't snap back quite like other friends and team mates do. It probably doesn't help by taking September through December off from running completely and focusing on cyclocross. I basically feel REALLY out of run shape come January. This year I've started the process a bit earlier and put more focused efforts into my run workouts. My run times are far from stellar but my goal is to knock my average pace per mile down so my times seem more competitive paired with a 56 mile ride. Considering my hamstring issue (which is on the mend) I'm somewhat hopeful I can attain a good solid base of running and feel somewhat more confident about my running in general. It seems to be a limiter now that my cycling has improved a great deal.

Some numbers so far this year: slooowly coming down.

Jan/1 Marathon Sports Year News Day Run 11 miles 8:15 pace
Feb/2 Great Stew Chase 15k 8:08 pace
Feb/24 Hyannis 1/2 Marathon 13.1 7.56 pace
March 16 New Bedford 1/2 Marathon 13.1 7:48 pace


Today I wore my heart rate monitor for the first time during a race. I don't have zones figured out for my running (maybe that's 1/2 my problem!) but today, I averaged 180-182bpm which sort of scared me when I looked down at my watch thinking isn't this way too high? I felt in control though and I appeared to be a zone I was able to hold and didn't go over the cliff even through the last 3 miles.

If anyone has some tips on finding zones just for running, I'd love to hear how to figure that out. I've always just run fast or slow based on my own percieved effort.

Have you hugged your uniform coordinator today?

Yikes, I've been buried for the last couple of day with no time for blogging!

It's that time of year again and this is my second season of helping pick a new vendor, coordinating fit kits, sending out emails to our team, following up on color issues, downloading order forms and going over and over and over the final custom order to be placed with Craft.
Phew... my head is swimming. My biggest fear is I've forgotten someones tri shorts or cycling bibs or wind jacket and come May when the stuff gets delivered and distributed, and somethin' is missing.... Trigirlpink gets the email. Then of course being super type A, I feel horrible and want to crawl under a rock that I somehow dropped the ball and forgot some one's gear. Sh*t happens. No matter how careful one can be. It's either our error or the vendor's.
There are some perks to this labor intensive job, you get to pick things on a mostly male dominated team for the few chickas that usually get stuck with androgynous Pat tri-wear. Ick. So you take charge and order up cute things the girls need like apres-race skinny strap camisoles like this I found and had custom printed. The girls (all 8 of us,ha!) loved them!

Details for Sunday, March 09
Sunny and windy. High 41F. Wind Chill 22F. Winds W at 25 to 35 mph. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph.
That outta mix nicely with a scheduled long run today! Yesterday, it poured all day taking most of the snow away but leaving me to ride the trainer again. It wasn't a wasted effort though. I got some good quality stuff in mixed with a longer ride and didn't die from complete boredom.

I was up at 5 am today but really 6am with the time change . Just couldn't sleep with the strong wind gusts we had all night rattling the house.
After
3 filled bird feeders
2 loads of laundry
one pan of stuffed shells
and a box of brownies cooling, it's only 8:30.....
while husband zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....
What a lazy a$$! Wait 'till
he see's my to do list for today!

Today is....

Freaky Fabulous Fishlike Four Thousand Friday don't cha know.
Come to think of it, so was last Friday and the Friday before.


Ever since Danielle started the Blogger Swim Challenge, I'm on a runaway train and I can't get off.

Two Friday's ago it was 20x100
Last Friday, it was 10x200 (thanks to Jen Harrison for tossing me a great set on her way out the door for her training weekend down south )
and then today, I managed to rack up another 4000 main set.


It didn't come without issues though.
Last Friday I had one other person confirmed to do the 20-200's with me during our scheduled masters (am) swim time. We planned to (sneak over a few lanes) and take a non-masters lane to do the set as we had done the week prior. As word spread on what we were doing, our lane ended up with 3 more lane mates besides myself and Jason. Jason,Steve,Bob and Joe K. They all were up for the challenge jumping in with me for the workout and I don't think Coach Bill was too thrilled with me causing this unforeseen mutiny. On that note, I decided I'd better let Coach Bill on the idea this week if I was to do another Epic Friday set and let him propose a given set to complete. After a few emails I was ready to roll. It would be 16x 250 decending in groups of 4.

Today, Jason, Joe Paulo, Bob and I did the set. But Coach Bill was MIA and while the rest of the morning crew scrambled to figure out what the heck to swim, we got down and dirty.

Just Love It!

Thanks for getting me out of the 3400-3600 yrd grind I do the other days I swim with MIT Masters. FFFFT-Fridays most certainly will get me fishlike for CDA.

Negative on the new bike... postive on the hammy

Maybe I shouldn't use the word negative or boycott paired with sponsorship in a blog entry. Someone pointed out to me that a very well established and respected will-remain-nameless professional male triathlete came down on athletes with attitudes about sponsorship and the general feeling that some consider it a right and not a privilege to be sponsored and something about athletes boycotting the product if they don't get what they want the same week I did my funny Splish post and through our circle, he could have read my blog and taken it the wrong way.
My title in my last entry "negative on the sponsors" only meant I don't have any. I have never even asked for sponsorship. I'm sure it's all just a complete coincidence but felt a sense to clear the air. My post was in good fun and in celebration of you chickas that gained that generous sponsorship. Period.

Ok.. on to more important things!

Hamstring is coming along. Yipppeee! I found an awesome massage therapist through Carmen and Karen Monks. Both are top age groupers and fellow Team Psycho athletes always seamlessly qualifying for Hawaii and letting it go to rolldown.. too busy, been there done that... They do seem to always have some injury they are nursing coupled with those slots to Hawaii and SWEAR by Randi Wallace N.C.L.M.T. to make them race ready.

Randi got in there and dug dug dug on Friday night and I'm going back today for some more. It felt awesome to have someone in there breakin' up all the crap. I was bruised and sore the next day but it's feeling so much better just having the one treatment thus far.
I have new orthotics, doing core and surrounding muscle group stuff to take the work load off my hamstrings. EVERYTHING around them glutes, lower back, abs are weak and therefore my hamstrings are bearing the load and are prone to break down. This is a common issue especially in triathletes. Who knew?
The other BAD BAD BAD thing I was doing was not warming up the muscle before running on it especially since it is injured. The 1/2 marathon I did was in cold temperatures and I tried to run easy before the start but I needed much more than that. Sitting on a heating pad to really get it there deeply is the key and icing after until it's resolved
Running has been a bit of pain in the ass, no pun intended, but I do take the time to warm up my butt with a heating pad and then start my run minutes after and I can totally feel the difference already. I have better range of motion and it's taken the extreme tightness away.

Last but not least, no new bike for now. I keep getting this uneasiness when I think about the task right now. It's a process and I think I'm probably smart to train and race Disney and CDA on my trusty steed and perhaps after CDA I treat myself to the Carbon Guru I'm lusting after in sweet pink!



I am however treating pinky Elite to fresh Dura Ace components and upgrading to 10 speed. (I currently have 9 speed)
Have an awesome day!