Um, what did I just do?

Yeah that was my thought last night after I hit the submit button. Well its official, I am registered for the inaugural Ironman Miami 70.3 event on Oct 30, 2010. What better way to say good-bye to Athena's 39 & under :) Yup in just over a year I will graduate into the master category :( I have never done anything longer than an Olympic/International distance tri, but I've done 2 of those and finished them thinking I could go a bit longer. I remember when just a couple of short years ago I thought a sprint would be nearly impossible, I have to run 3 miles??? Yeah funny. Well I don't run very fast and I walk alot, so my goal for this race will be to finish before the cut-off. I'm a descent swimmer so I intend to focus more on getting faster on my bike and trying to get down to a 12 minute mile! I have alot of work ahead of me I know, but I have a year to train. My hubs is supportive, as soon as I mentioned Ironman was coming to Miami next year and its right after my birthday, he suggested I sign up. Huh? Seriously? I know I think about it alot, but I wasn't expecting him to be so gung ho about it. I asked if I should sign him up too. He asked how long the swim was and then politely declined, hehe. He needs to work on swimming so he can join me out there.
On another note, my best friend and I signed up with a personal trainer once a week. We got tortured yesterday :) We worked out just over an hour and it was miserable because my head would not stop pounding! I had the worst headache that would not go away. Normally I would eat the training up, but it was all I could do to get thru it. Way to make a great impression on him, lol. Oh well hopefully next week it won't happen and I can bust thru it :)
I am anxious to get running. Ideally I would like to drop about 40 pounds in the next year and I am hoping this is the year it will happen. Between IM training and my trainer and my best friend, I am feeling very positive!
Oh I can only imagine the roller coaster experience I am in for! Let the fun begin :)

Fell off the horse

Well today was not such a great day. I fell off the healthy eating/good calorie control bandwagon and then got run over by a mack truck, ugh! It was ugly today. Let's have a recap, shall we? Maybe writing it down will help me to avoid this in the future! Had my usual wheat free cereal for breakfast (not too bad). Had half a turkey sub for lunch (still not too bad). Also had honey mustard pretzels, a cherry turnover, more pretzels, a few tortilla chips, a bite of peanut butter, some orange milano cookies (yum) and some other stuff that is eluding me at the moment. For dinner I had my low fat version of mexican pizza, so that wasn't too bad. So the weather was super crappy today and I felt super crappy because of it. I had a splitting headache the entire day and just felt lousy, I'd like to think it was all the junk I ate making me feel bad, but I am guessing it was the weather. Why do I think that eating will make me feel any better???
So tonight I decided to go to the gym and work some of this crap off me, because I was doing pretty good and the scale was headed in the right direction for a while. So I spent 35 min on the dreadmill. For the first time in my life (ever) when I ran at 5 mph and it actually felt kind of slow. What???? Yes I actually wasn't dying at 5 mph and thought if I wasn't doing speed intervals tonight, I could have stayed there for a while. So I managed to interval my way from 5.0, 5.2, 5.4, ... up to 6.6! I told myself that I would do a 1 min sprint and then 2 min recovery. If I hit a HR of 175 I could stop before the 1 min was up. So I did pretty good. I didn't start to get close to 175 until I was up over 6.0. My knee felt pretty good, but just for good measure it will be ice and advil before bed :)
So after my running, I decided on doing some weight training. My main focus tonight was my upper body, because my legs got a good beating while running. So I eeked out several assisted pull-ups and dips, I did 60# on the chest press & lat pull down. Curled 65# on the bicep curl, 50# on the tricep extension, 50# on the seated row, 70# on the hip adduction/abduction, 55# on the fly/reverse fly and 110# on the seated leg press. I don't think there was anything else. So overall I had a calorie burn of 620 in 1:15. Not bad for it being a crappy day overall.
So tomorrow is more of the same crap. My workers are off tomorrow because the weather is supposed to be quite nasty. All of the schools are closed from 2 counties south to 3+ counties north of us. They don't like the buses running in that stuff. So no pre-school for my little one tomorrow. Today was her first day and she says she has a good time. About 16 kids in her class, mostly boys. She'll feel right at home bossing them around, lol. Most of her little friends are boys anyways. Her teacher said she did fine, so that was reassuring to hear. You can't help worry a little bit about how they will act/fit in with others. She has never really been around that many kids at once, and the few times she was, she was totally shy.
So today was laundry day around here. Worried that the power is gonna fail tomorrow, as it always does when we get just a little bit of wind. Every time we have a tropical storm or hurricane, it seems to be out for anywhere from a few hours up to a week! Yes a week without any power is a loooooong time. So we brought the generator home and fired it up so we are ready to roll if it happens. I had to make sure all of my stuff was washed and ready for packing, I can't believe that the Chicago Triathlon is here already! The weather forecast is calling for partly cloudy skies, a high of 80 and a low of 60. So the low of 60 will suck if I am in an early wave, but the high of 80 will be a nice change from the 90+ weather that I have been training in.
OK I'm off to bed now, feeling pretty beat and headache is coming back.

Final prep

Well today was our last official day of team training with "Team In Training". I borrowed my best friend's road bike and cranked out 25 miles, even had to borrow her shoes. Luckily we were close in size, but they were a bit small! It was a good ride, felt okay. It was nice to finish training in under 2 hours and get home as everyone was getting up. Kind of sad that this was our last session together. Maybe next year I will join up with them again, but next time I will be much quicker :) One can only hope that I can get quicker, hehe.
So Tropical Storm Fay is lumbering in this general direction. The computer models that forcast its track are literally all over the place. They show the thing striking anywhere from Naples to New Orleans. Who knows. I haven't done anything to prepare for it. We don't need shutters, we have a generator, so I guess all I need to do is bring the stuff in from outside, strap down the boat & fill up all the gas tanks. And that is if it only shifts its course towards us tonight, but as of now we are outside "the cone".
Little one starts pre-school tomorrow. That is a happy/sad day for mommy as my baby is growing up! I am hoping I can get into the habit of dropping her off and then hitting the gym right afterwards. Hopefully that plan will come to fruition. My knee is still hurting a little bit so I will probably go see the doc this week and have him take a look. I really don't want to do any damage running 6 miles next week, so it may revert to a walk. Yesterdays run did feel really good, but I am not digging the pain afterwards...
Week 2 pushup challenge got off to a slow start. I did Day 1 today with no problem. I maxed out at 20 on the last set :) I think after I get thru it, I will repeat the program, but doing "proper" pushups instead of on the knees ;)
This will be a busy week. Trying to get work tied up, dealing with tropical systems and getting all my crap packed and ready for Chicago. Can't wait!

No time for hurricanes!

So today was our last swim training before our big event next weekend. We swam 1500 yds non-stop and then hopped out of the pool and ran 3 miles. I must say it was a very good session. I think the time off this week has helped alot. At first my legs felt like lead, but after 5 min or so my legs felt fresh and ready to rock. I pretty much kept on a 3:1 ratio (3 min run, 1 min walk) and it felt really good. I forgot my Garmin today so I have no idea what my pace was, but it was quicker than usual. The swim was really good, it felt like I had a couple of those Ah-hah moments in the pool where you catch the water just right or have a couple of really good lengths and then the moment is gone :( Water temps in chicago are looking promising for next weekend: upper 60's to low 70's. I will be wearing a sleeveless wetsuit, but at least I won't be freezing in it!
I was really bummed out today to learn that the Miami Man Triathlon registration is full :( Really wanted to do that race but dilly-dally'd to long I guess. Oh well it's in November and that is the start of run season anyways. I really want to focus on improving my swim technique and running better this winter. I also plan on weight training 4x a week. The pushup challenge and doing assisted pull-ups at the gym has really improved my upper body strength. I can feel a difference swimming anyways!
So tonight we had dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse. It was awesome. If you have never been, it is quite different. You have something on your table to signal the waiters "bring on the food!". The "waiters" walk around with skewers of meat and cut it at your table for you. They have all different types of stuff: pork, chicken, beef (sirloin, filet, flank, etc), alligator, ribs, etc. You keep eating and they keep coming.
Tomorrow is our last biking practice. I borrowed my best friend's Jamis road bike and will be riding that at practice. Also we have a Tropical Storm (potential hurricane) headed in this general direction, so it will be breezy winds out of the Northeast tomorrow. Hopefully the storm will head elsewhere, but we will still get rain and wind from it! Luckily rain not coming til later on Monday, only isolated showers tomorrow!
Our daughter was supposed to be having a sleepover with grandma today, but now she got tired and had a mommy meltdown. DH is on his way to get her, ughhh, will she ever get over this?
So I am off to bed before they get back home cause I've got an early day tomorrow.

Thoughts on progress

Well today was the end to another hectic week. Welcome to the weekend!
So I picked up some books today on eating gluten-free. I am willing to give it a try. Hoping this will help me with my skin, my mood and my energy levels.
So tomorrow we will be having a long swim training session. On Sunday we are supposed to be biking, but I am thinking about entering the Singer Island Sprint Tri. I am leaning towards doing the race, it will be less of a beating than our bike training, LOL.

T-minus 29 days to race day. Guess I should get busy booking our flights! Grant & Mac will be tagging along and we will probably spend a few extra days to check out the sites.

Overall training is going good. When I get frustrated, I just look back to last year when I started on this journey and realize how far I have come. Jan of 2007 I got my first road bike and starting training for a century ride. I remember how unstable I felt on that thing and having cars whiz by my tail.

In Sept of 2007 I started to incorporate running, my least favorite activity in the whole world, right next to listening to country music :) When I started jogging, I could hardly go for a minute and my pace was around a 20 min/mi. I remember my big goal was to be able to jog non-stop to the end of my street! I managed to eek thru the Disney 1/2 Marathon in Jan of 2008 at a average pace around 17:00 min/mi. Here we are in July and I am getting around 14:00 min/mi, unless its been a brick run and then I'm closer to 16:00 min/mi.

As a kid growing up in south Florida, swimming was a natural progression. I was on a swim team when I was little and I am a certified open water diver. I "thought" my swimming fitness was okay until the day I went to the pool to start some swim training in Feb of 2008. I could hardly swim 2 lengths of the pool without being winded! How the heck was I gonna do a 1/4 mi in the ocean. Oh yeah, the current. That's what I kept telling myself. As our swim training progressed, I was able to start builiding my swim stamina and I also learned to swim efficiently. Now I can swim seemingly endless laps at a comfortable pace and with a low heart rate. Gotta keep your head down, roll your body, stretch that stroke & feel the water! I'm an experienced swimmer and it took me a while to absorb this stuff, but its finally sinking in.

So next month I have the Loggerhead Sprint Tri and the Chicago Olympic Tri (my big event ). I am really enjoying this new sport and I am such a gear head, I love my gadgets. To those just starting out, be patient. Build your base, view your race as an experience. Me I just embrace being last in my age group :) I seem to do well on the swim & bike, but my run, well it needs some work.