Saturday, April 29, 2006

1st Open Water Swim

well the good news is i didn't drown.
on the drive home from shadow cliff this morning i went through a gamut of feelings about my performance. i'm not proud to admit this but i am not the most positive person all the time.
all i could think was "oh my god, what the fuck was i thinking?"
on the verge of tears, i went over a few dozen reasons why i'm not ready for this event.

i arrived at shadow cliff later than i wanted to, i forgot my bag w/my wallet in it at the campsite
lastnight (M and and her troop are camping at tilden) so, i had to book up there before heading out to meet the triclub in pleasonton. i arrived just as nancy was giving final instructions and before i knew it we were in the water.....let me add....the cold ass water. i would of preferred to of acclimated a bit, i even brought my kickboard to warm-up, but nancy wanted us all to start together and insisted that we forgoe any floatation devices...cuz were not going to be a able to use them in the event.
this is when i got nervous, on the one hand jumping in right away was a good way to get through the initial shock but it was cold and my breathing was all over the place, i was able to freestyle for barely a minute before i was gasping for air, the rest of the "swim" was a combination of dog paddle and backstroke.
at some point nancy said "get your face in the water it will help with calming your breathing." quite honestly, i wanted her to shut the fuck up, and all i could think was along with the absence of air where the hell was the strength in my arms, they felt so weak. the cold affected me in ways i never thought of. the idea of an elongated freestyle stroke seemed impossible and my pull was totally gone.

i also think i don't respond well to being pushed too hard, at least not by people i haven't connected with in a positive way yet. nancy( one of the triclub coaches) is a bit of a bulldog and she never remembers my name, before she offered the earlier face in the water = better breathing tip, she asked me the usual "what's your name again?"

it's just my insecure bullshit creeping in. i know this about myself. i just need to build myself back up somehow. i've got a little over a month to work things out in the water, i definitely need to go back to shadow cliff as many times as possible before 6/17.

and oh yes, i was dead last.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Meet Brandy

Hi,
for the record i love running with chris, but lately she's been going solo in favor of not getting her back wrenched. Posted by Picasa

Yay for Hump Day!!!

This morning's 40 minute swim practice went pretty good, i warmed up with and w/o the kickboeard and NO flippers for the entire workout. what i tend to do is kick too hard causing me to fatigue too quickly. today i made a super conscious effort to slooowww dooown! i focused alot on rolling side to side, turning my whole body when i need to breath vs craning my neck and head upwards. the idea is to elongate and roll to the side than breath through the side of your mouth. i can do this a few times than i start to struggle, start kicking too hard and than inevitably ingest water.
then it occured to me i could just stop. i usually just continue struggling until i get to the other end of the lane, but then i remembered i could just stop, catch my breath and continue. i guess my reasoning before was there's no stopping in the middle of the lake so i'll have to keep going....then something i read kicked in and it occured to me to roll over until my face was completely out of the water so i can breath.
the swimming articles,videos and time i spend in the pool are starting to synthesize. i'm still not loving night time swim schedule, but i am loving the little progress i'm seeing on my solo days.

i went for a decent ride up centinell past strawberry canyon . as i approached the botanical gardens , sweat was rolling down my face i planned to pullover for a rest. my legs were working big time and as i pulled up to the curb, directly across the street from a very crowded bus stop, i dumped over on my right side. i guess my leg was so fatigued that i lacked the strength to twist out of my cleat. it was hilarious, after a quick check of the bike....she was ok....i gave the crowd a thumbs up! one gal even walked over asking if i was okay (very nice i thought) i assured her i was fine, not even a scratch, on me or the bike! i was practically at a stand still when i went down. i feel like a real biker now!
after my rest break, i hopped back on and continued up the bad ass hill, she was starting to kick my ass now, so i started to serpentine, careful to check both side of the roads, it was a slow trek to grizzly peak. i regretted leaving my windbreaker home, cuz the ride home was all down hill, fast and a little chilly. but what a rush hauling ass down relatively traffic free streets, not too many cars that time of the day. again, yay for hump day!

got home around the time t comes home for lunch and we went to the gym together. i did a super lite upperbody workout, and read an article in shape magazine while T rode the stationary bike. this morning he had his treadmill test to rule out any heart issues and came home with a clean bill of health...yay! tonight, triclub meets at berkeley high for another speedworkout w/coach.
er, no pizza an hour before working out this time!

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Negotiating with Myself

i negotiated with myself the whole time.
first i wanted to go long, not sure how long, okay 90 minutes long.
hmm how far will i get?
well, let's see euclid, yeah euclid and back home should be about right.

i walked from my house to the corner of cedar and stannage and slowly worked my way up cedar crossed shattuck and there she was: big ass hill #1. this hill in my guesstamation is comprable to the 11.5% grade i'll need to contend with at bay to breakers.

up,up,up, and hey i feel good!
in the back of mind i'm thinking i bet i can make it to strawberry canyon.
yeah, strawberry, i'll get to the parking lot and double back.
i get to the parking lot and decide to go take the trail to the foot of big bertha.
i get to big bertha and decide i HAVE to take her, how can i NOT take her.

so again, up,up,up .......and i still feel good, and decide i can keep going until i hit my 1 hour mark.
up to this point or rather the parking lot i've been runing on the road, getting to strawberry on the dirt trail was heaven and i had to force myself to turn around so as to have juice to get home.
reluctantly i turn around and go back down to the parking lot.
the CAL women's softball team are playing today and the parking lot near the pool was full of tailgaiters and bbq. i picked up my pace as to not get distracted by all the good smells, i was starting to get hungry. back on the roads, i head up euclid to cedar and decide to turn right on spruce than left on rose which eventually leads me to the BART trail near my neighborhood.

Total run time 2 hours and 1 minute.
LONGEST RUN EVER!!!
with all the hills i'm sure i didn't go far but then TIME was more of an objective, still it would be cool to know for sure, i'll guess 8 plus miles, maybe more.
the conditions were perfect for a long run today cool and overcast.
it even started to mist for a little bit as i was leaving strawberry, the perfect spray bottle mist nature kicks down for an ass kicking workout. ahhh sweeeet!

god i love running:)

Saturday, April 22, 2006

1st group brick - weather permitting!!

let the games (HUMILIATION) begin! today triclub meets at ceasar chavez for our first bike/run. i've not spent much time doubling up on disciplines, my first real bike ride and run was not too long ago and my legs felt like jello going from the 30 minute ride to the 10 minute run. i had no power in my legs at all! i was a little surprised by this. not sure of the distances planned for today but it should be interesting.
i've only been to the pool once this week and will need to make up for it big time. seems like i'm either overdoing or underdoing, not finding much balance at all this week.
checked out some tri gear online, a bit leary about ordering anything though, concerned about proper fit and all. while the rest of me appears to be shrinking, my butt isn't!
i keep telling myself this is a tri4fun, don't sweat it. as for the swim i can always swim on my back. there is one small problem with this plan however, you can't really see where your going on your back.

The Aftermath:

the ride was 6 miles and the run was close to 3 miles and my time was 47 min, taking into account the transition from cleats to running shoes. i forgot to take off my bike gloves and ditched them on the second loop along with my hydration pack. i didn't have my own watch - it's been missing for days, so i'm not sure of individual times but the legs felt better than i expected following the ride. the first loop was pretty slow and i was flanked by a couple of other gals, one was really chatty . around the last 1/4 mile i said "i can't talk anymore" and pulled away. my finish was s trong, but i felt a little woozy and walked around a bit before rejoining the group.
right now i'm waiting for T to get back so I can go for a swim. i've been studying the drills on my TI video and am anxious to get going.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Bay to Breakers 5/21

woo hoo! it's san francisco's goofiest race for sure and i'm signed up! not sure if i'll go all out with a costume but it will fun to check everyone out (i'll take lots of pictures!). it's sf so it will be hilly and i'm counting on all my training runs up in the berkeley hills to pull off a sub 2:00 finish on the 12k course, it boasts an 11.5 grade hill fairly early on (gulp). the tri club has this on the training schedule as an optional training event, i'm so there!!

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Good weather 2 days in a row!!!

The weather has taken a nice turn the last couple of days and I rode to Inspiration Point from my house and it took me only 45 mins. Total ride time:75 mins. I don't have the mileage, but let me tell ya Spruce to Tilden is a pretty good climb and then you work your way up and down the windy road to IP. Saw several other riders on the way up, cyclists are a friendly bunch I have to say, lots of smiles and hi's.

The trip home was pretty fun (flying back down Spruce was a reward in itself!) and I am trying to coast less and drop down to low gears on decents, though I should take it in for a look-see as the shifting is not so smooth and a couple of time the gears jumped around, most likely due to my lack of finesse.

Tonight the triclub is meeting for a spin class (which I'll skip considering my heroic efforts today!!) and then we're having a guy present on open-water swimming. Lastnights swim lesson was the best yet, the instructor got into the pool with us and commented that we all looked good. Then she had us swim w/o flippers and boy howdy what difference!! I no sooner think I'm making progress (side breathing) when yet another weak spot reveals itself!
I'm still not a real swimmer but progress is being made people!!

Saturday, April 15, 2006

wet and wild

It started to rain just I headed out to my car to meet up with tri-club at Inspiration Point. The bike portion of the brick was cancelled and became a 3 mile run instead. By the time I arrived (5 minutes late) the grp had already taken off. I checked in with the club director, Hae Wan, than headed out alone. It wasn't long before I saw the group heading back.
I waved and kept going.

I had already decided to go longer, my usual 8 mile loop. Today was the first time I ever ran in more than a "mist". I don't want to say it really poured but the rain was coming down steadily and with the winds whipping around it got pretty wild at times.

It was the perfect backdrop for my dark mood. Me fighting the elements, myself, the process. Just the kind of thing this drama queen eats up. It was awesome! Exhilirating actually.

My wimpy windbreaker didn't hold up so well . I was soaked by mile 3 so I just took it off. Plus I was all hot and steamy anyways.
Of course this means I have buy proper rain gear now.
Not a bad investment really, considering it's never going to stop raining around here!
For as windy as it was I wasn't cold at all.

I finished in 85 minutes.

Once again running saves the day.

My newly installed granite counter top helped too:)





Tri-Life Lessons

Earlier I was saying that I don't have the need to yak about TRI stuff here.
I was wrong.
It seemed like ever since I started writing about my new thing, the comments (the few comments I get, but love so ) were even scarcer, I thought maybe I was stepping out of line by digressing into a different arena. But that's crazy, I NEED to write about this stuff, all of it related or not. So, here it goes.

A friend at work gave me 2 articles to read. One was on the subject of cadence and seat position of the bike . The other was on overtraining. I immediately dismissed article #2 in favor of the bike article.

The idea of me overtraining is ridiculous at best. I don't push myself that hard.
Or so I thought.

I have placed a big challenge before myself. I can honestly say that learning to swim is by far the biggest challenge I ever set out to do. But what makes it even more of a challenge is that I've attached it to a triathlon (albeit a Sprint) there's a mental factor to contend w/that I sorely underestimated.

I'm more worried about NOT learning enough in time. Expressing my worries is a bit worrisome too. The swim coach, trying to be a comfort (I think) said, "hey if you can't do the tri, it's not the end of the world" True it's not, but do I need to give that possibility serious consideration so early in the game? I was talking about how hard swimming is at work and a c0-worker who is typically very supportive, and she indicated that my AGE could be a factor. WTF?
There are plenty of swimmer's ALOT older than me, swimming just fine thank you very much!!
To suggest that I'm too old to learn, well that just pisses me off! I'm 42 for god sakes, I just want to learn to swim better not enter the Olympics!

I'm not scared in the water, in fact I seem to do better in the group lessons and solo practicing drills than I did 1:1 with Lindsey. I'm hoping the Total Immersion video arrives today so I can continue to work on things on my own. I'm actually making some headway w/side breathing, doing better on my right side. I'm not consistent at all and I fatigue rather easily , but I see small improvements beginning to merge. It's true what they say about muscle memory, what I'm reading and doing in the pool is slowly starting to make sense.

I don't think the problem is overtraining so much as training differently. I've said in the past that I'd like a running buddy, and the idea of hooking up w/the tri-club seemed a good way to make this happen. Not so much though, this group is a little funny. There are few "clicks" and
and with the majority of us being working folk it's a different batch of people nearly everytime we get together. People are busy, myself included and I get the sense that people are not so interested in making social connections so much as achieving personal goals.

That said, I also have found myself struggling a bit with the group trainings. Example right now this very minute I'm soooo ready to go for a run, but I need to wait until 9am when we as a group do our first brick today: bike and a run.


For the record, M and I had a nice time yesterday afternoon at the pool. We got there around 2:30 and swam for a little over an hour. When we got home T took us out to dinner and I hit the hay around 9:30.

Sleep has restorative qualities not to be underestimated that's for sure.

It's looking rather bleak outside at the moment, we'll see what happens.
Since sunday I've swam 4x's, ran once (not including today yet) and biked once on the trainer for 20 minutes. Hardly qualifies as overtraining...everything I've read indicates I should be focusing on my weakest area..SWIMMING.......so I think I'm on track.

Friday, April 14, 2006

Bleh!

Warning, this liable to be a real downer. I'm in a MOOD and need to bitch a little, ok ALOT

Been feeling lazy all week. The weather has been better the last day or so but it really is unpredictable and with M in constant tow it's been alot harder to be spontaneous with the working out. Not fair to blame her entirely , hell at all for that matter. Funds are tight and we've been couped up in this house most of the week. As I've mentioned before, getting out of the house is typically an ordeal, though on Tuesday we did try to take Brandy for a walk but it was cut short due to rain.
Wed was suppose to be the day my granite counter top would be ready for p/u. T needed to put it off until Thurs, ok no problem (I was EXTREMLEY understanding), then on Thursday he can't find the invoice, he shows up at the place where we ordered it to learn that he has to go to another site to p/u ( would've been nice if they had mentioned that the day we bought it!!) The idiot sales woman assures him they'll have it, T gets there and surprise, they can't find our granite. They say he needs the invoice. At this point I'm thinking why didn't the sales woman have a copy or call ahead for us, something.....yes, I'm new at all this remodeling stuff and am growing more bitter by the minute!
T calls and well let's just say I'm less understanding and from that point on it's one angry phone call after another, scrambling to find the original invoice, finding it then faxing it to the second place. Come to find out the piece was never even cut, it's an outdoor workspace and they said it was due to rain and it won't be ready until Saturday.

FUCK!

I cannot tell you how aggravated I was yesterday. It was a beautiful sunny day, and I pissed it all away getting jacked up over the counter top.

This has been a strange week.
Not enough training or excercise
Not enough time ALONE
Not enough money
Not enough patience with the process
Not enough compassion
Not enough confidence
Not enough discipline to push through negative feelings

Wednesday was suppose to be spin class and a talk w/tri-club on transitions. M and I started out on good footing, but then she got all whiney and complaining despite my meager efforts to make things nice she just wasn't groovin and well I just lost it. Another day down the shitter!

Thursday, the only thing active I managed to pull off was going to swimming class, it was just okay.

I'm disappointed . I don't seem to have the ability to roll with the punches very well. I rely way too much on external forces to drive my emotions. I feel disconnected from everyone and everything.

Interestingly though, I spoke to my sister yesterday for the first time in several months. We've got our "challenges" let's just say, and I finally figured out less is more. We do better in small doses. I'm 6 years older than her and 11 years older than my brother. We all live in different states and couldn't be more different from each other, you do the math.

God I hope this storm passes soon. Going to Grandama Tillies for Easter, my cousin Kim will be there, she always makes me laugh and we have fun hiding the easter eggs.

Happy Easter everyone.
No, really.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Baby Quilt #2

Here's a shot of the quilt I made for my friend at work. It was trickier than I thought lining up everything for the sashing w/the squares. I think a wider sashing and larger squares would of looked better, but overall I liked how it turned out. The majority of squares used were some of the first piecing I've ever done. Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Showing Up is Half the Battle

I went to the neighborhood gym this morning for 60 minutes of cardio -20 mins on the bike and a 40 minute interval session on the treadmill. I pushed too hard on the TM and could smell the burning rubber right before it came to an abrubt stop....talk about a buzz kill, I was flying at a 8.5 mile pace!! Not to be short changed on my cool down I hopped on the next one over and finished up. I like the neighborhood gym for the TM workouts cuz unlike the Y there's no 30 minute time limit on any of the cardio machines.

Swimming was good tonight. Once I got past the fact that it was cold, dark and rainy. As much as I consider myself a morning exerciser, the night time swimming is kind've relaxing. We had a substitute, and he got into the water and demonstrated...I like him better than our regular instructor already! I decided to drop the private lessons for now and ordered the Total Immersion Video that I can study and do drills from on my own in addition to the Tu and Thu nite classes.

Tonight we focused on rotation and arm and hand entry. We used some funny looking flotaion device you hold in between your knees and w/o kicking we worked our way down the lane while trying to maintain 11 o'clock and 1 o'clock positions with our arms, then pulling back one arm at a time then exiting the water with high elbows and "quietly" re-entering with "diving" finger tips vs slapping the water.

Oh Lord, I have so much work ahead of me in the pool and I wouldn't mind it at all if any of you swimmers out there had a tip or two to share!! I'm all ears. Speaking of ears, I've got water in my right ear still and class was over nearly 2 hours ago!!

Spring Break Fun!!

While I don't have a photo to prove it, M and I had a delightful day at Marine World yesterday and we had the pleasure of meeting Mia and her family. She and I live pretty close and we knew we were both going to MW on Monday. We didn't plan to meetup but she spotted me while I waiting for M to get done with her ride and we spent the entire day hanging out. And yes, Scotty and Tommy are adorable, I even got to hold Scotty for a bit. Eric was just as nice as could be. Mia is just the best, and I feel like I have made a new friend.

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Look what I did!

I finally took the time to figure out how to post pictures. This is me and M at the Marin Trail Race. It was one of the few dry days last month. woohoo more pics on the way! Posted by Picasa

Oh Happy Day

Firstly, I was so moved by LouBob's recent post. She is the rockinest cowgirl around.


I really enjoyed my 60 minute run this morning. It's been awhile since I've run outside in the morning and with the threat of rain at bay I peeked outside around 6am and was glad to see dryness. Out the door by 6:30 am I headed over to the Berkeley Marina. Running along the mile pier that stretches out/back a little over a mile I tried to visulize what a quarter mile in open water would look like. I've been so stressed about the swimming and not running much the two have proven to be toxic combination. The fresh ocean air really cleared my head and I feel better than I have all week.

The group has a ride scheduled this morning at 9, I feel up for it. I left a message for the swim coach but she hasn't got back to me. I'll have to call again and leave more details I guess, as I was hoping to speak to her about my learning style and preference for more demonstration.

So yeah, the run this morning was exactly what I needed to get out of my funk. No watch, just checked in a couple time w/people on the streets to keep track of time so T could get to his appointment (Bloodwork and treadmill test) The ironic thing is I want to learn to swim so I CAN run longer, reap the ben's of x-training ya know. My new friends from triathlete.com have been helpful too, so now I don't have to yak so much about tri stuff here.

Friday, April 07, 2006

special needs

I was too tired to go to grp. swim lastnight, for some unknown reason (maybe it was the previous days not-so-great swim lesson, the pm track workout, or the dryer finally dying and the mounting piles of dirty laundry.....) I woke up way too early..2:30 am too early on thursday. i tried to go back to sleep but after an hour it was clear that it was not gonna happen.

i packed up my bike and gear w/the intention of going for a ride at lunch time as it will most likey RAIN again this weekend. T called me around 11am at work and agreed w/needed to buy a new dryer and washer too! so i scrapped my plans for ride and we went to SEARS on my lunch break.

by the time i got home from work, i was toast, but i also think i need to rearrange the swim schedule 3 days in a row of swimming is too much. while the grp lesson was fun, the 1:1 session was discouraging. i'm also not so sure of my instructor. she showed up in street clothes and never got into the pool. nor is she a great communicator. sure, she's nice, but i have special needs and i already can tell i'm a challenge for her. after showing her what i could do on my own i.e. thrash maddly down the lane..........head bobbing upwards the whole time....
she asked "how far to you have to swim in the event?"
i said "a quarter of a mile"
and she said not so convincingly, "huh, okay that's doable"
( good fucking thing lady, cause you have some work ahead of you!!!)

the track workout with the tri group was fun, i was back in my comfort zone. we did an interval session, 3 slow laps 2 fast 2 slow 1 fast 1 slow. i shouldn't of ate pizza and hour before, but aside from a little tummy upset i led the pack. i'll remind you most of the folks in my group are NOT runners, a few of them are older, and most of them come from a strong swimming or biking background. after the discouraging 1:1 swim lesson it felt good to be good at something!

so here in lies my dilemma. fun is in most cases my internal motivator. if i'm not having fun i usually don't follow through. running while it wasn't always fun (speedwork, yuk) i have enough proficiency at it to get me through the less funner aspects.
swimming is a totally different thing. i suck at it. the swim instructor touched abit on muscle memory, and the need to practice good form but she's never demonstrated it only TALKED about it. i'm considering buying the TOTAL IMMERSION DVD, but hell, why spend MORE money??? i think she needs to talk less and get her ass in the pool and demonstrate. i need to open my mouth and ask her if she'll do this.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

FUN

geez, all day yesterday i was in a funk, feeling neglected, taken for granted, the self-pity was in abundance. i got home a few hours before my swim class, feeling apprehensive, unmotivated and unfocused. i kept fiddling w/my swim bag but never really getting around to getting ready. i asked t for a ride to the Y just so i could skip the aggravation of parking, one less thing ya know.
i head for the pool locker room and to my horror realize i've forgotten my swim suit.wtf!!! surprisingly, my funk gave way to determination as i booked over to the lost and found and managed to scrounge up a bikini top and some boy's swim trunks! i was totally lucky there cuz the choices were slim, it was this or the waaaay too big one piece, you know the ones with the padding in the boobs.
lindsey, our instructor was way cool and my 6 other classmates ranged in ages and abilities. we're a good crew. the focus was on side breathing and rotation, we used kick boards and fins (a first for me, like the road bike, fins are wicked fast, now if i can figure out how to sneek them in the event i'll be cruising for sure! lol!!) we also did some goofy looking "chicken wing" drill. the 45 mins flew by and i regretted having t drop me off cuz i would've stayed to practice longer, but then on the other hand, had i had my car when i realized that i'd forgotten my swimsuit i mighta gone home, who knows? one thing i do know is i had FUN and am looking forward to this afternoons lesson. woohoo!!!

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Striving to do more

This weeks wrap up:

Tue: 30 min treadmill.
lunges/10# and squats/45# 3x10
leg presses 3x15 45#

Wed: 60 min Yoga class

Fri: 45 minute run outside (the one day this wek the sun was out);
Headwinds and Hill repeats, oh yeah!!

Sun: 70 minute run

Doesn't look too impressive for a multi-sport training week, however if you count the many hours I've spent finishing up this damn quilt, er, I mean this darling quilt that'll be finished tonight if I have anything to do with it!!!...it's been a pretty balanced week. Throw in chaperoning a field trip to Monterey Bay Aquarium on thursday and working 32 hours this week, I'm not feeling too slothful. No swimming or bike riding though.

Spent most of saturday cleaning up the nest and sewing, taking care to stretch periodically.
I skipped the tri-club get together on saturday, they headed over to the city for a gait and running shoe clinic. This wednesday night though, we're meeting at the Berkeley H.S. track for a workout w/coach woohoo!!
Good sleeps and eats all weekend. M made the yummiest banana bread w/chocolate chips and walnuts.
I was asleep by 9:00 pm on friday!!

Okay, back to the sewing machine . I'm going in for the kill!!