Drained

Weird to say this, but I'm glad it's Monday. I actually look forward to Monday's after my reserve weekends. I'm tired, exhausted, my brain hurts from taking a 2-hr advancement exam, and now I smell of chlorine while I slouch in my cubie. I'm drained, my mind is drained, and my legs hurt a little, too. I'm looking forward to getting things back to normal this week at work and at home, then comes another trip Friday afternoon to Beaufort, SC.

Thanks everyone for the well wishes for Grace. It seems as soon as she got her medicine, she started to feel better and hasn't complained about her ears since. She's on it for 10 days, and is taking it like a champ. Must be delicioso.

As much as I seem to complain about Drill weekends, it's really not that bad. I'm in a leadership role and it can be a little babysitting, but my department seems really squared away and self-sufficient. And, I'm busy the entire time I'm there, so it goes by pretty fast. I've got some responsibility thrown back into my lap over the weekend for the next few months. A job I gladly resigned from 6 months ago that I held for over 4 yrs. I think having that title for that long was holding me back from advancement, so I had to move on. Anyway, it's going to be a busy month for me to get ready to facilitate the Fitness test for the entire center next month. It's a mountain of paperwork, and tracking spreadsheets, etc. So, all in all - I enjoy what I do, Love the Navy, and am proud to serve my Country. It's just draining to work 5 days, drill 2 days, then back to work for 5 days, and this week, Sat is a triathlon.

Saturday was a planned bike ride with a friend from work. But, the 22 mph wind threw that out the window. I couldn't just not do anything, and the pool closed at 4. So, I opted for 35 min of strength training (including 3 planks :-) ) and 30 min of Pilates. It's all in the log.

My friend and I rode the Donaldson Center loop yesterday, and David even made it back in time from Atlanta to join us. His ride was leisurely, occasionally sticking his bum in the air to show us his spandex. We did the loop twice, and my bike computer decided not to work for the first 1-2 miles, then I screwed it up when we got back by hitting it again, before our run. So, I don't have an accurate time/exact distance. But, we estimated. Afterwards, friend and I ran 1 mile.

Bike (really reals roads) 14.6 miles ~1 hr
Run 1 mile (10:04)

Today I swam at lunch and it wasn't great. I had time issues again, but with my watch. During a lap somewhere near the end of the swim I must have hit stop, somehow. A great triathlete, swimmer, and Y lifeguard, Pam, gave me pointers on my stroke. Apparently, I was bringing my right arm all the way back but was cutting my left stroke short, bringing my arm out of the water in the middle, instead of following the stroke through. Who knew? So, after she told me to try it that way - It felt awesome. I could feel a difference, felt stronger during the entire stroke, and felt more level to the water. Amazing! I welcome her swimming tips. I think I sped up some too, but not sure. I will swim 1 more time before the tri this Sat, probably in my tri get-up.

500 yds - 13:06
250 yds - ~5:24

So, 5 more days before Big Parris Island Triathlon. It is a filled triathlon, capped at 500 participants and the first one of the season for the SC tri series. More importantly, (Yes, I'm biased), it's the 1st tri for team TYB Racing . There are quite of few doing the event so it should be fun! A few local friends doing the tri are Chris, and Eric, great guys! I'm a bit nervous, but feel more prepared than I was last Aug at Greenville tri. I don't think I'm totally prepared for this, but am expecting and WILL absolutely push myself beyond my comfort zone.

Tonight, Grace gets to get on her bike and ride. She's excited about it and of course, I'll take pictures.

Congrats to bloggers: Lisa, Tayrn and Karen for having an awesome Half-Marathon event that turned out very positive for all! Jess and Michelle had fantastic 4 mile races that ended with PR's and speedy times!!! You all are winners!

Case of the mondays

Today, I wasn't ME at all. I'm grumpy, and just don't want it to be Monday. To top it all off, I sat in a class all day and 4 more this week to go. So, not much "real" work getting done, especially since I'm not at my cube. I'm in one of the other buildings. I get crabby like this once a month... NO, That's not the reason. It happens the week before reserve drill weekend. I guess, going into the week having class all week, and knowing I don't have a weekend at all, just bums me out. Plus I'm not really happy with my weight/fitness level so that's depressing. Same ole' song and dance. Maybe David will forgive me for snapping at him. :-(

Yesterday was a scheduled ride of at least 15 miles. David thought it would be a good idea for us to all ride together. So, we packed up the bikes, and Grace's trailor and headed to Furman Univiersity. It's a great campus with about 3 miles around the lake with the route we took. But, I gotta tell ya, it was packed. Everyone was out walking, running or taking the dogs on the trail, and we struggled a lot to get around people that were taking up the entire width of it. I'm glad it was such a nice day to enojoy it, but it was more of a hassle than anything else. So, after we hit 6 miles, we decided to ride the "mall" + uphill through a parking lot, OVER and OVER until we got to 15 miles. The mall is just a stretch of road that has traffic circles on each side. It's about a mile around the entire thing. So, you can see where this is going... Talk about repetition. Due to the many stops for traffic, and yeilding every half mile, it ended up being way slower than I had hoped. Even with David towing Grace in the trailor (about 45ish lbs), he still kicked my tail on that uphill. When we hit the mileage and got off the bikes, David threw my running shoes out and told me to go for a short run. I really wasn't mentally prepared for that, so as first I was like "NO". But, I caved and did about 1.5 total.

Bike (really reals) 15.09 miles (1:10:04)
Run 1.5 miles (15:18)

Today after class, I went for a quick run in my new shoes. I had originally planned to do some hill work, but I knew within the first 1/2 mile, I didn't need that. My legs were very tight from the last couple of days. My left leg was just in pure pain and I had a crappy pain in the right foot. So, I decided to do my looped run with just 1 loop instead of 2, which would give me a very short run. I need to rest my legs from running tomorrow, fo sho.

Run 2.19 (21:13)

I'll leave you all with a few more cute pictures of Grace from the weekend. We can't believe how fast she has grown into a little girl.

Happy Leap year

TGIF

I'm so glad the weekend is here. At lunch, David and I scurried downtown for me to pick up my race packet, and like Karen and Eric were mentioning the other day, you know you're in the running community when you run into people you know either at the running store or, in our case - packet pickup. So, we spent several minutes talking to our near future Realtor, and David's teammate on the Tri team - he was volunteering. We also ran into Fleet Feet owners, whom are awesome people, and decided to stop in their store tomorrow. I just may pick up some trail running shoes. :-) I'm sure that made Robin smile a little. Afterwards, we stopped by Salad Creations for a nice OVERSIZED salad. Yum-O.

I'm getting super excited for my first 10K in a very long time. Apparently, only 1/3 of the people registered for the race tomorrow are participating in the 10K and the rest are 5K'ers. Our friends we went to MB weekend with will be there, plus G-Man. He will be finished with the 10K before most people are finished with the 5K, I'm sure. A co-worker is doing it, and I overheard him tell someone today "what training", I did 2 runs. He DOES want to go get Ice Cream afterwards. Hmmmmm.... I'm glad he did 2, rather than 0. right? Plus a couple from our Church group will be there too.

I hear we're having nice weather, and of course, what's a race in G'ville without hills, so plenty of those to go around. Anyway, I'm going to have fun with this tomorrow. Considering how hard all runs have been lately, I'm hoping for the best feeling in my legs to get me through. I don't expect any outrageous pace for my current condition of running fitness, but it sure would be nice to surprise myself. :-)

Yesterday after work, I got in another brick. It wasn't too bad, and in fact the trainer ride was a little easier than it was on Monday. I went up a little in time/mileage, then I tacked on a 2 mile run. What sucks about our runs, is we have to exit our neighborhood and it's all uphill, and those first few minutes after riding, running up that hill is exhausting. But, I got er' done. It was very cold, a little windy and I under dressed for the short distance.

Bike (trainer) 9.01 miles - 35:40
Run 2 miles - 19:39

Golf day is postponed. I'm glad too as I didn't want to throw my back out too much (cause I can't play worth a crap) right before I do a 10K. So, it's replaced with just a work meeting (outside the work place). Nice....

We're having a relaxed evening tonight. Today is my rest day. My workout *plan* is tomorrow's race, then at least a 15 mile bike ride Sunday. I had a brick planned until coach David informed me last night after I returned, I shouldn't be doing too many bricks, that my body isn't used to it. Instead I need to get comfortable doing the bike ride. Okay... if you say so. He does know more about this multisport thang than I do.

Ta-Ta - Have a wonderful weekend, Ya'll!!! and for those of you racing, don't forget to enjoy it!

Inspired

Here lately, I've been inspired in several categories in my life, but since this blog is about fitness, I'll keep it at that. I feel that desire to work harder at my running, swimming and just get on my bike more, and I feel ready to take that leap of faith. I know that I won't be fast by the meaning that most of you use that term for, but I want to be better than where I am now. I've passed that "just finishing" phase of my journey and want to do best I can do for me. It reminds me of what Pokey said in her RnR Half report, that "the mere thought of finishing had become no longer". That's an excellent goal for a LOT of people and I commend everyone for reaching for and obtaining their fitness goals. Just finishing a Half-marathon is a HUGE accomplishment. I've done 3 half marathons now, and the first 1 was my best, but I didn't think it was at that time. I want to finish stronger at my next one, so I will be working harder.

David and I had the pleasure of having lunch with Chris friday at our favorite Thai restaurant. Chris is a fitness freak-show, and I mean that in the nicest, friendliest way, Chris. Every time we get together with him, I am inspired. He is a top-notch athlete. We, all 3, of course talk about running, cycling, and that part of the sport all 3 of us like less - that dreaded swim. However, I am much slower than the both of them in all 3 events. But, I am always inspired, not to get to their levels (respectively), but just to improve myself. I want to improve my overall fitness, loose over 20 lbs, and help decrease my self-doubt. I don't want to be dead last at every event, nor do I think I could ever be first. Just getting better at the sport. So, with that, I am going to work on working my body a little harder during each workout.

Everyone of you that I read gives me some sort of inspiration from all different angles. I learn something new all the time about the sport and myself. So, a sincere THANK YOU!

We had a most swexcellent (from Jess's own dictionary ) weekend! We didn't get much projects accomplished in the house, but it was a needed sort-of relaxing weekend and the first we spent with Grace the entire weekend in 2 wks. We were in Myrtle last weekend and had our reserves the weekend before that. She absolutely LOVES going to Grandma's. We like to do something just for her over the weekend, and swimming was this weekends choice. She LOVED the pool. So much so, she told me at one point "Mommy, don't touch me, I got it, I'm swimming". Little snot.

Sunday, before Church I got up and did a 6 mile run. It wasn't a great run, but am glad I did it. I struggled with feeling just really tired, and no energy.

run 6 miles - 1:04:12

I didn't get my planned brick in this past weekend, so I decided Sunday night I'd do it Monday afternoon. At the end of the workday yesterday, I just wasn't feeling it. However, after I walked outside I saw how nice the weather was - not too much wind, great temps. I told David, I'd do 30 min on the trainer (cause I'm too chicken to the hit the real roads at that time of day), then I'd run to our favorite Mex restaurant to meet him and Grace.

bike (trainer) 7.38 miles - 30:05
run 2 miles - 20:41

Today is supposed to be swimming but we've already had thunderstorms. I hope it clears up before the afternoon, so I can get in a short swim before our Church group tonight.

There's a glitch in the template I chose for my blog, so as you can see - I've had to switch it. When I view the layout, it only shows the first few fields in my sidebar. Therefore, in the layout I can't edit the others, nor move them around, etc. So, I messed around with the code a lot yesterday, just trying to figure it out. I'll keep working with it. It just CAN'T beat me!

baby steps

I was talking to my buddy from work this morning (she did Greenville tri with me last year and we've rode together a few times), and she told me she's doing Clemson tri in May. For some reason, David thought I said a while back that I wanted to do the Clemson tri. I don't recall that, but now her and I have both committed to joining in on the fun. I needed an event for May anyway. :-) It's a lake swim of 750 meters, and will be my first lake swim. I am nervous now, but I'm sure as it gets closer, I'll become more relaxed about it.

Today at lunch, I quickly headed home for my trainer/bike workout. I rode that boring thing for 35 minutes and it is quickly becoming like the dreaded treadmill I can't stand to get on these days. I think it's that I rode on the real roads last weekend, not that I ride it a lot, cause that just ain't true. I even told David on his way out to ride at lunch (on the for really reals roads) that I may even start to like riding on the roads better than the trainer one day soon. I was counting down the time on it. Even Boston Legal didn't distract me enough nor my arse from hurting while riding.

Tonight, I had to eat supper fairly early so I could get to the pool at the end of swim lessons to start back swimming. It was pouring when I left, and I really wanted to just hang out on the couch some more, but I left. I haven't done a swim since the beginning of that 3 wk sickness crappola I had, so it's been about a month and it showed. I already know I'm SLOW but, I'm slower than the normal SLOW now and it's okay. I'm doing it, right?
700yds - 16:40

So, I'm taking these baby steps of fitness towards the Parris Island tri in a few weeks, and am feeling good about doing it. I don't recall feeling this excited about Greenville tri last year, probably primarily because I was training for Chicago at that time. I am looking forward to it, no matter how far back in the pack I land.

Rest day, please?

As the weekend comes to an end, I'm dead tired. I feel like I should apply for a painter with home builders. Seriously, I feel as if I painted ALL weekend, and I'm not even done with that painting project. Anyway, we had dinner with my brother and friend tonight, and talked about our weekends. He was happy to come over today and watch Grace while I ran my scheduled 10 mile run and it went smoothly. I wish I could say David's weekend was without issues at the reserve center in Atlanta, but it was challenging for him. The good news is is that he met up with Wes for dinner and chit-chat. Oh, I meant - man talk.

I did get in a few more workouts. After my unwelcome swimming excursion Friday, I even went back to the gym Saturday morning with Grace in tow (she went into the nursery) for some bike riding. I ride the upright bike when I do it there. Not the same as my bike, but I'm moving my legs just the same.

Bike
45 min
10.7 miles

Today, after Church and a bagel outing with the little lady, we went back home for her nap, and shortly afterwards, I was out in the nice temps of about 55 degrees and decent wind for my 10 mile run. I did 2 loops of 4.2, and added on a 2.4 loop, so I ended up passing my street 3 times. Mentally, it can be tough. It went okay. I stopped at 2.6, 5.2, and 7.5 for water and shot blocks. Shot blocks are good, but I gotta tell ya, the Pina Colado. Not good. At least for me. I was gagging.

Run
10 miles
1:46:03 (10:36 pace)

I've had a terrific week with working out. I just hope I can hold on to the momentum. Although, I think I got it mentally this time. I have a thirst to do better on my 2nd tri in 7 wks. With that said, I've worked out (swimming, biking, running, pilates)for 7 days in a row. It's time for a rest day tomorrow and I'm looking forward to just relaxing, well after work that is.

I apologize for not reading up on blogs this weekend. We're working a lot on our home, and I was not only doing that, but had Grace all by myself all weekend, which she was a little angel for me. So, I didn't get online much. I plan on reading to see what you all been up to tomorrow morning!! With that, my legs feel like wood and my left leg has that crazy feeling in it it gets after long runs. So, after my small glass of Lemonchillo David poured for me, I'm turning in for some shut-eye.

Ta-ta