Monday, February 01, 2010

February Fun!

 
So with January already over I am now thinking about spring! Time to get ready as the racing season will be here before I know it. So the blog had a mini hiatus the last couple weeks which was due to a few reasons.

a) As of the beginnning of the year I assumed the role of President of the Cleveland Triathlon Club and have really been focusing a whole lot of time working with sponsors, the newsletter and a bunch of other fun stuff
b) The year end workload at work
c) I have been busy with doctors as I managed to crash my mountain bike on January 16th, ended up in the ER and fractured my radius. If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough!

So all is on the mend. The good news is due to my elbow, I have actually been taking better care of the tibia. Speaking of the tibia, after another several week hiatus, I ran 30 minutes this morning which felt pretty good! OH HAVE I MISSED IT!

The elbow also screwed up swimming but have been getting in some kick drills and think perhaps this week I will see what the weak arm can handle as doc said that should be ok as long as it does not hurt too bad (tried it a little over a week ago and it was waay too soon!)

TG it has been the off-season!
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Monday, January 11, 2010

Rays Indoor XC TT

 
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This weekend concluded the Rays Indoor Mountain Bike Cross Country Time Trial Series #1 which ran from 11/14 - 1/10. I had decided to try it out awhile back and decided to sign up for a time slot on the last day of the series and practice as much as I could beforehand.

Each time slot signup included a Tri Flow lube, a Red Bull and an entry for a GT Zaskar.

COURSE: START/FINISH: GT Deck. Race totals 3 XC loops and 7 GT lines (shortest lines throughout). START and FINISH triggered by breaking a laser beam, supervised by a Race Official.

* START: Break laser beam to start clock on GT deck
* Prologue: Line P (marked), return to deck
* 1st lap Fisher XC (approximately 1/3 a mile) loop, return to deck
* Line 1, return to deck (two options- one a little more technical, one a little longer)
* Line 2, return to deck
* 2nd lap XC loop, return to deck
* Line 3, return to deck
* Line 4, return to deck (stumps...this line is often problematic for riders)
* 3rd lap XC loop, return to deck
* Line 5, return to deck
* Line 6, return to deck (riding tree logs also trips many up)
* FINISH: Break laser beam to stop clock

The key would be to ride a clean ride because if you fall off any of the lines or put your foot down you incur a 15 second penalty for each.

Top time on the board for women was 9:24 at the start of the day. Also ready to go was LP and ET, a 15 yrd old sponsored female and my friend and I knew both ladies would give me some tough competition.

I lucked out with a clean run my first go and posted a time of 8:21:27 which was good enough to give me the overall win. ET has been dealt a rough hand being sick the last couple weeks and posted a 8:50ish (for 3rd) which included a 15 sec penalty on line 1. LP (got 2nd), who had been taken out by a bicycle before she even got to attempt the race that morning, improved her time by nearly a minute but had incurred two penalties after choosing to bomb line 4 and took a spill on 6 (she got up fast and still finished strong much to her credit).

First female awards me a Rays MTB jacket and a picture in Mountain Bike Magazine! Now I got to quit spending so much time on these lines and become better at the clearing the jumps like the other two girls I raced that morning who definitely have the edge there.

After the race, most racers (especially me) spent the day hacking up our lungs after sucking so much cool warehouse air. Then it was off to Senorita Bonitas to celebrate with some beer and Mexican!

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

And it's it still falling....

 

Another day of slow commutes and more snow, so what is a girl to do?

1. Be happy because the husband plows snow and that equals $!
2. Go snowmobile riding...you know you are having fun when you stay out until the wee hour of 3:00 am riding.
3. Kick or throw snow at the dog. Mr. Matches loves to try to catch them!
4. Drive to work at crack of dawn so you don't have to get stuck in the rush hour mess and the bonus is the workout!
5. Go to indoor cycling class...every week CTC east side class continues to grow and now we even swim after class every week!
6. Go to Ray's Indoor Mtn Bike Park-Hitting the park tonight and Friday to practice for the XC TT race time slot which is this Sunday the 10th! Crossing my fingers for a clean ride with no penalties!
7. Hit the gym. Lots of weight training this month including some circuit training and of course my fav, P90x!
8. Use mad amounts of chapstick and lotion...perhaps I blast my heater too much!
9. Consume large amounts of spicy chili. Healthy, yet delicious!
10. Watch a good movie while baking in the room with the wood burning stove. My favorite movies over the last couple months included Public Enemies, Hangover, Terminator Salvation, Funny People, Star Trek!
11. Make friends with the treadmill again...and hopefully hit the trail soon!
12. Learn to love the smell of chlorine.
13. And above all else, really appeciate those few days when I actually get to see the sun!
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Matches Loves Snow!

 
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Monday, January 04, 2010

Happy new year!

 


2010 is already looking up!

Kicked it off with a new years eve 3 mi. run. 3 Miles may seem like small potatoes to most but this was the best 3 mi in a long time as the tibia pain was not present!!

After a very mild new years eve, news years day was packed full of fun including CTC's polar plunge, the post race warm-up at Panini's and games with our friends.

Saturday, 1/2, started the health kick where some focus is returning to my nutrition. Day three now in progress and already feeling better with cutting out the crap!

Saturday was a pretty darn good day actually with a 2 hour cycling class, 2000 yd swim, got some stuff done around the house and then a super fun night of riding snowmobiles!!!

Between snowmobiling the other night and the husband plowing, I am loving this snow! 2 feet and counting at home!

Did I really have to go back to work today though?

Bring on the new year!
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Polar Plunge 2010!

 


Lots of crazies!
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Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Never a dull moment here in the life of Daisy wrapping up 2009 with holiday parties and preparing for 2010!

 
Pic from Dec. 12th's Cleveland Tri Club Winter Banquet!

The shoppping is done, the holiday letter is out and now it is time for the fun stuff! My only regret is the number of holiday runs (Waterfalls Run and SERC holiday runs) coming up that I am going to skip due to wanting to make sure I am fully healed up and ready to go for a big 2010....(don't fret, you may see me for breakfast afterwards!)

The tibia pain has finally started to go away and I am looking forward to picking the running back up come the beginning of January. Of course I am tempted to try this week but I would rather give it a little extra time to make sure there is not a relapse. So it will just be biking and swimming into the new year and then a very careful return at start of 2010!

In other news, without all this running, I have been biking most days. As a matter of fact, in the last 9 days, I have visited Rays Indoor Mountain Bike park 5 times. I could easily prove it too...just look at my bruised legs! I will be buying some decent shin and knee guards here sometime soon!

Speaking of Rays, I have been having a blast chatting and racing around there with ET, a local girl who bikes & runs in some of the same circles that I finally got to meet. Rays is hosting and indoor cross country time trial (XCTT) series which ends on 1/10 and I think it just could come down to her and I dueling it out...so a little rivalary is always fun! The XCTT includes 7 lines traversing trees stumps, tree logs, wooden skinnies, etc and 3 loops of the ~1/3 mile long cross country loop. Top female time posted right now is 9:30.

Beyond that, East Side Cycling, CTC's 2 hour trainer workout, is now in full swing. Last week, "Mr. Heavier, the better?" PJ was in charge of tunes. Can't say I minded as I always have liked my share of Disturbed, Zombie, Rage, Korn, etc. Then after class, DJ, led us in a 45 minute swim which felt great, even if I was a little tired! So this is the Saturday staple for the winter...BRING IT ON!
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Friday, December 18, 2009

2009 Exciting Edwards Extravaganza er my Holiday Letter going out today!

 

Seasons Eatings, er Greetings to our family, friends and the strangers standing in front of the fridge reading the 5th HUGE installment of yet another Exciting Edwards Extravaganza!

Yes, folks like John from John & Kate Plus 8, we just keep coming back with more in a year filled with craziness like our Wild Tiger, Deviant Dave, Piggy Flu Paranoia, and the death of scary looking thriller dude! Joey even won the Nobel Peace Prize in ’09 for doing…for doing…oh wait I guess they gave it to that other guy!

Yes, craziness has also been prevalent here in the Edwards Establishment and I continue to look up in the sky expecting to see some winged porkers flying (& ready to take cover as you never know what they may drop)! 2010 kicked off with a bang as Joey and I made our way on New Year’s Day up to the very cold frosty Lake Erie Beach where Joey took the Polar Bear Plunge into the freezing cold water. I suppose ‘Destination Craziness’ was the set course for this year!

So the cold water must have re-wired something in Joey’s head as Mr. “Why camp out when a hotel has a perfectly comfortable bed?” has come over to the dark side and we got some equipment and camped out a fair amount this summer. Now I know many of you are still in disbelief that there could be this radical change of mindset by Joey, but apparently mountain biking at some silly sweet venues can be quite convincing! We managed to mountain bike and camp all over in PA, NY and Ohio and even did some high class camping in an RV a couple weekends (once with our friends out in Raystown, PA and once down at Mohican’s 100K mtn bike race next to a host of mountain bike legends!) Ahhh, many a good times were had & we definitely seemed to make an impression in the neighboring state of PA as they dollied out a 5 ft beer shrine to the RV. (In our defense, OH people just can’t get Yuengling everyday though and to our credit, it was not all ours!)

2009 goes down as Year Two of mountain biking for us. In 2008, it was Joey’s turn to break nearly everything on his bike. This year it was just his helmet (slamming headfirst into the ground after some fun kickers) and his face (which was perfect for our Halloween Corpse Bride & Groom Costume!). 2009 would serve as the year, yours truly, Janet, would keep breaking her bike…thank goodness for my loyal bike shop! Oh and don’t think I have not escaped unscathed…I sit here now typing with a bruised, scraped and swollen elbow, quad and palm after a crash just last night. Adults just don’t bounce like kids anymore…even if we still want to play like them!

And back to the airborne cob rollers, Anti-Spandex man also jumped onto the road bike band wagon hard core in 2009 and together we logged hundreds of miles in …you guessed it…SPANDEX! Oh and on the final swine fluttering note, after months of being personally berated by Joey with “Make friends in real life,” Joey joined the ranks of Facebook users everywhere and is now quite the Facebook strumpet.

In other news, after miles of abuse, I got rid of the G-Unit, aka my Pontiac G6 and bought a brand new Honda Fit! This animate lil car seems to have been made for me with a decent price-tag, nearly 38 mph gas average and it can haul a ton of crap, even fitting four bicycles inside! Is it bad when you go car shopping and want to take your bicycles with you as it is really important deciding factor? So Lisa can make fun of clown car all she wants, this fine carefree 7 month old with over 24K miles-on-it-already-car is going to get us places in 2010!

Despite having to drive so far to civilization, country living continues to treat us well. Besides Mohawk Matches (our golden retrievers Indian summer name) and Zippo (aka as catpigcat for his belly and food consumption habbits), we seemed to have had an issue with some squirrels trying to take over at the homestead (getting in the walls and everything else). But fear not friends, Joey Crockett emerged victorious in his mission to drink lots of coffee and take them out one by one from the upstairs window.

Guess it is time to close for now as like usual, there are a billion other things I should be doing like updating my fb status or posting some witty tweet or sending out a text (not while I’m driving, of course, :-). Who knows what 2010 will bring, but I Gotta Feeling from my most recent shopping experience that the 80’s fashion is coming back with a vengeance. I just want to announce right now for the record that in no way will my hair ever get that big again though!!!

Peace and Lotza Love! Janet, Joey, Matches & Zippo!
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Thursday, December 10, 2009

Computrainer FTP Test

 

What is an FTP Test? FTP stands for “Functional Threshold Power”. It is basically a measurement of your maximum average power output during the time trial.
The personalized FTP assessment is supposed to then be used to help set achievable goals.

I have never done anything like it before and sort of was not looking forward to it as I just as felt like I may not like the results as I had only gotten back on the bike somewhat regularly the last couple weeks or so. Lucky for me, I have never done it and don’t have a good basis to evaluate where I am at!

Not only that, but I have not done many tempo efforts since before my marathon. Oh yeah, and there are those off-season, lack of running pounds that must go! Just started to focus on that finally this week...and let me tell you, I really wanted the Brick last night (chicken wings, beer, fries) but I skipped it and lieu of some healthy lean chili.

So yesterday was the test. DM had offered to do it for me so I got all set up on the computrainer. It was only the second time I had used one and I always find myself just so zoned in on all the different numbers. If the budget was not so tight and those were not so expensive, I would definitely buy one!

It started with a warm up for 20' gradually building the wattage for brief intervals. During which, I just watched the numbers and different scans analyzing my pedal stroke. Then I got to my 30 second intervals where I took things up a bit. I guess every time in my head, I was trying just to bump the max speed a little higher, although I know that was not the goal.

Then it was time for the first 20 minute test. I rode a flat course of 6.53 miles (~20 min). I was instructed to ride aero as much as possible (I do find that I have recently really take a liking to the drops so I switched back and forth some). I was allowed to change gears as often as I wanted and was supposed to aim for a cadence between 80-100. For test one, I was supposed to ride hard, but not all out.

On the first test, worked pretty hard and was glad when the 20 minutes was over. Let me say a 2 min RI goes by quick and after some water it was on to the second 6.53 mile course (~20min).

I knew the goal was to finish with +/- 5% power of the first test. I was told that most people go out too hard on test 1, so to make sure it is a solid effort but not all out on test 1. For Test 2, I was supposed to build throughout and with 3' to go, REALLLLLLLLY put the hammer down. The final 3' should be an almost all out effort. I was definitely tired on the second test and dug down to try to keep things close to the first 20 min test, but it was hard as I had pushed pretty hard the first go around. When we got to the 3 minutes of increased effort, I really tried to bring up the rpms at least a couple…rough stuff! And boy was I happy when I finished. I was quite tired but wanted to make sure the test shown some good data so just tried to stick with it!

So here is the data, at least it will give me a place to start. I guess I was pretty close on both of them anyways.

CT Calibration 2.04

TT TEST 1
Course Distance: 6.53 M
Time: 19:59
Avg. Speed: 19.6 mph
Max Speed: 20.7 mph
Avg. Wattage: 173
Max Wattage: 259
Avg. Cadence: 90 rpm
Max Cadence: 98 rpm
Avg. HR: 174 bpm
Max HR: 182 bpm

TT TEST 2

Course Distance: 6.53 M
Time: 20:13
Avg. Speed: 19.4 mph
Max Speed: 20.4 mph
Avg. Wattage: 169
Max Wattage: 277
Avg. Cadence: 90 rpm
Max Cadence: 102 rpm
Avg. HR: 178 bpm
Max HR: 184 bpm
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Monday, December 07, 2009

The start of the east side indoor cycling season!!!!

 

Monday again. :-( Tip of the day-Don't bother packing up all your stuff to go swimming and then forget to set your alarm for 4:45 AM. You won't wake up that early all by yourself at that silly hour. Trust me, I did it today!

Well despite the stupid leg not cooperating with the running, other training still continues!

This week kicked off the east side indoor training session Saturday morning! This is officially year two for the East Side Cycling for Cleveland Triathlon Club. This year we changed the venue, time and day and then we had the biggest turnout yet!
 

My friend and fellow teammate, TB from TLE is heading up putting together the workouts. This should be a valuable weekly training session for both me and the rest of the group!

Oh and I am sure B will be happy to know that I had a towel under the bike so the pool was less obvious this time around!

Last week rundown went as such-
M 11/30- 6.5 M EZ Run :-(
T 12/1- 2500 M Swim, 13.25 M Bike
W 12/2-3500 M Swim, 5.5 M Run
R 12/3 - P90x Chest & Back (so sore!)
F 12/4 - 1600 M Swim, 10M Bike
S 12/5 - 35 M Bike
S off

Totals
Swim 4.72M
Bike 58.25 M
Ran 12 M
Core 1 session

Lastly, send get well vibes to my friend and our SERC president, Frank!

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Wednesday, December 02, 2009

The update...

The USAT National Club Challenge (NCC) started yesterday. It seems like a wonderful opportunity to support the local tri club and I find it a good source for motivation. Like this morning, I was dog tired and could not keep my hand off the snooze button. The plan was to hit master's swim this morning. Thinking about wanting to get in some swim mileage for the NCC was the one thing that finally guilted me into getting up. At the very last minute I dragged my butt out of bed and had to pull a tazmanian devil to get out of the house as fast as I could spin!

 


This month is swim month and lord knows that is where I should focus anyways! The husband's family has been in town and we have been spending our evenings with them being lazy, eating too much unhealthy food and staying up too late (but they left this morning so no more excuses)! I was so exhausted Monday that I missed swimming. But now with NCC swim month I have got up both the last two mornings that counted!

Not only that, after taking 2 weeks off from running due to a possible borderline tibia stress fracture, it seems after my two trial runs this week, that I will be going back to the no running status. Obviously it is not yet healed as clearly running is bothering my leg. Sigh! Winter Buckeye 50K seems off the table at this point given that it is quickly approaching in January and my run training is non-existent. Oh well, it is not the priority and if I need a little time off, now is the time. Since my 11/14, 8.5 mile run, I ran twice easy, today (12/2) and monday (11/30). I am not sure when the next one will be but I guess I will wait until the pain subsides. :-(

Biking is good though! Hitting Rays Indoor Mtn Bike Park Friday! And I am pretty excited that CTC's east indoor cycling cycling starts Saturday!
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Monday, November 30, 2009

Big News….Joining the Trakkers Family!

 

So the news I have been totally stoked about for the past two weeks or so was that I was invited to join the Trakkers family!

Awhile back, I had applied for the Trakkers team. It seemed like such a wonderful opportunity to get more involved with an outfit which is very enthusiastic about the sport of triathlon. Beyond that, Trakkers is aligned with the REV 3 outfit and for some time now I have been planning to do the REV 3 Series in 2010, so this could not be more perfect!

As it turns out, a lot of other individuals must have had the same idea as me as I guess Trakkers had a whole lot of applications to read. Then I was sitting at home on Wednesday, November 18th and my blackberry buzzed with some super exciting news….” I am pleased to inform you that you’ve been accepted onto our final roster for 2010. CONGRATULATIONS!”

Let me tell you, I was SOOO EXCITED!

In the spirit of this holiday season, I have so much to be thankful for and I am looking for to all that 2010 will hold!
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