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!

Thank you mother nature!

 

It is now November in Ohio and still I am getting out and enjoying some gorgeous weather!

Today is now day 10 of no running. While I felt a little lost this weekend without it, I survived. I did miss the Pigskin 5K and I cannot believe I will be skipping the turkey trot this week, but thankfully I am finding plenty of fun ways to occupy my time!

Last week marked my first masters swims. The only thing I am wondering now is, why did I wait so long to do these?

Over the weekend I was really looking forward to the road ride that I found out about Friday with the Cleveland Touring Club on Sunday. (I had switched gears to marathon training at the end of September and I believe this was my first outdoor road ride since then!) Sunday's ride left out of Concord and consisted of 60 miles of moderate riding through rolling nicely paved roads. We rode down through Chardon, took a lunch break at Punderson, out to Burton and winded our way back. It was hard to believe in November, that there was a group of 17 of us all out there enjoying the sunshine! Truly a wonderful way to spend the day, capped off by a late lunch at Mentor Winking Lizard!

Weekly rundown went as such-
Monday, 11/16 - 3000 M Swam
Tuesday, 11/17 – OFF
Wednesday, 11/18 – 10 Miles Biked (stationary), Core/ Weights
Thursday, 11/19 – 1000 M Swam, 20 M Biked (trainer)
Friday, 11/20 – 2700 M Swam, 10 Miles Biked (stationary), Core/ Weights, 10 M Mtn Biked (Rays Indoor)
Saturday, 11/21- OFF
Sunday, 11/22 – 60 Miles Biked (Road Bike, Outside!)
Total for the week-
Swam – 6700 Meters
Biked – 110 Miles

PS- Don't rent good movies the night before masters...I had stayed up last night past midnight to watch Star Wars and The Proposal. Let me tell you how early 4:45am felt! TG it is a short week!

60 M Ride with Clev Touring Club in Nov!

 

Blessing in Disguise?

 

Yesterday I hit the ortho doc for some Xrays and an appointment. I had been keeping this on the DL as I was hoping it was no big deal. The prior two weeks I had developed some sort of tenderness alongside by tibia bone or in the tendon alongside it. This seeemed strange as I have been doing low HR running since the October 18th marathon so I am not sure what brought it on.

Regardless, generally I can run through most things but this in particular seemed like something I should treat carefully as I did not want to turn a little thing into a big thing by not taking the appropriate rest.

While being slightly present the prior two weeks, I noticed that when I ran 7 miles last Thursday with Elizabeth,the pain seemed pronounced the whole way. It was not terribly painful, just a dull pain. The pain had started to set in constantly even when I was walking. Friday I ran 8.5 with NA & GW and again I could feel it with every step of our easy paced run. Afterwards I decided I would not run until I got it looked at, sort of fearing I might have some sort of stress fracture.

Thank goodness last weekend we were away mountain biking and running was not on the mind!

This week had been insane with work so that helped pass the days until I finally got into the doctor Thursday and get a couple Xrays.

I was so thankful to hear that it was "Nothing of major concern". Xray reflects a bit of fuzziness in tender bone area which suggests there is stress in that region trying to heal. Nonetheless, no cracks and obviously very early. Ice, no running for a couple weeks (figure I will take Nov off), stretching & strengthening exercises and no pain relievers (as they said it could delay the healing).

So not too bad. Who knows it may be a blessing in disguise as I have been hitting the bike and swim harder the last week which is probably what I need anyways! The only real disappointment is that I will be sitting out Pigskin and TT.

I am happy to report that thanks to two masters swims Monday and Friday and one short trip to the JCC I am almost to 7000 M Swam this week...this blows away any other week EVER! Oh and I have decided I really like Masters Swim. Look out soon as I am joining this program and plan to swim LOTS this winter! Guess I may actually need to figure out these flips turns and Butterfly stroke somehow!

And without running, I have realized that is due time to get my butt on the bike regularily. Thankfully the husband even seems motivated to ride and sent me this pic at 5 last night wondering if I was ready to ride when I got home! Hells yeah I was ready and this resulted in me being a nasty sweaty mess. Three things were crystal clear last night-

A) I sweat a disgusting amount
B) My floor is so slanted (my nasty sweat pool was trying a to make a break for it towards the bar)
C) My dog is not so bright (silly Matches, my golden will not quit trying to put his head right next to pedal which resulted in more than one bump on the head)

OH AND LAST AND CERTAINLY NOT LEAST, I GOT SOME BIG COOL NEWS THIS WEEK...DETAILS WILL BE FORTHCOMING! And YES IT INVOLVES TRIATHLON !

More great November weather!

 

The hectic life continues...

Super big work reception went off last night and was a big success. I can breathe easy today so guess I should take a minute get back on track.

November continues to be a month of trying to stay active before getting on a routine schedule in December.

A couple items of note within the past week or so-

Going into last weekend, my calendar was strangely bare and again we scored another promising weather forecast. On Thursday we decided it was time for one last trip of the season over to Raystown Lake for some glorious mountain biking along the Allegrippis Trails! Who would have thought we would get in such great riding in November! The leaves were packed down and riding conditions were fast and fun. I swear this place always leaves me feeling like a little kid as I cannot get the word "Weee!" out of my head as I hit the never ending kickers on this trail which feels like you are just riding the world's longest pump track. Such good fun!

We had planned to camp but it was looking a little cold, so I started spending some time doing research and found us this sweet affordable cottage to stay in which was loaded with all the conveniences of home...! Oh and the best thing about PA, is that on our way, we had to hit the distributor and pick up some Yuengling to enjoy post ride of course! I think those PA distributors start grabbing the Yuengling cases the moment they see OH plates roll in!

Moving on, this week I hit my first masters swim ever! I woke up a dark thirty Monday morning and drove to CSU for Masters Swim. I was happy to get the first one out of the way. It always feels like a bit of a chore to figure out where to park, where to go, what I am doing the first go around! So glad that is done!

I was glad to find out that I felt comfortable and was not feeling overwhelmed swimming next to so many fine swimmers. I figured this would be super convenient for me and would serve as good motivation. This clearly was the case! I plan to make this a regular thing and suppose I will have to cough up the money next week to officially join.

Now if only my leg that has been bothering me a bit running would get squared around, all would be right with things! Doctor appt tomorrow to see what is going on!

Thank goodness it is the offseason!

 

Columbus marathon fell back on October 11th.

The next weekend revolved around the Merriman Mansion Halloween Party.

Then the next weekend revolved around the Halloween Party that trashed my house!

The last couple weeks have been filled with doing whatever I felt like and hitting the pumpkin ale and octoberfest!

But with the time change and the coming of November, it was once again try to light a fire under my butt to drag it out of bed in the morning for the early workouts.

This week I managed three early morning workouts....one session of which left me terribly sore for 4 days!

While everyone knows I love a good party, I am looking forward to this weekend of the return to normalcy! Currently planning on hitting Rays Indoor Mtn bike park tonight, running part of the winter 50K course & putting some more miles on my Ducati tomorrow, and then following it up some more running, swimming and the CTC board meeting Sunday! TGIF!

"I hate it but I love it!"

 

- Tony Horton, the P90 X Man!

So over the last year or so I have dabbled with P90x.

For me, I just don't have enough time to follow the program to a tee with all of my triathlon related training, but if I can fit it in a couple times a week, I think it provides a nice balance, especially in the offseason. Plus there is a pretty decent yoga video which could prove to be pretty helpful to me if I took the time to do it more often.

I love the variety in the exercises and I marvel at some of them I see (like the flying pushups). Plus I think I got this warped sense of humor that I just think Tony Horton hilarious! IMO these exercises in general seem to have a lot of full body weight exercises that can be really challenging and often target multiple muscle groups....hence more bang for the buck in a time-constrained environment!

Yesterday (at 6AM already in downtown Cleveland) was my first experience with the Plyometrics DVD with my girl, CV (I have done a lot of the other dvds before but not that particular one). It is billed as an "Explosive jumping cardio routine proven to dramatically improve athletic performance." Picture lots of different varieties of lunges, squats, jumps, kicks, etc. Oh my quads, hammies, and most parts of my legs are screaming at me today!

Well today, in the spirit of election day, I am beginning to think I should start lobbying for all toilets to have the mandatory Handicap grab bars as my tail is so sore and sitting down is painful!

But, still I think, "Bring It!"

Halloweekend!

 
So week two following the marathon was one more week of doing whatever I felt like doing. This will not be the case this week as I plan to start adding back in some base and really focusing on getting in the pool.

Last week was a bit of a struggle as I was having trouble waking up in the morning early in the week and then later in the week, the pool was closed so I did not hit the targetted pool workouts. Not only that, the evenings were busy with working late and other committments, so the biking went by the wayside.

The plan for this week is to start back with the morning workouts which should be aided by the time change! Day 1 of resuming morning workouts is already in the books!

Saturday morning was the ladies Halloween Pancake Run. Despite the rainy forecast it ended up being a perfect morning for running! There was 8 of us that showed up to hit the trails of North Chagrin! As we neared the water crossing, a guy warned us that we would not be able to get across. E scoffed at that notion and when we stared at the rushing water, 4 of us looked at each other with devilish grins and proceeded to cross the water which was just below our knees, laughing the whole time. Then we went back across to head back up the hill with the rest of the gals! Oh, it was such good fun! After the run we headed over to Yours Truly to reward ourselves with some good food and lots o coffee!

The rest of the weekend was filled with a pumpkin carving party and my Halloween bash. Needless to say, I was wiped out by Sunday and enjoyed a very relaxing day on the couch!

Weekly Rundown
M 10/26 - 5 mile EZ Run (45 min), Core Weights (crawling pushups, pullups, dips etc)
T 10/27 - 7 mile lunch run with CV
W 10/28 - 3 mile EZ Run, Upper Body Strenth
R 10/29 OFF
F 10/30 - 6.25 Mile Run with E & CV
S 10/31 - 10 mile trail Run with the girls
S 11/1 OFF

Ran 31.25 M
Core/ Weights- 2 sessions