Random Taper Time Updates-Black Cloud Day

The weekend-

Came up a little short.  I think I went into the weekend with tired legs.  Pushed a good pace on the bike Saturday with a fun group for a 55 mile ride on Saturday morning and then it was over to the track.  However by now it was warm.  I should have peed first and I did not take my inhaler to the track.  I started into my mile repeats.  6:50, 6:53, 7:00.  By the 4th one I was breathing heavy, struggling to get in the air with my asthma squeezing my lungs.  Thanks to having BH running along with me, I forced myself through 3 more which were (on or right around pace) to stop after 6.    After some water and putting on my headphones, I started #7 (of the 9 I was supposed to do).  Headphones quit on me and then I quit on the workout.  I kept thinking I should be able to run a half mary at around 7 min miles, why can I not do these repeats?  I think it was in part due to my asthma, part just being tired and knowing that I had another toughie Sunday but I should have sucked it up and finished.

Sunday morning, ST and I hit the road early.  I just felt flat all day.  I was tired.  My legs were tired.  We pushed on for a little over 4 hours and 76 miles and when he pulled back into the park and I was to go on another 24 miles, again I hit the eject button.

I guess at the end of the day, I really wanted to nail the workouts.  Yet, I am now at the 2 week time where I just decided it was better to err on the side of caution if I was not feeling it.

Black cloud day- 
Gave myself a nice easy day swimming Monday.  Then yesterday, I had planned to head out for the Tuesday night Tavern Ride.  Temps were nice and I hit the door at work right at 5PM.  Got stuck in traffic.  Then as I chatted on the phone, traffic came to a screeching halt and the mustang one car in front of me, slammed an SUV.  Airbag deployed, horn on.  Guy in front of me slams breaks as do I, hoping the guy behind me stops.  Thankfully he did and then I felt the adrenaline dump in my leg muscles!  Tick tock, tick tock...I am getting more frazzled by the minute.  As I near the parking lot finally, I am forced to come to a stop so I did not run over the black cat that crossed the road in front of me.  How appropriate!!!  6PM sharp I park.  At 6:03, I was ready to go.  Thankfully they waited!  :-)  Again, I HATE HATE HATE not being timely!

The kiss of death- Monday I called Sherman at Bike Authority to check about getting a once over on my bike.  I said, "Nothing is wrong with my bike....I just wanted a quick check before big race."  I scheduled myself in for bike service on Wednesday.  Little did I know, I actually would have an issue with the bike!

Back to black cloud day-   So the group takes off at a pretty healthy pace up the hill.  As we hit the uphill grade on Hemlock we are clipping along at a solid pace.  As we near the stop sign I go to shift and as I do, I feel the snap in my lever.  Cable broke.  Of course this was the time when I was rotated to the front so I quickly rotate through mentioning I broke a cable.  And of course, I am in my biggest gear on the rear.  The route was a hilly one and I was not about to go ride the entire thing in my biggest gear so as we hit 306, I let the group know I was out and turned around to ride the ~4 mi back.  I was FRUSTRATED!  Yet, I was thankful that this happened now instead of on 9/11.  I tried calling my husband on the side of the road (I think he now cringes when he gets a call from my number when I am supposed to be riding).  I manage to get out my cable broke before my phone just resets!!!  Grrrr....!  Poor hubby now slightly concerned as it took until I got back to my car to reset.  Toss the bike in the car and head to grocery store.  For some reason, my luck continues and I have now became totally electrified and every shelf or can I touch delivers a jolting shock which results in one dropped can, some swearing and a beer in my hand as quick as I could get home!!!

Thankfully today is a new day!

Final Big Weekend!!!

So yesterday I was driving the long commute home and was stuck in traffic (as usual).  I let some car in that was merging on to the highway.  First thing I notice is that is has a "save the ta-tas" sticker.  Second thing I notice is that it seems ironic to me that they have a Breast Cancer awareness sticker and the driver is smoking...also known to cause cancer.  Hmmmm....make sense?

Today I rolled my motorcycle to work.  It was the first time since I crashed my bicycle.  It had been waaay too long.  Made my long morning commute much more enjoyable even though it is all freeway.

Managed to sneak out at lunch for a run with the boys.  As we were running one of our normal total ghetto routes (no clue why these are the routes we run) we came upon a road which was pretty well blocked up with about 6 or 7 cop cars.  Wonder if we will hear about another big crime along our running route.  Seems we are on record-setting pace this year so far!  I SOOO would not run these roads alone!

Tonight I am hitting a talk with ESpeed and NC about running up in Mentor!  Should be a fun time with plenty of socializing.

Tomorrow am, I got a 55 mile bike with 9x1 mile intervals with 1 minute recoveries.  Guessing that will be a real butt kicker but I am stoked as it looks like I will have good company for the ride.  I know many get overwhelmed with the daunting training that is ironman.  I feel like I have really enjoyed the training due in no small part to having so many wonderful training partners locally.

Then Sunday, will be a final 100 mile bike with the boys!

As I sit here and tap on my wooden desk, I am quite excited that it looks like I will actually get to enjoy an entire weekend of riding in some sunshine  :-)  I heart Fridays!

Wednesday Random Bullets

Never enough time so here is the cliff-notes version of the random things going on in the world of Daisy-

Since I left ya last Wednesday-

*  Managed a solid weekend of training.  96.3 miles biked at the CTC-REV3 Training Day.  It was a gorgeous day and managed a pretty solid pace so I was pleased.  I needed 3.7 more miles per the plan but I wanted to get a shower and be ready to listen to the RD speak, so I called it close enough :-)  Also, I got in a nice long brick on Sunday on some wet roads with ET.  Despite our very chatty ride, we managed a respectable pace and those 55 miles on the bike just clicked off silly fast...then it was time for one soggy run!

* Why does it seem so often I get stuck doing my training in the rain and crappy weather this year???  This is resulting in waaaay more bike washings than should be normal!

*  Speaking of rain, I spent the first 8 miles of today's 18 mile run in some very wet, windy conditions.  Surprisingly, I think I felt the best I had for one of my long weekday runs.  I also used my new Avia Bolt IIIs' on today's run and am very happy to report, that the shoes worked well for me so I will be sporting those at REV3 Cedar Point.  They are a half size smaller than all my other running shoes but that seemed to be the right fit for me!  Now I will need to rotate in some of my other older shoes to save those back a bit.

*  Last night Tuesday, I embarked on my longest open water swim year to date for the season.  CTC had our official BIG SWIM which is 1.8 mi from Columbia Beach to Bradstreet Pier.  I felt it was really important to see how this would go as my shoulder blade has seemed weak with longer / harder swims.  I was definitely a little nervous!  I sprayed myself down with TriSlide and then slid on my sweet TYR Hurricane wetsuit.  Maybe it was the wetsuit, maybe I was just relaxed with my 19 other CTC friends on the calm Lake Erie water, but it might have been my best open water swim ever!  I can still hardly believe it!  It was exactly the confidence builder I needed :-)

* And then there was that earthquake yesterday.  At first I thought something was wrong with me and I was terrible dizzy before realizing the entire office was shaking.  As I sat on the 24th floor of One Cleveland Center, I watched as our window shades banged between the cases.  Strange!  My husband thought he was sooo funny when he said to watch out for piranhas (because in Piranha 3D, the tremor set free the pre-historic man-eating fish!)  I survived the swim just fine thank you!

*  I wrap up this training block this weekend and am thankful that it appears I should have some good company for most of it.  Then it is taper time!!!!

*  I am sad that it continues to get dark earlier and light out later and temps already seem cooler.

*  I am stoked for the upcoming REV3.  I am interested to see how I will stack up versus last year...fingers crossed I can improve my time!  After that I will run Akron Marathon relay 2 weeks later (9/24) with my fast SERC girlies relay team.  Then perhaps think about doing the Border War sprint tri (9/25)..maybe!  Then if all is well, I will run Towpath Marathon on 10/9.  Despite my burning desire to just hit the fall road running circuit races, I am going to TRY TRY TRY to give my legs a break instead of using the fall to beat them up like usual.  The upcoming fall has me excited for the return of some trail running and hopefully I can spend sometime mountain biking before the snow falls!

Toes & Props

Randomly for awhile now, I have getting toe cramps after some of my runs and bikes.  Often I take off my bike shoes to slide my feet into my some flip flops and I move my toes and I get hit with toe cramps!  OUCHIES!  So I did a little googling. Toe cramps may be caused by low calcium, potassium, sodium or even dehydration.  I suppose it is not uncommon for me to not drink very much as I am out training and I have been slacking on taking my vitamins.  Really, why is this tiny task so difficult for me to follow through with on a regular basis?  So after the worst big toe cramp yesterday, which I even noticed in my sleep last night and still hurts today, I RESOLVE TO take my vitamins more regularly and drink more (water that is...not beer silly)!  I guess I will also work on massaging my toes and stretching them for a little while now.


So last year and this year, I have worked with local triathlete and "coach", MG.  MG helps several of us out with our training plans and provides so much insight, motivation and a wealth of knowledge.  I have the utmost respect for him as a person, as an athlete and as a coach.  I was just reading his race report from Steelhead in which he put together an incredibly well executed race with a most impressive time and earned himself an outright spot to the Ironman 70.3 World Championships.  I am sooo thrilled for him!  It means a lot to me that I know he walks the walk.  He puts in the work and is one of the most disciplined athletes I know and it shows!  I was reading his race report which ended with his favorite quote from the endurance sporting world, which I love too and just wanted to share (especially because this morning felt like one of those "don't" days)-  


"Good athletes train when they want to, the great ones train when they don’t."

Random Observations

-This morning as I drove down E13th Street in downtown Cleveland chatting on my phone, my conversation was stopped dead in its tracks as I noticed an incredibly large woman sitting in one of those gigantic (must've-been about 3-4 ft around) concrete flower planters.  I was in disbelief.  The poor smashed flowers were coming out the rear of her and she LITERALLY took up the entire thing.  "She is not really sitting on there on the flowers and dirt in her moo moo, is she?"  The only question is, why did I not end my call immediately and get a picture?  WOW, unbelieveable! I thought it was supposed to be a fat lady bent over in the garden, not one sitting on the flowers.

-I headed out for a lunch run with the boys today.  As I walked by the office and waited for my garmin to load, a slightly chubby chick looked at me and then I overheard her comment to her friend, "I wish I worked out."  I don't get it.  She looked plenty capable and all I could think is, "what is stopping you?"  It strikes me that some people think that those of us who make time for workouts have more time and flexibility when most often we do not.  We make time.  We make sacrifices.  It is not easy for us but we find a way to make it work.  Trust me, I love to sleep in but rarely afford myself that luxury.

- For those of you not in Cleveland, the Avengers movie is being filmed here.  It made the lunch time jaunt a little more interesting as tons of people crowded east 9th street as we ran by trying to get a look at the action.  My boss did mention that as he dropped off one of our out of town guests at a hotel downtown last week that  the Director, Robert Downey Jr and Scarlett Johansson were all standing around real chill out front the hotel entrance signing autographs.  Pretty cool of them.  But I cannot wait for the filming to end as it just makes my commute longer trying to get in and out of the city!!!

-  I took yesterday as a rest day but my legs still feel tired today.  No rest for the weary.  Riding later and long run in the morning!

-  I have been forever hungry lately!

The last hard block...

So I am in the middle of my last hard training block for REV3 Cedar Point less than 4 weeks away now.

Ended the week with -
39.3 miles ran
160 miles biked (although I missed tues night 31M ride)
3700 meters swam

Coach's plan has me going strong another 2 weeks here and then it will be 2 weeks of tapering which should work well for me.

Saturday, a few of us met up to ride 90 miles out of Lifetime Fitness.  I had planned a rolling course with some decent climbs which would total just shy of 5000 ft of climbing.  The morning temps were in the mid-60's and it was a gorgeous sunny morning ride.  Despite starting out on some less-than-fresh legs due to all the running throughout the week, I felt pretty good the whole way.  We did have a couple detours and near the end, I spun up the hills pretty easy as I was already thinking that I better save something as Sunday's effort would again require some leg strength.

The route took us out country roads and into my neck of the woods, out past Hiram College, up Durthicks Hill in Mantua and then up north into N Chagrin area before heading back.  There had only been 3 of us that stuck together for the most part.  I thought it was a pretty solid ride in terms of workload upfront and all the climbing.  I figure my 100 miler next week will be easier than that as it is a flatter course and likely the workload will be shared more.

Sunday the plan was a 49 mile bike/ 8 mile run and the forecast was rain / thunderstorms.  I had pretty much accepted the fact that I was doing the workout regardless of the weather.  If it got too bad, I would stop for it to pass but this was the only day I had to get it in for the week.  I was happy that I had spoke with JC and he was down with that plan too.  One thing is for sure...this year I sure seem to have gotten in my share of rainy rides!!!  While obviously that is not my preference, I must say I feel pretty comfortable with riding in wet conditions!

I woke up early Sunday and slowly walked my sore legs down the stairs.  This day was going to be rough I figured and I was hoping I did not slow people down too much as my legs were tired!

I drove through some spotty rain systems to get to the start and as we grabbed our bikes out of the vehicles, the rain subsided and somehow I ended up getting in pretty much the entire workout with no rain :-)  !  That is not to say the roads were dry but rooster tails were out a lot of the ride and the bike is definitely in need of a bath tonight!

For the ride, 4 of us rode through Cuyahoga Valley National Park, through the high water on Sand Run and up some good climbs like Boston Mills Road westbound from Riverview to 21.  My legs were DYING and as I climbed up Boston Mills, the boys all pulled ahead and I just settled into a pace I thought I could handle.  A few times I caught myself with my tongue out just gasping for air doing my best Thomas Voeckler impression. All I could think was that my run was going to be ROUGH!

I had gotten a rear flat early in the ride which I managed to get fixed without too much issue and other than that, the ride was fine.  I definitely felt like the weakest link on Sunday with the 3 strong guys but at the end of the day, I was soooo thankful I was riding with them as I know I would not have pushed so hard alone.  I really enjoyed the route and the company a lot!  We finished with 49 miles and 3000 ft of climbing as we coasted into the downhill finish.

As we pulled back into the parking lot, I was happy to hear BH was going to run with me.  My plan was 8 miles at 7:32.  Only, my legs were tapped out and it was starting to feel rather humid.  So instead I decided to just go with what I could and was pleading with myself to just get 8 miles in.  BH and I fell into a decent pace on the towpath.  We kept leap-frogging with some kids on bicycles, who I think were trying to annoy us and almost tripped up BH.  As we ran past Red-Lock continuing south and I started to die a little inside as I had to go to the bathroom, pretty bad!  So as we passed the 4 miles where I would have turned around, we kept on as I needed to make it to Boston Store to hit the bathroom.  After some relief, we started back up on the return trip north, chatting away or rather BH doing most of the chatting as I think the humidity was flaring my asthma and my breathing had became a bit labored and my HR was high.  As my garmin beeped 8 miles, we took a little walk break.  We had managed a 7:43 avg which was not the 7:32 but given how tired I felt, I was just happy to be that close and even happier that I got in the 8 miles.  TG for BH or I am not sure I could have pushed myself!  Then we jogged in the last mile easy to finish with 9 miles just as it started to sprinkle.

About the time I got to my car, the rain started to come down and all I could think was, boy did we time that right!  I was a dirty tired mess!  I cruised over to Bike Authority afterwards to pick up a couple things and I really just had no energy to even deal with standing.  I am sure I looked pathetic.  Sometimes after hard efforts I just feel like I need an hour and some food before I am fully functioning and yesterday was one of those days!  Oh and it was just POURING and I was getting soaked as I kept having to get in a out of my car for a few errands....picture tired pathetic wet Daisy!

I was pretty much EXHAUSTED the rest of Sunday.  I ate a bunch and we went to watch The Rise of the Planet of the Apes which I highly recommend!  Overall, I was pretty pleased that I hit the weekend workouts and know that I put a solid effort in.  It was a pretty hard weekend for me but "hard" weekends make me feel much better prepared for what lies ahead.  Two more hard weekends left!

I heart running!

This week has been a particularly good week for me in that I have been able to get in 3 lunch runs which is very abnormal.  Usually I am chained to the desk but this week afforded me some opportunities to get out and take in some sunshine with some running buds.

Tuesday, I did my short speedwork session on the treadmill at the gym.  For some reason, I never seem to mind speedwork on the treadmill.  I just plug in the dictated pace and I go, as I rock out to my a very loud DJ Scene podcast on my headphones.

The last several weeks, I have been doing my long runs on Wednesday mornings, but this was a step back long run week, so I only had to do 10 miles so I figured I would take a long lunch and swim in the morning.  I ran with the downtown boys and E for a nice round 10.  Pace was a little fast but that is the one drawback to group runs...I run whatever everyone else does.

Thursday, I got out again for a short run.  My girl, ET, is coming back from injury and has only ran 3 mi a couple times.  She said she would be up for running 5 miles.  I was flexible, although I was thinking something nice, easy and short because my computrainer workout that morning pretty much killed me.  The next thing I know, ET is running along, chatting away and I am trying to slow her down a bit because I just did not feel like running the 7:30 pace we started into.  We slowed to an 8:05 avg.  Hopefully her comeback goes well as I will be pretty happy to have her back to run with.

Now Friday, I probably should not have ran.  But I had just got new AVIA Bolt III's that I wanted to break in!

And the window opened in my workday, so out I went again to meet the boys for a nice 9.3 mile ghetto jog.  Yes, ghetto for reelz.  I think the one guy was getting more and more nervous about the surroundings and the talk of the group as he seemed to pick up the pace more and more.  I returned to the office a nice salty damp mess, but very thankful have had the opportunity to go sweat out some stress and take in some more sunshine!!!

TGIF....this weekend looks like a very quiet one social schedule-wise which is good because I got a lot of miles to get in.  This week and the next two really have some butt kicking workouts!

Cleveland Triathlon Race Report

So this is take II of my Cleveland Tri Report.  You ever write a blog and you go to post it and you realize you just sort of sound like you are just complaining, making excuses and overall it is just whine, whine, whine?

Well it seemed a lot like that...so here is the long and the short of it trying to focusing on the positives.  Disclaimer:  There is still a lot of whining and excuses and if you think this is bad, you should have read the other report!

I felt almost as awful as the pic looks!!!

- Arrived to find out the water was 79 degrees and would not be wetsuit legal for USAT rankings and awards.  (So not what Daisy was hoping for!!!)  So I did not wear a wetsuit.  Considering how little I have been swimming post crash, my swim was not too bad, considering the chop in the water (due to the strong wind out of the west).  My main issue once I got past the yellow buoys was I could not see the last red buoy as my blue tinted goggles seemed to shade the red buoy to a navy shade which was totally not visible against the water.  So major sighting issues and I got quite a bit off course.  Oh well!  In the end, I swam fine but I exited the water with a major headache likely due to missing many breaths when I got smacked in the face with a wave.

- My transitions both seemed slow but no major issues.

I am sooo much happier on the bike than the swim!

 - The bike was fine, although my head was throbbing. 6 hairpin turns. I passed lots of people.  I had decided to put First Endurance EFS in my aerobottle (even though I usually just use water in it) because I wanted to make sure I took in some calories and electrolytes during the bike.  That worked well.  The bonus of the bike was knowing where you were at related to everyone else.  I knew going in that KS, defending champ and also a training partner would likely be the leader and that she was.  She had gained about 7 minutes on me in the swim and her lead appeared to stay pretty consistent throughout the bike.

- As I headed out on the run, it was very warm and humid.  I had tucked my inhaler for my asthma in my sports bra before the swim and I took a couple puffs on that...perfect location for that thing.  I might have to tuck it in there for some long runs and see if it bugs me as perhaps for REV3 CP, I will put it there as I feel safer having it with me and that is a convenient spot to have it.

- I had decided that I was not going to bother wasting time with my garmin and for some reason the only split times on the results page are for my swim and finishing time so I have no idea how my pacing was.  This was also due to the fact that there were not clearly marked mile markers at every mile.  I thought I saw a knocked over 2 and maybe a 3 but it was nothing that I could clearly track on my watch.  As I neared the first turnaround I passed S (who finished third female and I got to talk to her after as I did not know her going in) and then it was just KS waaaay out in front of me.  I think I just fell into I nice steady pace.  I guess I figured this would be my finishing position and instead of racing hard for myself, I just ran an easy tempo.

- I was very happy to finish 2nd overall female about the 7 minutes behind KS that I had lost on the swim.  All good, I was happy for her and knew that would be the outcome as she is a solid well-rounded triathlete who works hard. While everyone wants to win, I had no illusion that given my current swimming that it would be quite a stretch in an oly.  It was a good training day.  More than that, it was sort of a triumph to come back to a race after a bad crash and come in with a podium finish.

-  I suppose afterwards, I have been a little hard on myself as I just don't feel like I pushed as hard as I could have on the bike and run.  While it would not have mattered in my place, I should have raced against the clock for myself.

-  I will say this again as I say every year it seems, I really really need to focus more on the swim.  I am not concerned so much now as I know the shoulder is not fully healed and it is sort of a little too late for this season but in the off-season, I will make some big changes to my swim training...FOR SURE.

The start of the weekend....

It has been another whirlwind few days!

Friday evening I headed over to my sister's for a pool party and fortunately, I left to head home at a very reasonable hour.

Saturday morning came early and I hopped in my car and headed over to Edgewater to start my bike at 6:30 AM.  The plan was to ride over to Sweetwater Marina in Rocky Rocky River and do an out and back with the Vanuccis & Trisaratops and return to my car by 8:40.  I cruised back in 38 miles later which included a bathroom stop and some chatting at the turnaround.  It was a perfect morning for riding and was even better because of such fabulous company!

Then I packed up my biking stuff and changed into my running clothes to lend a hand with some friends (Espeed and GP's man) who were short a female runner for their 10K Corporate Challenge Relay team.  Always nice to help out a friend but with the oly tri on Sunday, I decided I was going to run a pretty conservative 1 mile leg.  So without much time to spare we all got lined up and I was going to be the second person on the relay leg.  I thought going in, the team was just picking up participation points.  Yet, as our first relay runner came into sight, he had opened up a big lead on the field and I was going to be heading out in first place.

I had my garmin on and I was thinking I would run something like a 7 min mile which would not feel too hard but was not super slow.  Yet, with the hand smack I was off and decided to just cruise and ease off if the effort started to feel too hard.  I did not want to overload my legs with running too fast and risk making them tired for Sunday.  Thankfully, my legs were nice and loose after my bike and before I knew it, I was cruising back into the relay exchange area, still in first.  I smacked hands, hit my garmin stop and walked off the course feeling pretty fresh.  I was shocked to see the average pace at 5:44....ooops!  Oh well, I was not overly concerned as I did not feel labored and my legs felt fresh.  So then it was off to rush to the Cleveland Triathlon expo.

I knew getting a shower before it was going to be tight time-wise and there ended up being no time for that as I needed to be set up by 10 am.  I did manage to do my third outfit change for the day so at least I was not in sweaty clothes!  Then I sat at the expo pitching the Cleveland Triathlon Club.  CTC has not had a presence there at the downtown race for awhile now, but it actually seemed to be a really good idea as we signed up several new people and I answered a lot of questions.  Always fun to talk the sport!  The expo was pretty small but I must say they had a really nice free pasta lunch setup.  This was not the normal, toss some already cooked noodles in the water with some generic marina sauce but a really good spread...nice bc this girl was hungry!

I headed out just after 2pm to head home.  I had quite a few things to take care of, ate again and then spent the evening chilling on the course watching movies with my Recovery Pump pants on.

Commence Operation Wing It

So post crash on 6/14 just over 7 weeks ago, the state of the state is as such.

Running and road biking causes me zero issues.  I did feel a bit of discomfort back in the shoulder while mtn biking over the weekend.  When I say discomfort, it usually means a dull ache that feels like a pinch back there in the meat of my shoulder muscles right on the shoulder blade toward the bottom where it was clearly separated in my xray.

I have still not done pushups or any weight training since and have tried to not overdue the swimming (which has not been hard bc I tend to like to neglect swimming anyways!).

Yet, being I am doing an oly race Sunday, swimming gets a bit more important if you want to be competitive.  So I decided this latter part of the week, I would focus a bit more on my swimming to make sure I was comfortable.

So this morning I arrived to Lifetime to hit the pool for a good swim and was feeling highly motivated to really focus on what I was doing (as often my form just goes down the toilet easy!)

WU:  200 Swim, 2x200 (50SW,100Kick, 50SW)
300,200,100 Moderate with 20 RI
200,100,50 Easy with 25 RI
200, 100 Fast (or as fast as Daisy can swim which is not fast!) with 30 RI
then I did 50 easy out of plan bc I like round numbers
6x100 pull with 25 sec RI
100 swim, 100 kick, 100 swim, 100 kick
c/d:  100 easy pull
Total 3000 Meters

All in all, I would have to say it went pretty well.  It was my longest swim post crash as usually I put in exactly 2000 and call it a day (or rather have to rush to work).

I felt really good and thought I was doing a nice job with trying to glide a bit more and rotate.  When I did the 6x100 pulls, I was definitely working hard...maybe too hard.  I started to feel that familiar pinch back in my shoulder on the 3rd and 4th repeat and did the rest of the workout pretty easy.

It still feels a bit pinched albeit not too bad.  Hard to know if I am just thinking more about it now than usual or if it is actually bothering me more!  I don't know.  Yet now I am rethinking swimming any more until Sunday.  It is not that swimming a lot the week before a race makes me any faster, I just often find that it gives me confidence and makes me a bit more comfy.

So not sure what to think!  I guess I will just wing it Sunday.

As luck would have it, 4 or 5 weeks ago when I was at the Dr. last, I had set up a follow-up appointment with ortho doc for Monday.  It will be interesting to actually see what the scapula looks like then!

Cross your fingers for me please!!!!!

Tuesday Bullets

*  Super busy in Daisyland and just hoping everything falls into place.  Fingers crossed!

*  So the intent was to blog about getting to spectate at Fairport tri.  It was lots of fun and it seems so rare that I get to spectate!  I snapped lots of fun pics of my friends and had a great time.  Then I still had to do my own workout and things were heating up.  I was super thankful for my friends that morning as I had conned ET into riding the bike portion of the workout with me and then ESpeed ran with me in the hot humid sunny weather.  The run was rough as I had a pace goal and had it not been for E, I am certain I would not have been close or would have bailed early!

Swim and kayak start!

CTC peeps, Roger and Mike out representing!

ESpeed and I out watching!

* The thing about IM training is it seems so hard to ever feel fresh.  Tuesday morning I had did a speed workout and then in the evening I pretty much turned myself inside out trying to keep up with the fastest guys out at the Tuesday night 32 mile hilly ride.  Then Wednesday I was up at the crack of dawn to put in a 15 mile run before work.  This sort of thing seems par for the course!  So far that is the plan this week again...no slacking allowed ;-)

*As most my weekends seem centered around whatever I like to do, this past weekend the husband and I decided to take a break from it all and head out to go camping with some friends down at Lake Hope State Park down near Hocking Hills, OH.  It was a super fabulous weekend-good food, good friends, swimming, kayaking, hiking, mtn biking and more!  

First mtn biking since fractured scap!

At the campsite next door were these two...I wanted to pet them!

Fun times crawling around on the rocks!

We were a little nervous about bats, but anything for a fun photo!

*  It was a really nice change of pace but the problem was I was struggling with how I was going to fit in my workouts without a big chunk of weekend to do it in.  So I took off Friday to get in a long bike and then just had to run after mtn biking on Saturday.  Not perfect to the plan but sometimes you need to give and take!  

*  This week will be a return to racing season.  Yes of course I am excited and NERVOUS!  My swimming is subpar and racing an oly will not suit my strengths as proportionately the swim is long relative the other legs but no matter as I am just going to go out and put my best foot forward!  I fully support the GCT race out in Mentor this weekend and especially MR and feel bad I am missing that (good luck to all friends racing there) but I'm heading up CTC efforts at the downtown Cleveland race this weekend and will be racing that...so stop by and say hi if you are at expo, race or finishline!!  

Cheers!