Day 53. Run

Alright, so I must admit that I didn't work out today. It felt good to sleep in and also relax after work for once. It's a recovery week, so I thought I owed it to myself for once. But, I might just end up making it up on Friday rather than today. We'll see...

Day 52. Swim / Run

Ugh, it's Tuesday again. I put in my run and then headed to the pool. I was having an average day today, but I had to cut my swim short again so I could get into work at a decent time. I've been just dragging through this week - I think my body needs a break.

On the up side, I had a very generous Anonymous donation today! I'm really excited about it, since I have been sitting stagnant for weeks now. I'm at $1950 raised with $2400 as my goal! So feel free to take this chance to donate if you haven't already:

http://pages.teamintraining.org/nca/nattri09/ashields

So, who's going to put me over the $2000 mark? Huh huh? :)

Day 51. Bike

I know this is going to sound silly, but the 20 minute bike today didn't feel like enough. I went to the gym after work, because I couldn't muster the energy to go before work for once. It totally through off my schedule today. I felt like I was dragging all day. So, I won't make that mistake again. I'll be at the gym bright and early! Time for bed!

Day 50. Swim

On the docket for today, 30 minutes of swimming without stopping. I was a little hesitant of this at first, but once I got in the pool - my attitude changed. I ended up doing 1150m in those 30 minutes, pretty respectable I think. For those of you who don't know, the race distance is 1500m, so I'm getting pretty close. Yay! Overall, a good workout day that I'm really happy with. Next week is a recovery week again, so I probably won't have much to blog about, but we'll see.

Day 49. Brick

Today's group brick workout was about 2 hours away, so I decided to skip it and invite my friends to do our own brick workout closer to home. It worked out well that Steve and Michelle came out to do my workout with me. We got on the WO&D at Rt 28 and then rode to west Reston, all in all about 18 miles. It was a good workout, good distance, a few hills, not too crowded. It was a bit humid and hot today, but could've been much worse. After the bike, I had to do a 30 min run. Steve and Michelle jetted after the bike (I secretly wish I could've too!). The run wasn't super today. I spent probably 15 min walking and 15 min running. This is one area I really need to improve in.

Day 48. OFF

Yay! It's Friday once again and no training today. I spent the night going to the movies with Kathleen and going to a local Irish pub - all in all a fun night.

Day 47. Swim

I think Thursdays are starting to be my favorite work out day. I know it's crazy to think that because it always involves waking up at 4:30am to go meet my training group in McLean for our group swim. Today's swim went far better than Tuesday's attempt at the same drills. Our endurance set today was 5x200m. Once I got to about the third set, I felt like I started to have a rhythm and stopped thinking about all the mechanics and breathing. I wasn't even super tired by the end - so that's a good feeling. By the end of practice, we had almost achieved the 1550m - which is race distance! I also got some coaching today about how my stroke - I guess that gives me something to work on during Sunday's swim.

Day 46. Bike

I woke up this morning with a dilemma - do I take my bike out and ride eventhough it looks like it will pour at any moment or just go to the gym and ride the bike there? I decided to go to the gym, because the thought of falling off my bike again due to rain did not sound to appealing after last week's fall. It worked out well, because I was able to get some reading in while on the bike - something I'm not normally able to do. :) I'm always concerned if riding the bike at the gym is really giving me as good as a workout if I was on my regular bike? Anyone know? It felt more strenuous but I think it is because I don't have any downhills to coast at while I am at the gym. Oh well, tomorrow is an early morning at the pool.

Day 45. Swim / Run

I think Tuesdays are starting to be the hardest day to work up the motivation to work out. I was sleeping so well this morning, until I was abruptly woken up by my alarm. I was able to get the run in completely, but I wasn't able to get my entire swim in. It's too hard to get it all in and into work at a decent time (usually for meetings). I was supposed to get in the full race distance during my swim practice in - I just wasn't feeling it today. It probably didn't help that I didn't get a chance to eat before training this morning. I was just dragging. Lesson learned I guess.

I think tomorrow will be better with just a long bike.

Day 44. Bike

I biked around the neighborhood for 40 minutes today. The hills were much easier after the ones I attempted on Saturday, so that felt good. I still feel like there is something wrong with the tubes on my bike. I replaced the one on the front yesterday, but it still gets low real fast. Hmm.. might have to take it into the shop and have them give me a lesson.

Day 43. Swim

I really didn't feel like swimming today - probably due to staying out too late and drinking at a party. The great thing is that Michelle wanted to go to the pool today, so that helped motivate me to do the swim. We went to her neighborhood pool to lay out for a bit and to do the swim practice. I had to do 15 minutes continuously and then a 5 minute cool down. We ended up sharing a lane and did the whole routine. This was the first time I have done a practice in an outdoor pool - just seemed a bit different. I did alright with my timing, did about 550m in 15 minutes, which keeps up with my 45 minute average come race day.

Thanks to Michelle for pushing me to practice today!

Day 42. Brick

Today was by FAR the most intense workout I have had yet. We were out in the Leesburg area. Today's goal was to ride for 80 minutes and then run for 30 minutes immediately afterwards. The only thing they left out is that it was going to be all hills! The only way I can describe these hills is that when I was in my lowest gear I still didn't think I was going to make it up these hills - and in times I just wanted to give up and walk my bike up them (but I'm tough, so I perservered!). When I would get to the top of these hills, my legs would be shaking uncontrollably from all the work I just put them through. I just kept thinking, I have to tackle these hills again on the way back - I should've done a bit more positive thinking!

The good news is on the way back I was riding with one of the mentors and she shared a very important biking technique that helped tremendously on the way back! So, the ride back wasn't nearly as bad as the one on the way there. After the bike was over, we had biked nearly 16 miles.

So, I hurried back, threw off my equipment and put on my running shoes. My first couple steps were painfully, when my calves completely locked up. So, I stopped and stretched them for a few seconds on a curb. After that, I wasn't too bad. It's a funny feeling after riding your bike for that long, to actually have to run afterwards. I ended up running with another team member, Tammy, so it was a lot easier to finish the run while I talked with her.

After the run, we finished and celebrated recommitment by having a stretching session and eating food (bagels, bananas, etc). The funny thing is this whole thing was done by 11 am. :) What did you do this morning? Hehe.

Day 41. OFF

Ok, so I'm sorry again for not keeping up on my postings. So, here is my attempt to catch back up. Friday was an off day - which was still much needed from falling off my bike. I'm healing nicely, so it's not really an issue anymore - just a few scabs now.

Day 40. Swim

Due to my battle wounds, I decided to skip swimming all together today. I think the rec center and my fellow teammates would frown upon my open wounds being in the public pool. A day off is exactly what I needed. I do plan on getting back on my bike on Saturday at our group workout which is in Leesburg. Woo hoo! It's been the first training that will be somewhat close to my house.

My leg still hurts today - but it was more that everything else hurt more. You know how people say "feels like I've been hit by a bus"? Well, that was me today, except it was "feels like I hit the pavement". :) I went and got a massage after work, so I am feeling much better.

Tomorrow is another off day, so I won't get behind in training, which is good. I'm going to try to catch the pool on Sunday to make up for lost time.

Day 39. Bike

So, day 39 could've been a better day. It started off by having to take my friend Joe to the airport at 7:30am. Since I was going to the airport, I thought it might be a nice change to actually bike on the trail rather than do the endless loops in the neighborhood.

I get to the trail, get all geared up and on my way. It was actually really nice on the trail, because it's nice and quiet, it was a cool morning and there is noone else out on the trail. I had to bike for an hour today. I get 30 minutes out and come up to a road crossing, so a perfect place to turn around. The trail is paved and then some gravel on each side of it. So, I think to myself, I can just go on the gravel a little bit and then back on the trail and I can turn around without unclipping my feet from the pedals. In retrospect, that was a horrible idea! Right when my front pedal hits that gravel, my entire bike spins around, causing me to spin to the ground. It wasn't that I was going fast, but the momentum swung me around into some nasty gravel.

I end up with a pretty scraped up leg (see picture below), a bruised knee (from hitting the bike frame), a scraped up elbow and a hurt ego. I brushed myself off and got right back up on the bike, because I still had a half hour to bike back to my car.

All in all, a horrible way to start your day. The good news is that I'm not hurt very bad, just some painful scrapes. The bad news is that I have to take tomorrow off from swimming due to my injuries - pretty sure they don't allow open wounds in public pools. So, I will have to tackle the bike again on Saturday - hopefully it will be less drama. Oh - and my bike was unhurt in the spill as well - whew!

Day 38. Swim / Run

The great part about today is that I was able to get my run in without my knee hurting! So, I'm pretty excited about that. The bad part was that I had a work meeting this morning, which cramped my workout schedule, so I wasn't able to get in all of the swimming I would've liked to. I still was able to put in a solid half hour of swimming, so it's not like I skipped it completely. Some of the drills in this week swim exercise were hard to understand what we were supposed to do, so Thursday will be nice to see them in action. Overall, just a mediocre day.

I'm super tired - bed time!

Day 37. Bike

Not a whole lot to blog about today. I just had to do a 30 minute bike - which I did around the neighborhood. Thankfully it is only two laps and I only have to face that enormous hill in my neighborhood twice! That's exactly what I kept telling myself. The hill is so gradually steep that I am in my lowest gear and there are times I still don't think I am going to make it up. I wouldn't be surprised if one day I was going too slow in the lowest gear that I might just tip over. :)

Not yet though, I have been conquering the hill!

Day 36. Swim

First off, I can't believe its been 36 days already - it has gone pretty fast.

Today was my endurance swim - 100m warmup, 3 x 300m and a 100m cool down. Now that I have a fancy watch, I was able to keep time for each of my reps. The good thing was that I was super consistent today. My 100m each took me like 2 - 2.5 minutes. My 300m's took a little under 8 minutes each. I was actually shocked that I kept the same pace through each 300m. So, if you do the math - the race is 1500m, so I should finish the swim in 40 minutes if all goes to plan. I'm super excited about that time!

Day 35. Bike / Run

I altered my training slightly today. My knee is still bothering me (but not too bad), so I decided to not run today and that way I will be able to rest it until Tuesday when I run next. Instead of going out with the TNT group for our Saturday group ride, I went with my own group (Michelle, Jeff and Josh). I really enjoyed this because I was able to get my workout in (plus more) and it felt more like a social event rather than a workout. To me that helps a ton - I don't think people realize how draining this process is both physically and mentally. So, having people around to take my mind of of the training aspect of it - helped alot! So - thank you for that!

The only bad part of today is that I forgot to put on sunblock! So, I'm a little toasty - I'm sure it will fade by tomorrow.

The other fun part of today is that I bought a new watch. My other watch broke, so I upgraded. I mostly wanted it to figure out how long it is taking me to swim certain reps or when I have to swim for 20 minutes how many laps am I actually doing? So, I purchased a Timex Ironman Triathlon watch - nothing too special about it other than it will keep a 50 lap memory and looks cool. Now that I see my watch it puts me in the spirit to complete this race and possibly an Ironman one day.

Day 34. OFF!

Fridays are always my off days. So, I tried catching up on my social life which has been severally lacking the last few weeks. I had a nice time at a friend's house - eating fajitas and sitting outside on the deck talking. I wish more nights were like that.

Also - I'm sorry to my loyal readers that I have not been keeping up on my daily posts. I will try better in the weeks to come.

Day 33. Swim

I have caught up on my sleep enough to attend another group led swim at 5:30am. I usually dread getting up that early, but once I am there and in the pool, I feel much better about my decision. I also feel alot better about myself after I see some of the other participants in the pool. I know that is a horrible thing to say - but I know I'm not a great swimmer - so it's good to see that I'm not the WORSE swimmer in the group.

The big challenge this week has been to do 20 minutes without stopping - I have been getting pretty good at this. I think the actual race should take somewhere under an hour to complete - so atleast I have something to gauge my progress by.

My big improvement this week is that I have started bilateral breathing. This means that I take a breath from my right side, do 3 strokes and then take a breath from my left side. It may not sound that hard or that challenging, but for me it was quite a feat. It really helps with rhythm and technique. So yay!

Day 32. Bike

Today I decided to take a different route on my bike through the neighborhood. It was a bigger loop so I wouldn't be taking about 40 laps like I was before. I never knew my neighborhood was so big - since I tend to stick to the few same roads all the time. The only problem was that there were some KILLER hills through this loop. I would guess atleast 3 hills where I had to put my bike on the lowest gear and it was still a struggle.

I do have to admit that I cut my training short today by 15 minutes - I went out for 30 instead of 45. But it's because my left knee has started to bother me slightly and I didn't want to overdue my training today just in case. I was a little worried because the 30 minutes I did today were much harder than the 30 I do on other days - so in my book it all kind of equals out.

Day 31. Run / Swim

Today was another long day - I'm starting to think that every day between now and the race is starting to feel longer and longer. I guess if I start mentally preparing for it - I'll be alright.

The run was a half hour and I didn't tire as fast as usual, so I guess that endurance is building. It's funny to think that I ran a marathon in January and now I am struggling to run a few miles. You totally start back at zero once you stop training - just a heads up!

The swim went surprisingly well today. I was focusing on how many hand entered the water and what my arms are supposed to do underwater. It was a nice 100 warmup and then a 6 x 50m focus on technique. Then it was followed by a dreaded 20 minute endurance swim. I'll be completely honest that I was slightly frightened by that on the schedule when I read it last night. 20 minutes - without stopping? Haha - well surprisingly it wasn't that bad. I made it through and I am here to write about it. I must say that I was checking my watch about every 3 minutes thinking I had to be close to done. :) After that, it was a 2 x 50 sprint set. I kinda chuckle at that because I feel like I only have 2 speeds: 1 - trying to pace myself and go slow; 2 - get across the pool as fast as I can so I can be done. :)

Day 30. Bike

I woke up at about 5:30am thinking it was 7:30am today - it was a great feeling that I had 2 more hours to sleep. I love that feeling - I wish it happened every day! I did a nice 35 minute bike around the neighborhood. I actually am starting to find biking relaxing - like I do when I get into a long run. I know most people reading this are thinking I am crazy, but I like being able to shut my mind off for a bit (and so far biking and running) are the only ways I know how.

I had a BBQ with my roomies and my roomie's family tonight. It was just what I needed - some good food (I made some excellent salmon on the grill) and good company. It sucks having to give up all your free time during the summer and missing out hanging out with your friends. It's just when I do have free time, I just want to lay around and watch tv or sleep. I need to figure out how to balance things better.

Did anyone notice that I have been doing this for a month already! Woo hoo - I'm really proud of myself so far for sticking with everything. I've also had a lot of support from everyone and people are always stopping me at work and asking me how my workout was that day. It's great to see that people are actually noticing all the hard work that I am putting in!

Finally - time for bed!

Day 29. Run / Swim / Volunteer

Boy - was this a long day! I got up super early and went to the gym. The only problem is that I got there before the gym actually opened - so I had to wait around for like 15 minutes. This totally cramped my style and my schedule! Once they let me, I was able to get a 30 min run and then a 45 min swim in. I rushed home, showered, changed, ate some cereal, and had to rush to Bethesda, MD again to volunteer at the golf tournament.

After an even longer day than Saturday, I wasn't able to get home until around 9pm (when the actual event ended at 6pm) - so here I am slightly cranky again. My legs are still sore, so I decided to take a bath and let them soak for a while - it was totally what I needed to relax.

I slept like a baby last night too, it was great!

Day 28. OFF! and Volunteer

Ok - so I've been really bad these last few days at keeping up my blog. So here is my attempt to catch you up. I'm still running kinda ragged - but I've been sneaking in sleep wherever I can. (but here I am still up at 11:10pm as I write this blog - so I guess I could work on that more).

Since it was a holiday weekend, they gave us Saturday the 4th off as well. Instead of training, I went to the AT&T National Golf Tournament in Bethesda, MD to volunteer and raise money for my donations. How it worked was that we ("Team in Training") worked the concession tent at the 7th hole. Apparently, the volunteers are supposed to get some percentage of the total sales that will be entered into our donation account. All I know is that on Saturday we raised around $40,000 - $45,000. I'm really hoping that between this and my last few donations will put me over the top - because I don't have the time or the energy to hold more fundraising events.

So after the tournament, I raced into the city to see the fireworks and see some friends. At the end of the night - my legs were killing me from standing for 8 hours straight. They hurt so bad it was hard to fall asleep. And the thought of having to do the whole thing over again on Sunday along with training - just really put me in a cranky mood.

Day 27. OFF!

So, since it is the recovery week - we have today and Saturday off for training! I slept in until 10am (which is huge for me right now). No other real plans - just running some errands and hanging with friends. Saturday - I am working at the AT&T National Golf Tournament to hopefully raise the last bit of money for my race! I'm officially up to $1800! Only $600 more to raise!

Day 26. Swim

So, I have been complaining of being exhausted all week - and it did not stop on Thursday. Instead of going to the group-led swim at 5:30am, I decided to sleep in and just swim by myself at 7am. :) The one cool thing was that there was this guy in the pool one lane over and I could definitely tell he was training for something. But, then I saw his swim cap - and it had those magical numbers 70.3. For those of you who don't know - 70.3 stands for the mileage for a half-Ironman. The numbers I would like to achieve in the not too distant future. I know you are probably thinking that I am crazy - but oh well, we have to have goals right?

Day 25. Bike

Today was the first day in a long time where I woke up actually feeling rested! I think the first three weeks of training finally caught up to me, that plus my allergies. Anyhow, today went really well. It was nice only having to bike for 25 minutes. It rained pretty hard last night, but this morning it was a nice cool 65. I can think of a better way to wake up than going about 16mph on a bike with the breeze through your hair (or helmet). :) If the race is as flat as they say it is, I'll have no problem going about 16 - 18 mph consistently, so pretty excited about that.