July Totals

I cannot believe July has come and gone already.  This summer is flying!  With each passing day I'm getting closer and closer to my fall races and goals.  Wow!  I didn't have the mileage I did in June, but I did race three times, short races - a 5K, a one miler, and two miles as part of a triathlon.  Here's what else has been going on this month.

Swimming - 4200 yards
Biking - 25.52 miles
Running -  80.72 miles
Strength Training - 1 hour
YMCA Visits - 17
YMCA Cost Per Visit - $5.02

Family Pictures

Our family is going on vacation in a few weeks to Montana, near Glacier National Park.  I'm not much of a nature girl so I have no idea what this trip will bring.  I did take it upon myself, though, to hire a photographer to take our family pictures.  Anderson is nearly a year and a half and we have yet to have professional pictures taken of him yet.  Mommy fail.  This week I finalized the shopping and outfits for the photo shoot.  Check it out.  What do you think?

#FlatFamily

Touch-a-Truck

My son is ALL boy.  I always thought that children became girly girl or super boy based on their environment.  I don't think that's true.  Anderson has just developed as ALL boy. 

He loves trucks.  We will be walking or driving somewhere and he'll just say "oooh, truck!!!"  Last week I made his dreams come true and took him to "Touch-a-Truck" in a neighboring town.  He must have said "truck" a thousand times.  He ran between the vehicles.  He pointed and squealed.  It was beautiful. 

 

Challenge New Albany Women's Sprint Tri 2014

They say that an Ironman is 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of biking, 26.2 miles of running, and bragging rights for the rest of your life.  For the rest of us non-Ironman triathletes, I believe we have to finish an triathlon annually to keep our triathlon street cred.  So, I did my one triathlon this summer - the Challenge New Albany women's sprint. 

This race was short and I mean SHORT!  200 yard pool swim, 7 mile bike, and 2 mile run.  And it was fast.  And I love fast!

The swim was a little bit of a cluster.  There were about 130 women in the race and the director left it up to us to seed ourselves in the swim.  I don't know if I'm a fast swimmer or not, but I didn't want to get caught up in a mess of non-swimmers so I seeded myself close to the front.  I jumped in the water and halfway through the first lap I realized I did not start my watch.  Rookie.  I finally started my watch at the first wall.

I swam pretty well and passed two people and only got passed by one.  It got a little congested at the walls, but I'll take a pool swim any day to open water.  I wish all triathlons were in a pool.  Seriously, is there an ironman out there that's done in a pool?

It would have been totally awesome if the swim started with a trip down the slide.

  

Swim time: 4:41, which included a pretty sizeable run into transition.

In transition I realized I did not press the lap button on my Garmin.  Seriously, have I never done a triathlon before?  Helmet, socks, shoes and we're off!

T1: 0:57

Right away I got passed by a girl on a mountain bike.  

I couldn't figure out the Garmin to see what my pace was but I thought "how badly am I at biking that a chick on a mountain bike is ahead of me?"  But she didn't suck.  In fact, she stayed ahead of me for nearly 5 miles before I caught her.  I was so impressed with race organization during the bike portion of this race.  The roads were well marked, lanes of traffic were closed off just for this race, and there were volunteers and cops everywhere.  And the support on the course was amazing.  I think there should be all women's races for all races.  The ladies in the race were cheering on each other and high fiving.  Isn't that really how it should be?

Bike time: 23:58

Seriously, I was one of like 10 people riding a time trial bike and had the 21st fastest time.  I suck at biking (of course, I have done pretty much ZERO training for triathlon).

T2: 0:42

The girl who rocked it out of transition one on her mountain bike beat me out of T2 as she already had running shoes on.  I ran out like a bat out of hell.  The run was only two miles.  I could freakin' sprint two miles.  

 

I love running.  I just love running.  It was awesome to be out there flying, catching people, finishing the race.  I pushed and pushed all the way into the finishing chute, almost getting the woman in front of me (we were the second and third finishers).

 

 

Run time: 14:32

Overall: 44:50 2nd overall

I had a lot of fun.  This race was well organized and the whole weekend was well put together.  I am so excited this race was brought to my hometown and I look forward to watching this race grow in future years.  Great job HFP and Challenge Family.  I'll definitely be back.

Challenge New Albany: It's Kinda a Big Deal

This weekend the Challenge Family brings their triathlon magic to my hometown with Challenge New Albany.  It's a whole weekend of triathlon with men and women's sprints, kids and junior races, and Olympic and half distances (and if the race ever becomes a full iron distance I may have to change my stance on "never doing it again").  The race is bringing in pros and amateurs from all over the country and from a few countries.  Dave and I are both participating (I'm doing the sprint and Dave is doing the Olympic) and I couldn't be more exciting.

There are lots of people coming into town who I'm excited to meet, cheer on, stalk, whatever.  First is my BFF Meredith Kessler.  She's probably going to win the whole thing and it's going to be totally cool to see her race in person.  Amateur stud Amanda is going to be here too!  We've been talking via email for a weeks now and it's totally going to be awesome to finally meet her.  She's gonna rock out this race too!  My former Trakkers/Rev3 teammate Janet will also be competing.  I met up with her this past April at a half marathon.  She's in her second year as a pro and getting more awesome all the time.  Current Rev3 chick Maggs will also be here.  I've never met her but I'm friends with her on Facebook and hopefully will get to meet her and will definitely cheer loudly for her.  Finally, although not racing, I think Colleen will be around this weekend.  I've yet to meet her little kiddo and would really love to catch up with her.

If you're coming to town this weekend for this race, let me know.  I live right behind the host hotel and would definitely love to meet you.  If you have questions about the race course, specifically the run course, I know it very, very intimately (like, I run it almost every day).  I hope to see you this weekend and good luck!!!!

Bed Yoga

Alright yogis, I need your help.

I don't sleep very well.  I love to sleep and can sleep, and especially nap, like a champion.  But falling asleep is a whole different story.  I would probably go to sleep easier at night if I didn't nap during the day, but I like napping as it is my time to snuggle and spend precious time with the kiddo.  He's only going to be little once and I'm going to take advantage of it while I can. 

Anyway, falling asleep at night has become challenging.  My mind races, my legs twitch, my back hurts, and I have an OCD ritual of going to the bathroom 900 times to completely empty my bladder.  I can be pissing air and I will still go to the bathroom at least 3 more times and yet, every night I ALWAYS have to get up and go to the bathroom again.  Why do I put myself through this?

No matter what time I fall asleep, Anderson is always going to get up between 6-8:00am.  I need to fall asleep as soon as I can.  I need help!

I'm not a huge fan of yoga (boring) nor do I really know how to do it.  It does relax me though and once we reach the end of the class where we're lying on the ground with soft music and soft talk, I am usually relaxed enough to fall asleep.  I need this to happen every night.  Is there a such thing as "bed yoga"?  Are there stretches and relaxation techniques I can do while in bed that can help me get to sleep?  Are there good apps/CDs/MP3s out there that can talk me through getting to sleep?

Help!  I'm tired!

CRC Mile Dash 2014

Well....not every race can be your best race.

I really had high hopes of breaking 6:00 in this race.  I have had some fast training, I've had fast races, I've dropped some weight, I really thought this was the year.  Unfortunately, it was not meant to be.  In fact, this might have been the slowest one mile race I've ever run.

My mom joined me at the race this year with Anderson as Dave and my dad were drywalling a few walls at home.  I too had a busy day of ripping down a wall, putting together some doors, working on a book with my mom, taking care of the baby, not taking a nap.  This was probably not the best ideas to go into a race.  There's more to life than racing though, and things have to get done.  Regardless, I felt like I could be fast.

We got to the race site, I checked in, and started my warm up.  Everything felt awful.  It was humid and my legs just seemed off.  I did about three miles of warm up but didn't feel very confident when I reached the start line.  This year I was entered in the elite wave which was suppose to be 6:00 and under.  In previous years, this faster wave was large with TONS of high schoolers and others.  This year it seemed very small - maybe because they called it the elite wave.  There were only about 14 girls in the whole wave and most of them were one high school cross country team.

I lined up toward the back as I knew I'd be darn close to 6:00 and took off like a bat out of hell.  I hit the quarter mile mark right on 1:30 (6:00 pace).  I was struggling to get comfortable (should a mile race be comfortable?) and I couldn't get control of my breathing.  At the half mile mark I was just over 3:00, still close enough to a 6:00 pace.  At this point my lungs were burning and my arms and shoulders were tight.  The next quarter mile felt like forever but surprisingly I was around a 4:33 - still hanging in.  The last quarter mile I felt like I was increasing the turnover, picking up my knees but the finish line just seemed far away.  The time on my watch read 6:21 when I crossed the finish line.

Added: Official time was 6:21 and I won the 35-39 age group.

Molly had it today!  She ran a 5:37! 

No excuses, I just didn't have it today.  I still believe there is a sub-6:00 in me but I think it will take a lot of work to get there.  My focus right now is toward distance and endurance.  I'll be throwing in another fun, short race next weekend and then it's full-on towards the fall marathon goal.

Week in Review

Another great week of training!!!!

Monday - 3.5 miles treadmill. 
I was doing this run in the basement during a huge storm.  With only 7-1/2 minutes left the power went out and the run was over.  At least I got most of it in.

Tuesday - 5 mile tempo run. 
Again, the weather wasn't cooperating so I did this one of the treadmill at the Y.  Tempos were done at a 7:30 pace.

Wednesday - Rest day

Thursday - 3.5 mile treadmill run. 30 minutes of strength.
Strength was mostly legs - lots of squats and lunges.

Friday - 5 mile track workout.
I'm doing a one mile race in a week so there were a zillion 200s done on the track.  All of them were done between 41 seconds and 45 seconds.  That's a far cry from high school when I ran the 200 in 27 seconds.

Saturday - 10 mile bike ride.
I actually road my bike outside.  I wanted to make sure I still remembered how to clip in, steer, wear my helmet, etc. before my triathlon in a few weeks.  That's right.  I'm doing a triathlon. 

Sunday - 11+ mile long run.
I ran with my friends at the local hilly metropark.  My GPS was not working really well in the woods, so I had no idea what the pace really was.  Regardless, it was a great run.  I don't get to run with my friends very often, but I really love it when I do.

Totals:
Bike - 10 miles
Run - 28.2 miles
Strength - 30 minutes

New Albany Independence Day 5K

Oh the GPS watch.  I love it.  I hate it.  My Suunto is both a "regular" watch and a GPS watch.  I've begun racing with the GPS and mostly it's been great.  However, with a shorter race like a 5K it is too much for me.  I know I have the ability to race in the 6:00s but that doesn't mean I want to see it on my watch.  My last 5K I put a sticker over the watch so I couldn't see what was going on but I could still get my splits post-race.  This 5K I forgot my sticker so I turned my watch so it was on the underside of my wrist.  I could still see the paces, but only a little as it bounced around a lot more.

Anyway....

The whole family participated in the Independence Day 5K.  Dad, Dave, and I did the 5K and Anderson did his first "race."  More on that in another post.

Dave and I started together and he took off like a bandit.  But I was right with him and in the first mile I passed him.  I could still see his shadow right behind me for the majority of the mile.  I hit the first mile at 6:36.  Holy wow!  I couldn't tell, though, if my watch said 6:36 or 6:56 so I just went with it.  In the second mile Dave pulled beside me and pushed me.  I told him I was hurting.  I just kept concentrating on picking up my knees and pushing.  I skipped the only water stop at this point as I knew if I took some I would probably stop.  This was hard.  I hit the second mile around 7:00.  Dave passed me in the last mile and told me that the third place girl was right ahead of me (this turned out incorrect - she was fourth), but right at that moment another girl passed us both.  Oh well.  The last bit of the race is uphill and I was losing my shiz.  I was dry heaving and doing whatever I could to finish fast.  Dave kept pulling further ahead and I kept seeing the pace on my watch get slower and slower.  Oh no!  I was so close to PRing!  And then we were done and I had a HUGE PR!!!

21:02

Holy freakin' wow!  That is 30 seconds faster than my previous 5K PR.  Here's the caveat though.  My GPS read only 3.03 miles.  And Dave's and Dad's read 3.02.  Hmmmm, is that really a PR?  We have decided yes; the PR stands.  If I was wearing just a regular stop watch I would never have known that the course was short.  I've been working hard too and the PR was going to fall this year anyway.  Sure, it's going to be hard to beat, but CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!!

It was a great day for the family.  Dave and I both walked away with 2nd place in our age groups (only the second time Dave has placed in his age group EVER) and my dad got 3rd in his age group.  Anderson got his first medal.  And it was an awesome Fourth of July.

Oh you know, just hanging out with former Olympian and world record holder Butch Reynolds after the awards.

I've had several people ask through Twitter and whatnot...

Yes that is a pie.  Each finisher got an individual-sized apple pie and the age group awards were full size apple pies.  What a sweet prize.