Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Overdoing it.

This marks the first week of fully working out with my new coach, Bill (coach for swimming and biking).  He told Ryan and I last week to really prepare ourselves physically and mentally for the "H*** Hole" of training we were about to enter.

He was right.

Yikes.  It's only Wednesday and I'm already tired.  In my tired body's defense, it has been through a lot.

Saturday, I ran the F^3 1/2 marathon.  It was originally planned to be a tempo, and it ended up being just a little bit faster than that.

Thursday, I was supposed to run a 45min progression tempo and just didn't have it in me.  I HATE doing workouts on treadmills.  HATE.  So, I tried to prepare myself by putting on one of my "dumb shows" that Ryan doesn't like to watch (Hawaii Five-O for those of you NCIS/CSI mystery show lovers like me) on...I felt really bad because he was biking in our workout room with me, but he knows I need something to keep me focused so was a great husband and let me put on my show.  Unfortunately, it didn't help as I had to stop to stretch my legs a few times during the run.

I told myself I'd just put the tempo into my 1/2 on Saturday.  And that I did.

My overall pace was 6:27 and I purposely ran the first 7miles at 6:20 to SHOW myself I could do it.  The next 6.1 were at 6:35s just to maintain my place as I was getting a lot of cheers and felt pretty strong!  The volunteers and other runners on the Lakefront path (where the race occurred) were just PHENOMENAL.  It was a great race, and one that I would definitely do again.

Oh, did I mention Tera Moody (5th place 2008 Olympic Trials) was there and I got to talk to her?  Yeah. I was pretty freaking psyched.

Once again, an amazing shot by photographer Ali Engin.

My brother, Nic, was the 4th place overall male...which was AWESOME to see since he wasn't expecting much from himself for a winter 1/2.  We ended the day by going to Tommy Guns Garage, a dinner-show type thing about the 20s in Chicago.  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Really missing my sister.

Ryan and I headed straight to Schaumburg for a good night's sleep because....

...we were racing an Indoor Tri the next day!  I know this sounds crazy to a lot of you, but I did talk with Bill and we were on the same page.  My only regret was that I had to push  little harder than I had wanted to on Saturday and came up short in the bike on Sunday.

An indoor tri consists of a 10minute swim, 20minute bike (stationary), and 15min run (on an indoor track).  Your volunteer adds up the distance you accrue and that is how the places are determined.

I knew my run would cancel out anyone's swim, so that my bike would really have to be strong if I wanted a shot at top 3.  I was right.

I swam 22 laps, which was where I expected I would be.

I biked 7.8miles....I had expected that I would do 8.0-8.4.  Yeah those quads were a little sore.

I ran 20.5 laps (just over 2.5miles, so like 5:50something pace I think), but didn't really have a plan for that as I had left it all on the bike.

Four other females all biked over 8 miles, thus beating me.  One was Pro Triathlete Lauren Jensen.  Another girl that beat me was the girl I took to practice over the summer.. Alex Lorenz.  Her mom also beat me with an awesome bike.  I didn't know the other female, but will definitely have to watch for her come next indoor tri.  Overall, though, it was a fun day for all!

 Me with pro triathlete Lauren Jensen, the overall female winner.
 Me with some of the MMTT girls crushing it on the bike.
Clearly super pumped about riding this bike.

Bill  had me do a computrainer workout on Monday, and as expected, it kicked my butt.  I did well, but tonight's workout was MUCH better according to Ryan who observed them both.

I've been getting more into this swimming thing too.  Still no progress on flip turns, but feeling better in the water....which is the first step in getting better at swimming.

Bill is having us come to his training place on Saturday for 3 hours of, um, "fun" on the computrainer.

Wish us luck....we'll need it.

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