Boob Grab and Tri Tag

The thing I like about swimming (besides that it just feels good) is that it can be a source of entertainment, depending on where I swim. Since I usually swim at a YMCA in the morning after the hard core swimmers have left (I don't need to be in the water until 7AM and I can still make it ass in chair to begin working by 8:30AM), I get to experience a unique crowd.

There's Chad, the hot married guy. He is just teaching himself to swim since last year, and he's already really good. Of course, all it takes is one look at him and you would know that he is genetically suited to swimming! He's tall and lanky, and looks good in a Speedo. We seem to be on the same swimming schedule, so we know one another's names. But up until Wednesday, we only knew each other as swimmers. That day, he said he hadn't seen me for awhile. It was because of Goofy Challenge--between tapering for it, doing it and recovering from it, I'd been off my usual swim schedule for 3 weeks. So Chad asks me where I've been? I told him I went to Disney to run a 1/2 marathon and marathon back to back. His eyes light up like, "wtf is she crazy or what?" He tells me I should try a triathlon (up until this point he only knows me as a swimmer, see? When I swim, I try not to advertise, and don't wear caps from races). I get a Cheshire cat-like grin on my face, and I tell him, "I've done a few." He asks me which ones? I tell him that for starters, 8 Ironman races. It was a fun interchange. Since I already know most people could care less about the fact that I train really hard and race and do pretty well, I don't even talk about it unless it REALLY comes up. So it was fun for me to tell someone for the first time. Chad said he was so impressed, and I told him it's really no big deal. I mean, I don't expect people to be impressed, you know? It's just something I do with quiet conviction.

Anyway, back to today. I'm splitting my lane with another man, who astutely figured out that it must be hard to swim fast when the water is warm, and so he told me of his observation while I was in a 15" wait period, and I huffed a Yes to him. On Wednesday, I also acquired the email address of the aquatic director, and let her know that I would be sending her communication regarding the regulation of the pool temperature. It's gotten out of control, and the next nearest YMCA is closing, so we will be getting an influx of folks who are used to a "hot" pool, and I expect there to be temperature wars. I am sick and tired of not being able to breathe because the pool is too warm.

About halfway through my workout, Bumblebee Man gets in the adjacent lane, swimming next to me. I say Bumblebee Man, because he's wearing swim trunks that are black and yellow horizontal stripes. He's doing breaststroke, and I notice he's taking exceedingly wide pulls. Well, at one point he's pulling under the lane rope into MY lane and he practically grabs one of my boobs while I am rotated towards his lane! He wasn't really grabbing--but let's just say my boob got in the way of his hand! I didn't know whether to be angry or laugh, so I settled for a quick stop and shout, "You are hitting me." I think he sort of got the idea, but I still kept watching for his wandering hands. I swear if he made contact one more time, I was going to stop and yell, "STAY IN YOUR LANE!" I am pretty used to overwater collisions of hands, which I don't like either, but an underwater grab is, well, a little more unsettling.

When Chad was leaving this morning, I told him what had happened and I just busted out laughing hysterically. It's not like I have much in the way of boobs to grab in the first place, so I guess I just found it hillarious that of all the places Bumblebee Man could have made contact, it ended up being a boob underwater!

So that was today's pool entertainment. On to the tagging.

Ironmom did it to me, and I am tagging Cindy, Brett, Mike, Scott, Joe, and Darren.

Here's the tag:

1. Describe a memory from your first triathlon ever
2. Describe a memory from your most recent triathlon
3. What's the most embarassing thing that has ever happened to you in a tri?
4. What's the most thrilling thing that's happened to you in a tri?
5. What is something you discovered about yourself by doing triathlons?
6. What is The Big Goal that you're working towards?

1. Describe a memory from your first triathlon ever

Oh, God. Was that ever a travesty. My first was an Olympic distance, I was fat, undertrained and spastic, and the plane I was to take to fly in was cancelled. I get to O'Hare, and all sorts of flights are being cancelled because of severe thunderstorms. This is my first triathlon, dammit, how can this be happening to me? So I RUN (at least I was able to at the time) to the car rental counters and grab a rental car before they got swamped by others trying to do the same thing, and I volunteer to take on 3 passengers (our bikes were being transported by truck, so no worries, I hoped. The bike made it there and so did I.

Not only that, but I had trained with Team in Training, and the schedule had 2 workouts per week in each sport. Ladies and gentlemen, the referee has called a penalty for INSUFFICIENT TRAINING--15 MINUTE PENALTY.

Not only that, but before the race actually started, I got on my bike in transition to ride the hill out and fell over in the transition area! I bent my left brake hood (I was using the only bike I had at the time--my road bike), which I didn't notice until about 5 miles into the actual race.

Not only that, but the lake we swam in (this was Memphis in May) had to be bombed to kill the water moccasins (there were dead ones all over the shoreline).

Not only that, but the lake actually stunk to high heaven, it was my first swim in open water, and I'm thinking, "I'm swimming in that shit?"

Not only that, but I had my stinking period, so I remember that in T2 I had to use a porta-pottie to change you-know-what.

Cindy was there...I think it was her first, too, so I am sure she can provide more details.

But despite all that, I more or less knew what I was doing (aside from being a slow, fat girl), and overcoming all that in my very first triathlon steeled me to become a student of the sport, and you know what happened after that!

2. Describe a memory from your most recent triathlon

That would be MiamiMan, so there are very fresh memories. I WON MY AGE GROUP, I WON MY AGE GROUP!!! That is the best memory, and I have a plaque to prove it. I have won my age group in other triathlons, but this was the first 1/2 Ironman, so it means a lot to me.

3. What's the most embarassing thing that has ever happened to you in a tri?

I don't really get embarrassed (just ask Cindy), but I am sure I have made others feel uncomfortable. Like at the Disney 1/2 Ironman in 2004, I'm rubbing sunblock on a girlfriend's back in transition, and I pretend like I'm really getting into it and say loudly enough for others nearby to hear, "I am really enjoying this." You should have seen the wigged out tense faces!

Another time is when, and I kid you not, during the 2004 Spirit of Racine triathlon (1/2 Ironman), I had my period AND I had to um...take a shit...during the run, and it was imminent, and there were no nearby porta-potties, so I found a BUSH, and it wasn't really that big, squatted behind it and did my thing. And you know what? That race is my 1/2 IRONMAN PR. So THERE. Was I embarrassed? Maybe a teensy bit.

4. What's the most thrilling thing that's happened to you in a tri?

I would have to say actually BEING in the Hawaii Ironman during the treacherous climb to Hawi (the winds were particularly brutal in 2004) after I had already been to Kona to booze it up and lay in the sun the prior 10 years or so, and now here I was doing an Ironman!

5. What is something you discovered about yourself by doing triathlons?

I discovered that I was already a very strong, resilient woman, and that I should never make any attempt to hide or subjugate that part of me. It is who I am, and triathlon is how it is made evident.

6. What is The Big Goal that you're working towards?

Um...I guess I am still thinking about qualifying for Kona. I think I have the goods, and that if I get a good race on a good day it can happen. In the meantime, I plan to seek out events that stretch me beyond Ironman. That shit is fun, let me tell you. I know how to do Ironman, and know I can finish in a respectable time; it's more fun now to try something that I'm not entirely sure about to get that same feeling you get when you finish something you weren't sure you could.

There is No Easy Way

It's been awhile since I've cussed in a post here. Why? Because I've just been plugging along since May, 2006, not really "training" so much, at least not for an Ironman. For it's only when I am thinking about an impending Ironman that I begin to receive fucking hard workouts from my coach.

Since MiamiMan last November, all I've done is run a lot and try to maintain respectable swim and bike fitness.

Swimming is still not something for me to worry about--at this point, I am not going to get much faster, and building endurance is easy. I had wanted to get some individual swim coaching, but it just hasn't panned out. Oh well, I still gotta work on my biking and running.

I am still more or less in "ease back into hard running" mode. I got in a decent amount of it last week, but am just beginning to feel ready for quality work, i.e., tempo intervals. I don't have much of that scheduled for this week, but I am sure I will start to see them next week.

Now, any of you who follow my blog know that my coach excels in prescribing evil bike workouts, and since I've been with him for a few years, and he knows what I have done and what I might be able to do, he periodically mixes things up. And I really believe he makes up stuff and tries it out on me to see if I will cry, "UNCLE!" Because the key to getting better at biking (or running--swimming is more a technique thing, no?) is to regularly change the stimulus to produce more of a response. When a person first begins training seriously, almost any stimulus will create improvement, but when you've been at it at the level I have for 6 years already, there is no such thing as expecting improvement from an easy/mindless workout.

Let me just say that I think I'm a pretty damn good biker for a 50-year old woman. Hey, I can average 21+mph in a 1/2 Ironman. Would I like to be faster? You betcha. I'm an OK runner now, too, only I need for the stars to align and for me to "just" race a 1/2 marathon to prove it, even though I'm quite comfortable with what I've seen during training runs.

So it's time for me to get back on my biking. I guess what I was doing the past 3 months wasn't hard enough, or at least it wasn't enough to trigger improvements to my FTP. Then again, I didn't expect that to happen, nor did I focus on my biking the past 3 months. Recall that I had a banner summer, where I banged out a lot of miles and progressed beyond where I was after Ironman Brazil. I can't believe I've already put over 1,000 miles in biking since 9/18/2006. HA! Most of that is indoors!

So you know what that means? It's time for WORK. It's time for fucking hard workouts that when I look at them on paper, I go what the fuck? It's time for doing a workout that I've never done for the first time and finding that I either want to cough up a lung, puke or flat out die at some point while I'm doing it.

Today was such a day. Here is the workout I did. Short and sweet, and fucking hard!

WU: 15' wup, 3' spinups
MS: 3 x 1' (1') @ 105%, 2' Easy,
4 x 5' (2') as 4' @ FT then 1' @ 105-110%,
3' Easy,
8 x 30/30's (which I did at >110%)
CD: 5' Easy

For those of you unfamiliar with the terminology, the percentages are as a percent of my FTP, or Functional Threshold Power. 30/30's are supposed to be 30" at VO2 Max power, 30" easy. The last time I formally tested FTP was in August, and it was 186. It's dropped a little bit since then (maybe 180?), but I am still using 186 as my "target" during workouts. Eventually it will get easier (ha ha), and hopefully the number will move back up to where it was and even beyond.

FTP is the wattage you can hold in a 1-hour time trial, but I estimate it by performing a test about every 4-6 weeks (it sucks, trust me) that includes a total of 40 minutes at that power level, so it's "good enough" for a working number. Thing is, doing actual 1-hour time trials is both hard indoors (mentally), and can require some extra recovery time. Besides, when I do the test indoors, I can usually get another 5 watts were I to go ride outside. But that's not possible right now.

Anyway, the entire workout took 1:10 (598 calories burned), and let me just say welcome back to the fucking hard interval workouts! And I mean that in the nicest possible way. Because there is no easy way to get stronger and faster.

It was even more fun today since I did 3 workouts yesterday: a :30 swim, a :50 run and a :51 strength workout that put the hurt to my legs. So my power was a bit off today, but lucky me, I get to do this workout again on Thursday!

Endurance is an easy thing for me to acquire--I have a huge, multi-year base, and it only takes a few weeks of increased volume to get it back. But speed--that's another thing entirely. If you don't practice going fast/hard, you don't get good at it, and it's easy to lose. So that's what the remainder of my winter is about. Hard and fast. Work.

While I was on the trainer today, I thought about buying a web cam and streaming live video of me working out to the web. If anyone is interested, let me know. I'd like to see it myself. What do I look like when I'm clenching my teeth, my lungs are burning, my legs are running on fumes, and that silly power meter is telling me I'm not good enough? And why do I bust out in the biggest smile when I'm done with the workout?

Weekly Workout Totals 1/15/2007-1/21/2007

OK, so this is just an excuse to gloat a little bit about Da Bears. Da Bears Da Bears Da Bears Da Bears! Remember that it's a SOFT S, a la the Superfans.

I had what I consider a near perfect day yesterday. I did a 1:30 run (first one since Goofy), that felt great. Then I swam :30 just to cool off, went home and lifted for :30, got ready to watch the game, and then totally enjoyed the game (and yes, there were beers involved). I was even happy to hear that the Colts are now favored in Super Bowl XLI, since the Bears were the underdogs yesterday and look what that made them do?

Anyway, I got back to training last week. In the big scheme of things, it was still an easy week for me, but a nice comeback from Goofy. This week I start up again with coach Rich, and I'm excited to see what he's going to throw at me. We chatted last week, and he asked me why I can't do "just" a 1/2 marathon or "just" a marathon. I'll do that eventually! For now, the focus is on the Triple T in May. I have my first indoor sprint in 3 weeks, and I'll be running long after it as race-specific prep. I'm still on huge strength workouts for another 7 weeks, and in that time I'll hit 3 races.

One last thing--I have to say that it always feels SO great to get back to full training after a break. My outlook on life is brighter; everything looks nicer. I suppose it doesn't hurt to have your football team winning, either!

Weekly Totals 01/15/2007-01/21/2007
Swim: 6800 yards (3.86 miles) in 2.4 hours; 21% of weekly workout time; approx. 841 calories burned
Bike: Approx. 81.97 miles in 4.68 hours; 41% of weekly workout time; approx. 2361 calories burned
Run: Approx. 24.75 miles in 3.88 hours; 34% of weekly workout time; approx. 1760 calories burned
Strength: 0.5 hours; 4% of weekly workout time; approx. 125 calories burned
All Sports: Approx. 110.58 miles in 11.46 hours; approx. 5087 calories burned
Sleep: 8.93 hours avg./night
Stretching: 2.35 hours. Massage: 1.5 hours