What the Hell????

Registration Details:
Registration Date: 06/01/07 11:28:43 AM
Payment made by: Sheila J Plemich
You are registered as: Sheila Jean Plemich
Your racing category is: Female 50-54
You are registered for: Individual Registration for Miami Man 1/2 Iron Triathlon 11/11/2007

It's a disease, I tell you.

Random Thoughts

It's asphalt driveway sealing season here in Chicagoland, and I've seen a company called "Paveman." You think my first thought was to assume it had something to do with driveways? No. I thought, "Where is that race and I bet the T-shirt is awesome!"

The very first flower picture in previous post played host to a ruby-throated hummingbird today! In case you don't know what the flower is, it's a Louisiana iris that was transplanted from my front yard to the back when the sidewalk was put in 2 summers ago. The thing is blooming like the dickens now and spreading faster than you can say JAM!

I am still working on my TTT race report. I'm up to 5 pages, through Race 1! I am going to publish it on trifuel.com so that I can include boatloads of photos and not clog up Blogger.

Yesterday I swam 2900 yards in the morning, then did a 1:30 super easy bike ride on my MTB in the afternoon followed by a :20 run (really slow). It wasn't until later in the day I realized I had essentially done ANOTHER triathlon. I suppose that after Triple T, a lot of my training just won't feel like that big of a deal.

My legs and feet are still a little puffy, but going down. I had dinner with a friend yesterday and she and the waiters kept laughing because I just kept eating and eating, and I had to unscrew the salt shaker so I could SEE the salt come out. It had miniscule holes that just didn't do the job on a big plate of boiled potatoes!

Finally, I'm having one of my "suppliers" locate one of the Catlike helmets. I saw one at Triple T and I think they are just MEAN looking, and I want one (silver, medium, please!).

Later.

What's Blooming in My Yard 5/30/2007

Anyone who can name all the flowering plants in the photos wins a prize!

Weekly Workout Totals 05/21/2007-05/27/2007

I'm working on the epic race report for Triple T. It's up to 3 pages and that's just getting through the first race! I hope to finish it today or tomorrow while the memories are still fresh in my brain. I realize now that registration for 2008 will open in a few weeks, and I need to be ready to sign up again!

When I estimated how long the TTT races would take for training purposes, the only one that I got remotely close to was the first race, the prologue. I didn't look at results from past years to find someone similar to me so I could figure it out, and then you don't know how people paced anyway. But the good news is that I ended up with more training hours last week than planned! That can never hurt, as long as the recovery is appropriate. I've already drawn up my training plan through Lake Placid, and it looks solid, and we'll get to my race predictions another time.

I don't usually post my cumulative totals until the end of the year, but now seems like an appropriate time to show you how far I've come since last fall:


Weekly Totals 05/21/2007-05/27/2007
Swim: 12059 yards (6.84 miles) in 4.2 hours; 20% of weekly workout time; approx. 1471 calories burned
Bike: Approx. 136.65 miles in 8.98 hours; 43% of weekly workout time; approx. 4519 calories burned
Run: Approx. 37.66 miles in 6.85 hours; 33% of weekly workout time; approx. 3110 calories burned
Strength: 0.75 hours; 4% of weekly workout time; approx. 188 calories burned
All Sports: Approx. 181.15 miles in 20.78 hours; approx. 9288 calories burned
Sleep: 7.96 hours avg./night
Stretching: 2.3 hours. Massage: 1.5 hours

Season Totals 09/18/2006-05/27/2007
Swim: 281309 yards (159.65 miles) in 98.83 hours
Bike: Approx. 3164.52 miles in 181.66 hours
Run: Approx. 1028.05 miles in 159.27 hours
Strength: 52.26 hours
All Sports: Approx. 4352.22 miles in 492.02 hours; approx. 210182 calories burned
Stretching: 92.48 hours. Massage: 50.92 hours

So I've almost hit 500 hours of training in 36 weeks. Not too shabby! And I've done 8 triathlons and 2 road races in 2007 so far, and I've got 2 more triathlons to go. SHIT! I just realized I said I'd do the Ironman Wisconsin race the week after the "real" race, which we are calling "NothingMan." What is wrong with me? It's only 8 weeks after Lake Placid. I just took a break to make a schedule through that, and I should end up with about 750 training hours for my season.

I better get back to training now...

Triple T Quickie Race Report

This race was very difficult, but it was so much fun doing it as a team. Team Crackheads rocked the course IN STYLE! One of the pink things I bought for our team was the streamers you see on our race belts--the photos are from the finish of the 1/2 Ironman on Sunday. Cindy and I both have race belts with the spring toggles, so I was able to attach bicycle-handle streamers (that I got at Target) to them, and we wore them Saturday and Sunday during our runs. The streamers were a HUGE hit with the racers and spectators. We were definitely hard to miss!

Cindy and I won our division handily, even though there was only one other team in it. It was pretty close through Saturday afternoon, but I had a strong feeling we would prevail on Sunday, which we did.

Cindy is a bit stronger than me in short course, but I am the endurance queen, and I think I paced us well on Sunday. It was the slowest 1/2 Ironman I've ever done (7:33, I think), but the most satisfying and HARDEST. I mean, WOW, is all I can say!

A full race report will take me days if not over a week to write, but I will. I felt really, REALLY strong and well-prepared for this. I think I could have gone faster, but this was a team effort, and that's the way we did it. I didn't mind waiting a minute here, a few minutes there--it wasn't like we were racing, anyway--my primary objective was to not be DFL overall and to not be doing a death march on Sunday.

I gotta say all that Colorado trail running I did paid off in SPADES, as our run course was 3.25 miles pretty much up (click the race link on my sidebar to see a profile, I mean WOW) and then down, repeat twice for the 1/2 Ironman. Sure we did some walking, but it was on Sunday where we were able to pick off a lot of people on the run.

The folks I travelled with all did great, too. Lori and Marc took first in the Coed division, and Kevin bested his time from 2 years ago.

This race is the most mellow triathlon event you can imagine, and small, and just tons of fun. I had SO much fun riding LGL on the hills, I can't even tell you. Even when we were climbing, climbing, climbing, I was happy to be on her, and the descents were just fun. I really just enjoyed riding my bike this weekend. I wouldn't mind going to the area for a week of training--it is an excellent venue, with a 25-meter pool at the lodge, a lake for open water swimming, and obviously, gobs of hills to ride and run on.

I swam well, biked well and ran well, and I hope this "race" makes Ironman Lake Placid seem like a piece of cake. I want to do Triple T again next year, again as a team. It gives a whole new perspective to pushing one another, and I think my biking will be improved after spending over a week in late Feb./early March riding the Tour of California.

As tired as I am right now (got home late last night and couldn't stay asleep due to hunger), I can say nothing but great things about this race. I hope they don't make it any bigger (don't think they can in order to accommodate everyone for lodging purposes) or any flatter. And as much as Cindy and I had to dig deep (I never once felt like I was suffering), we had just a TON of fun together. It's been awhile since we've raced together, and doing it side by side almost all day for 2 days and change was just the best.

Cindy and I decided that we are prouder of this finish than we are of our Ironman races. It's tough to explain to anyone who hasn't done this race, though. At least an Ironman happens all in one day, and it's not too hard to plan for. For this, I had an entire spreadsheet (yes, people make fun of me for doing that, but hey, they work, so STFU) to note what I needed to wear and put on the bike and carry for the run and eating between races to keep up with my calorie needs. It all worked like a charm, and I think I've converted Cindy over to the old Ultra Violence. For the Saturday runs, I carried Coke for both of us, and Sunday I had my giant, 6-banger Fuel Belt loaded with the old Ultra Violence. It was just the thing to keep us going.

I am babbling now, and I need to decide whether I am going back to sleep now or later. I have no plans for this day off other than to rest and eat and SMILE!

Cindy, you ROCK--I hope we get to enjoy one another's company again in Lake Placid!