The Art of Not Feeling Anything

I was so sick this weekend and hadn't worked out (not what I would call working out) in a few days and guess what I was left with? Nothing. I really can't survive without training, and I can't survive if I'm not healthy enough to train, because training is the only thing that keeps me from offing myself. I mean, literally Saturday I thought I was going to snuff it if I stayed in my house one minute longer so I got on my bike and went for a ride and didn't feel anything--no pain, no joy in riding, just the sensation of movement. But some sort of sensor must have been working because I knew I couldn't just stay out on my bike until dark and my muscles should be tired since I'd been so sick and so I should probably stop, and I was crying so much and couldn't stop and was surprised that the movement wasn't making me feel any better and I was afraid to go home because then I would be there alone again with my thoughts and feeling like crap. I lost my smile.

But I went home and grilled some stuff just so I was still DOING something, even managing a fake smile to my neighbors (who probably think I'm a complete and total loser) and maybe I wouldn't have to think so much, and I should have been really hungry because I never did eat lunch so I should have needed two full meals, but I put some stuff on a plate and it looked like a lot of food, and I think I ate almost a complete meal.

I guess right now I'm sort of still sorting things out, but I did figure out that I need to be healthy to train and I need to train in order not to feel, but how long is that going to last? I can't imagine myself (as I found out this last week) not being able to do as much as I like to do, so what does that mean?

So yesterday I managed to get on my bike again and was crying most of the time even while going fast (for me). I never thought I could do that, so I guess this is a new skill. I would stop crying for a little bit, and think OK, I'm fine now, but then it wouldn't last very long. I had wanted to ride more than I did, but I knew I should probably stop when I must have blacked out momentarily (and no, I have not been drinking a lot I had like 2 beers on Saturday night) thankfully while going slow, and just sort of fell over on some gravel (or so it seemed when I found myself on the ground with my bike on top of me), and it didn't hurt at all, and I'm not sure if I banged my head or not. I had this sense that I had probably hurt myself, since falling into gravel usually hurts (especially when you are wearing nothing but a swimsuit--why? Because if I do race this Sunday, it might be cool and I will probably be dressed the same way), but I wasn't feeling any pain. I got back up and noticed the gravel had done a number on my left brake lever, but other than that the bike was fine. There was some gravel on the left side of my back and shoulder, and I just brushed it off.

I took my left index finger and ran it over the brake with a lot of pressure and got a sliver of metal in my finger. I looked at it, and it didn't hurt, but I knew I had to get it out of there, but remembered I had a tetanus shot just 2 years ago when I was bit by a dog, so no worries there. And I rode a little more, had some more tears (I wonder if crying so much makes you dehydrated?), put the bike away and got ready to run or at least try.

Now running, that demands your attention. I have not figured out how to run, breathe and cry all at the same time so at least I got a respite from the crying. And then when I got back home, I should have been really hungry again since I'd missed lunch again, but I just wasn't that hungry, but I put all this food onto 2 plates and ate maybe 1/3 of it and I think I eventually finished it in the middle of the night.

I was more concerned with digging the sliver out of my finger than eating. I sterilized a sewing needle and started working on it. No pain, I mean ZERO. I could have just stuck that needle all the way through my finger and wouldn't have felt it. That accomplished, I got in the shower. I noticed what I thought was a grease streak on my right ankle (from the fall), and began washing it off with soap, and what do you know, there was a cut under it--not too bad, but it had bled and I had not felt a thing.

Then I had some food, but not a lot, and then I got really cold and got under a blanket and listened to some music for awhile, and figured I should mow the lawn (again, where was my logic?), so I put on long pants and a long shirt to do that.

I tried to read some of the Sunday paper, but I just couldn't concentrate on it. I think I must have cried all my tears out because finally I became rather calm and felt like I could sleep. I wanted to sleep and not wake up.

But I did wake up this morning, and instead of my usual bound out of bed because I'm so happy to face the day (Mondays usually being my favorite day of the week), I just sort of got out, noticed it was raining, started the coffee and decided I would try and swim. I hadn't swum all last week, thinking I just couldn't do it. When I put on my swimsuit, I noticed that I guess I got sunburned yesterday. I never did feel that at all last night. Usually I feel a sunburn during the night, especially on my back.

It was raining and cool, so no outdoor pool yet, and the water was too warm at the Y as usual, and I got in and swam like for God's sake totally crappy. I guess my lungs are still not 100%, and usually when I'm swimming I think about, well, swimming or stuff I have to do, but all I could think about was death. Like what would it feel like to just start drinking the pool water until I couldn't drink any more? But I kept swimming and breathing, swimming usually feels good to me. I felt like I just had to do it today, though--see if maybe I could just let go and not think and just swim. And I realized that I have to get my Dad's estate closed, and that is important, and so I am making a plan to get that done.

I did a cursory search to see if maybe what's going on in my head is a side effect of the antibiotics that I am on. Didn't come up with anything conclusive. I really would like to feel some pain other than my lungs not working. Will try running now.

El Sicko--That's Me!

Even though I have been taking a cocktail of meds (antibiotics, Alka Seltzer plus, regular aspirin, bronchial inhaler), I am at best marginally better than I was a week ago, or at least it appears that way.

And then I don't do well on drugs anyway--I can't tell if I am so tired and spaced out because of them or because of whatever it is I have.

This is making me depressed. I feel like crap, I can't train (OK I tried for a few days and look where that got me), I have a race in a week, I can't train, I can't train, I have no energy.

This thing is sucking the life out of me. Even more fun is that when I don't train, I lose my appetite except for the sacred chicken soup, but I'm even getting tired of that.

I want my Mommy. Oh that's right, I don't have one anymore. I wish I could rent one that would come over and take care of me just for a day. That would be awesome.

THIS is what I call suffering.

Triple T Race Report

Pics are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/crackheadfe/sets/72157618817588438/

I was stressing in the week leading up, not from training, not from packing, but from going continuously from waking up until falling asleep for a week. I need my down time first thing in the morning (about :45 to 1:00) and again in the evening (1:00-2:00). I didn't get in any stretching, which for me is quality "no think" time Monday-Wednesday, although I did get a massage which helped.

On Tuesday night, after getting in a pretty good brick workout, I woke up several times during the night coughing. A dry cough. I thought maybe I was just dehydrated, but the coughing continued off and on on Wednesday, and I began feeling, well exhausted, and barely ran in the afternoon.

Oh well, I'm doing this thing anyway, but Wednesday night I was so tired that I didn't even finish packing but instead went to sleep early, since I figured I'd have a few hours to get ready in the morning. I had made piles of crap all over the place (you know--the triathlon crap piles, right?), and it was just a matter of assembling everything into neat bags and boxes in the morning.

Jostein said he'd be ready to leave at 7AM on Thursday, but no way for me so I begged for like 9AM which is what we'd originally agreed to. I managed to wake up pretty early, and since I'm highly organized, I calculated that I'd be ready by about 7:30, but I guess he slept in which was fine as I used all available time to fine tune my packing.

I had a lot of crap, but a lot of it was provisions for the cabin, and it all fit nicely into Jostein's car, and we were on the road just a bit after 9AM. I couldn't even drive as I felt pretty bad by this point, but was still trying to be a trooper in supplementing the GPS and/or just paying attention to it. There were a few times where we missed turns because we were talking so much, but luckily, neither of us gets fazed by a little lostness, and besides we had nothing to do but get to Shawnee State Park, set up the cabin and rest up.

We stopped at a Taco Bell someplace for some lunch. I am not a big fan of the Bell, and don't think I've been to one in at least 20 years. But I do know it's possible to get something somewhat healthy at most any place, so I think I got some steak tacos that were actually just fine. And we had some brownies that I had made for the cabin.

There is more than one way to get to the park, and one or two of them involve dipping into Kentucky and then coming back into Ohio. Once again, we were talking and laughing so much we missed a few turns and made a few extra state line crossings, but it was cool because we got to see some really pretty bridges over the Ohio River.

We ended up coming into the park from the eastern way instead of the west which would have had us on a major part of the bike course for 3 out of 4 races. No worries--we'd probably drive the bike courses on Friday morning.

We unpacked everything, arriving sometime around 6PM or so local time (we went from CST to EST), headed to the Lodge for dinner, which was passable, with the highlight (for me anyway) being the shrimp/crab dip appetizer and the sweet potato fries. The meat and fish were overcooked, but hey, we're in the middle of nowhere, so couldn't complain too much!

It was very peaceful on Thursday night because hardly anyone is there in the park, and literally at night there was no noise or light, which was quite relaxing. They did upgrade the TV's to cable, but still, we didn't come here to watch TV!

Friday morning, Jostein wanted to see the bike courses (I'd done the races twice before), so we headed out and I navigated and he stowed away many details about hills and turns and such, and I took some pics along the way. We covered most of the bike courses except for one stretch of the 1/2 Ironman course on Sunday, so a good amount. Then we went back into Portsmouth to fetch the final groceries for the cabin, and I grabbed some Tylenol Sinus since I thought that was what I was suffering with.

When we got back to the park, we tested out the water in our wetsuits and then took them off to see how that was. The water was a nice temperature. Jostein wanted to see the run course, and asked if it was driveable, and I hadn't thought of that, but since they do drive trucks up there to fashion the aid stations and he has a 4WD, why not? So we drove up the run course, of course I took pics, and that was kind of neat to see it from that perspective.

Finally back to the cabin to unload more groceries, and we had a little time to relax before cabin mates would start arriving. Marty got in first, and I did some meal prep for the evening meal. I was beginning to feel sicker, but oh well, what am I going to do?

I had forewarned Jostein and Marty about taking a car down to the transition area, as you don't want to add any extra stress to your legs by riding up the 365' hill after every race.

I don't remember whether Rob and Julie came to the cabin or whether we met them down by the race, and the same for Shelley and Steve who didn't stay in the cabin but would join us for dinner.

Did the first race, the super sprint, about hyperventilated in the water--didn't use the wetsuit as it would be too time consuming, but the water did feel cold that first time in for a race, and my lungs didn't feel right, but got on my bike and did the big hill seated the entire time, and that was OK, but running felt like shit like I had only one lung. Oh well!

Got back to the cabin, Julie and Rob were definitely in, and then Erik found us and we were looking for Carl. I flagged him down riding around the cabin area, and we started working on dinner, Jostein manning the grill, and I did some table setup, we all had drinks and got to talking to one another and it was quite the jovial crowd.

Dinner cleanup happened, and then there was a lot more talking and stretching. Everyone was trying out my Theracane and The Stick, which are the bestest tools I have (in addition to my massage balls) for working on myself.

I don't remember when I got to sleep, but it was at a decent time. Except I started coughing a whole lot more during the night, and went out to sleep on the couch because I didn't want to wake everyone up with my coughing. The next morning Marty told me he came out into the living room to do some blogging and almost sat on top of me! I never saw or heard him.

Saturday morning was fun with everyone getting ready to race and being all pumped up. I was pumped--full of meds--since I had a sinus headache, cough, and alternating stuffy/runny nose, and I was dizzy to boot. But hey, I'm tough, I can manage, right?

So I do the first race, and I swam OK, biked OK but running felt like I had only 1 lung going, and I guess I had been stung by something on Saturday and my left ear had swelled up huge and was hard and itchy, so when I finished I headed to medical for the ear and for the wheezing in my chest.

Stupid EMT's said my chest sounded fine (uh, yeah maybe for a normal person try harder next time!), but they did give me something for the ear and said I should take some Benadryl and since this was my first sting of the year with a pretty good reaction, I noted to myself that I should not wait to get that EpiPen to carry with me in case of inability to breathe after a stinging incident.

Jostein was nice enough to try and locate me and was worried, but I told him I'd gone to medical and would be OK, or so I thought, so he drove me back up the hill. We left our bikes in transition.

In between races on Saturday, it was all about eating and resting. I drank 2 servings of Endurox R4, ate a Twinkie, a hardboiled egg and something else I don't remember. But I felt like crap. Still had the full sinus headache, wheezing, stuffy nose, sore throat and cough. Shelley kindly gave me a spare inhaler which seemed to help with my breathing somewhat. I laid down for about an hour, woke up and drank a can of Ultra Violence, took some Tylenol Sinus, shot up my nose with Nasonex, took a couple of hits of inhaler, drank some Alka Seltzer Cold Plus, and felt like I could at least start the next race.

Which I did, and it started with the bike, and I rode pretty good, or so a few people told me. I was still dizzy, but I've done an entire Ironman dizzy (Brazil in 2006), so I managed, and then the swim was fine for the first lap, but then I had a coughing fit and had to stand bolt upright in the water (it's shallow) and cough my head off for about a minute before getting back to business.

Once again, when I got to the run, it felt like I only had half of one lung, and it hurt like hell and I wanted to cry so badly and just stop, but I couldn't, you know? I didn't want to be the weak person who just gives up. So I finished, but not the way I wanted (everyone else in the cabin had done well) and headed back to see if I could live to fight another day.

We had a nice dinner, and as bad as I felt, I really enjoyed everyone's company as this is the stuff I live for, eh? But Shelley and Steve were missing. Jostein told me Shelley had felt sick and wasn't coming to dinner which bummed me out, but I was barely managing myself, so we all needed to forge on.

Trying to sleep Saturday night I was coughing so much, it was so painful and frequent, I once again went out onto the couch, and I was totally miserable. I don't think I slept more than 2 hours from all the coughing I did, and it was probably around 4AM that I decided I was too ill to start the race on Sunday. I wanted to cry so badly and be a baby and be taken care of, but that wouldn't be the right thing to do in front of 6 other people who needed to get their race day on, so I stuffed it, woke up with the rest of them and just got out of their way so they could get to doing what they needed to do.

In all the hustle, I forgot to eat anything and headed down to the race with everyone. I decided I would hang out and take pictures of everyone--it was the least I could do, right? I got nice shots of almost everyone going into the water and coming out, and then I decided I was going to be personal sherpa for Jostein, which worked out pretty well (or at least I think it did!).

But I also managed to cheer for everyone, was given THREE cowbells (MORE COWBELL!!!), and I did them proud, yelling my ass off even though my throat was raw and I was coughing like someone with emphysema! I just felt so bad physically that I had no time to feel sorry for myself for not being able to race that day.

Whenever I would see peeps from the cabin, the attention getting phras was "HEY FATTY!!!" We had pretty much settled on that on Friday night, and I heard that while everyone was out there they used it judiciously probably to the surprise (and maybe sometimes horror) of other athletes. It's just ironic since none of us are fat, but it sure gets people's attention!

All my cabin mates did well on the day, and well, I'm still sick. I went to the doctor yesterday, and when she asked what my symptoms are, I said:

• broadband headache. She pressed in my sinuses to see if they hurt and I about jumped off the table going "OUCH!!!"
• stuffy and runny nose
• sore throat
• non-productive cough
• diminished lung power
• wheezing
• stuffed up ears
  
• fatigue

The only thing I didn't have was a fever. I told her ideally I want antibiotics and a good inhaler. I got my wishes, and I also got my EpiPen.

Today, I'm 1 day into antibiotics and starting to feel better already. In fact, I did THREE workouts today--55' of strength, a 1:22 ride and a 25' run. ACTUALLY RUNNING!!! I needed to do it because my body actually NEEDS the movement--my lungs needed to be cleared out much like a race car needs to go fast, and I feel better for it. I will be cautious tomorrow and will either try running for 1:30 or else I'll put that off until Friday and go for another ride tomorrow. Swimming doesn't seem to be a good idea yet, in fact I can wait until next week, I'm a crappy swimmer anyway.

I still haven't had a good cry over missing Sunday's 1/2 Ironman, but I know it's coming--probably as soon as I feel a lot better. It will suck. But I like experiencing the emotions of all of this, and as weak as I may be right now, I know that I am pretty fucking strong to have made it through what I did get through last weekend, and I am looking forward to some great race performances.

I had so much fun supporting my friends on Sunday and seeing them do so well--if you can't be there for other athletes, who the hell cares how YOU do???

Triple T Update

Long story short: I wasn't feeling great when I left on Thursday--I was coughing fairly often--and it got worse on Friday to the point where I thought I had a sinus infection (may still have one) and got stung by something in my left ear which caused it to blow up like cauliflower, and then my lungs got gunked up with something.

On Saturday morning, I still managed to do the first Olympic distance race, faring OK on the swim and bike, but suffering on the run as I was wheezing. I checked into medical afterwards for the sting and wheezing, and they dug a stinger out of my ear (yes, I need to get a script for an Epipen) but gave me nothing for the wheezing.

I was very unsure whether I could or should start the second race on Saturday afternoon, but I got lucky in that Shelley gave me one of her inhalers, and I pumped myself full of caffeine, aspirin and antihistamines and set out for the second Olympic race, which starts with a bike ride.

I actually felt pretty good riding, and managed to pass a lot of people (the time trial start had almost all the teams starting ahead of me which meant I started way back) and had a better bike split on a tougher course than in the morning race, swam OK again, but felt like I was going to die on the run. I felt pretty awful finishing, and was getting stuffed up in my nose to boot.

Saturday night I slept extremely fitfully and couldn't stop coughing and didn't want to wake anyone else up in the cabin so I went out to sleep on the couch. I don't think I got much sleep that night, and it was about 4AM, I'm guessing, when I decided I was way too sick to start the 1/2 Ironman. Still, I got up with everyone else and decided I could at least cheer and take pictures.

In the midst of all the excitement, I forgot to eat breakfast, but I felt committed to getting pictures of everyone I knew (6 staying in the cabin plus maybe 5 other people I'm friends with) starting their swim, and then I wanted to get some shots leaving on the bike. I got pretty hungry and needed to go back to the cabin to get some food and drop off a friend's wetsuit (yes, I was playing Sherpa), and then I headed back down for bike duty.

I ended up showing the way for the turnaround where athletes could pick up fresh bike bottles and got a lot of pictures of my peeps, and then I stayed there for the run, getting a lot of pics and cheering for pretty much everyone in general, despite how crappy I felt.

So I did do the sprint and the 2 Olympics but not the 1/2 Ironman. My friend Julie grabbed me a finisher's shirt because she said I deserved it. As sick as I was, I had a great time, as I enjoy cheering for and helping out athletes as much as I enjoy racing myself.

I still haven't figured out my own race times, but will get to that sometime tomorrow after I pay a visit to my physician for some antibiotics and an Epipen, since this was my first sting of the year and already I had a pretty bad reaction, and last year I went from mild to extreme hives, so I think I'm in danger of a bad incident with a stinging insect!

I'll write more when I'm feeling a little better. For now, I need a ton of bed rest. Most of my friends did really well at the races, and I'm really happy for them. Me--I know when to kill it, and I had to do it this weekend or risk several weeks being out of commission. I have many other races coming up, and more fun, so we'll just chalk this one up to perhaps a little too much stress combined with heavy training.

Over and Out

I am going crazy trying to get all these things done before leaving tomorrow morning for Triple T. But I finished cooking last night, did my last ride yesterday (I ROCKED), last brick run, and this morning I'm going for my last swim and then later on a run.

The weather has turned into gorgeousness here, and the forecast for Triple T looks to be the same!!! I am SO happy!!!

There will be no Intertubes service over the weekend, and besides, I will not have time to do anything but eat, sleep and race, so wish me luck and I'll see you back here next week!

Enjoy your weekend, and here are a few pics so you can assess my race readiness. The pics are ironic since I haven't worn underwear for 3 weeks--I guess I'm commando now that it's racing season!

Weekly Workout Totals 05/11/2009-05/17/2009

But first, a few words that capture how I feel right now as I am well into my detailed TO DO list for Triple T:

OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK

What happened since Wednesday? On Thursday, my schedule said run for 2 hours, but instead I just ran 16 miles (In 2:26 for a pace of 9:08, not bad for me)!!! I was pretty toasted from that on Friday, but still got in my 3800 yard swim in the wetsuit (which proves how fucking lean I am because I am SO much faster in it even though my form is the same, plus I suck), and I managed to finally do my strength work, too.

On Saturday, I was supposed to bike 3 hours (since I planned on riding about 4 on Sunday), so what did I do? I pounded out 51 miles on my MTB which was 26 miles at pretty good intensity on roads and then the remaining on trail (not difficult trail, but still), so not exactly pussy riding. It took about 3:30, since it's hard to go fast on the heavy bike. Then I ran off the bike and it sucked but it sucked oh so well! I started late because it was pretty cool out, and when I finished all that, I just had time to eat something and then go get Brazilian-ized (which doesn't hurt at all in comparison to what I do to myself), and then I had to mow the lawn (it's been raining here so much I need to do it every 4 days), and then I was too tired to do much more than fix bottles for Sunday's ride.

Yesterday I rode the Arlington 500 ride, which was billed as 68 miles, but at the single rest station (you rode from Barrington High School there and then the remaining miles were loops from it), they said it would come out to 69, but I ended up at 71. I rode with 2 other peeps, one of whom I know from Facebook (Ali), and his friend, Kathleen. Below are pics of us after we're done riding. It was funny when we started out that Ali said he was tired, Kathleen said she was slow, and I figured I should have a sandbagging excuse so I just said I am old! But as it turns out, we rode together for much of the time, and we did take turns pulling (well Kathleen and I did), and we even had some stray guys drafting off of us. It was a really cool day, and I actually wore a light jacket over what you see me wearing for the entire ride, and I wasn't really overly warm until maybe the last 5 miles. Still, it was a nice ride that included about 2700 ft. of climbing in the 71 miles! Most of the time was in Lake County, which is pretty and we got to ogle at all the homes of the wealthy!

This is Ali, who said at beginning of the ride, "I'm tired."

This is Kathleen, who said at the beginning of the ride, "I'm slow." She is a liar! She's doing her first Ironman this fall at IMWI.

Well, you know who this is--ME. I think I look small.

I was supposed to run :40 off the bike, but since I was already exceeding parameters all over the place for the week, I quit running after about 1.25 miles on the track. The track was really nice, but I was just so fucking tired and wanted to get home since I had shit to do.

So I get home, order a pizza (BBQ chicken, middleweight crust from Connie's--FUCKING YUM!), start stretching and contemplate all the shit I have to do before Triple T. Once again, my sentiment was:

OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK

I managed to bake the Triple Chocolate Fudge brownies last night. They (at least from the crumbs I sampled) taste like candy!

I had trouble sleeping last night from all the caffeine I'd had while riding (in my Infinit Money Shot), so I deep-sixed my swim this morning but may still get it done--or not--in a bit. If I don't do it, I am 100% convinced that this will totally fuck up my races ;) I am getting a massage today, and then I need to change the tubes and tires on LGL and give her a good, full lube job (one of my favorite things to do!). This morning I also made the individual Margarita Pies and licked the saucepan clean, which gave me a tiny buzz (from the tequila and Grand Marnier), and I will just keep trying to tick things off my list today in between working stints.

Here's what I did this week, and then it's followed by my training stats since I started on the indoor triathlons earlier this year. A lot of stuff!

Weekly Workout Totals	05/11/2009-05/17/2009 This week's totals are sponsored by swimming
Swim:	15100 yards (8.57 miles) in 5.18 hours; 26% of weekly workout time; approx. 1814 calories burned Canadian: 13807.44 meters
Bike:	Approx. 157.33 miles in 9.12 hours; 45% of weekly workout time; approx. 4782 calories burned; Total TSS=614 Canadian: 253.2 kilometers
Run:	Approx. 32.93 miles in 4.97 hours; 25% of weekly workout time; approx. 2244 calories burned Canadian: 53 kilometers
Strength:	0.97 hours; 5% of weekly workout time; approx. 243 calories burned
All Sports:	Approx. 198.83 miles in 20.24 hours; approx. 9083 calories burned Canadian: 319.99 kilometers
Sleep:	8.14 hours avg./night
Stretching:	2.95 hours. Massage: 1 hours

OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD

Not that I'm religious--that's just an expression I use when I feel like my life is spinning out of control, or at least that I'm trying to control it.

I will hit 15,000 yards of swimming this week. In thinking about running, I looked at the total time and thought how the hell will I hit that??? But then I looked at the workouts (prescribed my evil fucking bitch of a coach), and I am supposed to run off the bike both Saturday and Sunday (4 and 3-hour bike rides, respectively). Oh, OK. Fuck me in the ass, I'll do it. This is how Triple T is going to be anyway.

So I'm swimming this morning and I swam a bit more than I needed to (which was NOT AT ALL!) and I'm thinking I should run more than 2 hours today--2:15 would be better. Hell, 2:30 would be even better, but I don't think I have time for that, so I'll go for 2:15. I'm heading to Waterfall Glen in the middle of the day, and it is awesome running weather so that will be all good.

We had some thunderstorms last night, and I was awoken at 10PM (I was asleep I think by 8:30?), but the strong stuff passed through pretty quickly, but still the broken sleep got to me a little.

Today sort of begins the countdown to Triple T in terms of all the shit I have to get done before leaving...organize my race nutrition, final grocery shopping for the cabin, baking, cleaning (I'm a girl, eh?), etc. And then assembling my pile of crap for racing. Remember, the rule for Triple T, just like for an Ironman is find all your triathlon crap--ALL OF IT--and put it into your car. You are going to maybe need pretty much anything, especially clothes. I have heard the water temperature is in the upper 50's again, and I am happy about that, but I learned from last year that I should start off the bike ride with more clothes. I am so fucking vain about tanning, though, that I'd rather shiver my ass off while biking.

And then there is this slight inconvenience called work. You know the drill, if you are in the business world--you need to work extra hard before you go away so that all hell isn't going to break loose when you get back or else it's useless to take a vacation in the first place!

Still, as hectic as things are getting for me right now, I am enjoying it because, well, this is one of the reasons that I train, right? But I will have a spot of sadness in attending the funeral of a close friend's Mom tomorrow. I am sure that will put a lot of things in perspective. I am a little frightened that I won't be able to hold my own emotions back for my friend, because this will bring up the past 3 years of my life which have consisted of death and its aftermath, and it's still not finished. But I will try and be strong for my friend, because he's got a long road ahead of him and I only hope that I can give him some comfort.

Tomorrow morning I am going to throw on my wetsuit for a nice, long swim in the fucking hot pool. Oh well! It will be good to see how that works. I am sure it won't be tight on me, but it may still feel that way putting it on before it's been properly soaked and absorbed some water.

Bear with me as my madness continues, but I know that this is the part where those 5 people who actually read my blog start to really enjoy things. Watch her go nuts! Maybe even the Tiki Hut will make an appearance in the next few days...you never know!

Namaste!

In Other News

If you're on Facebook, you can find me by name (Google me!). Sometimes I post shit there that I don't put on the blog and vice versa. I would LOVE to have all my blog readers linked on Facebook!

I signed up for a 50-mile trail race yesterday. What the fuck was I thinking??? Oh yeah--I am trying to gear up for Ultraman. The link has been added to my races/events sidebar for 10/24/2009. FUCKING YIKES!!! I guess I will need to lean on my ultra friends to tell me what more I need to do to be ready. I would appreciate having a few friends there with me, seeing as how I will be a bit trashola afterwards. Let me know if you are interested!

I seem to have recovered well from last week, since I did no running or biking on Monday (just a 3100 yard swim), although I was pretty much shelled all day/night Monday.

Yesterday, I did an impromptu triathlon, which I have dubbed "WTFMan." It consisted of a 3600 yard swim, 24 mile bike and 4.5 mile run. I swam really easy because I was still tired from last week, but I biked like a mofo at 88% of FTP on an absolutely gorgeous day, and then the run, well, it fucking hurt, which told me that OMG I must have run a bunch of fucking miles last week!

Are you noticing I am laying on the expletives now? This is what happens right about now when I'm in my last build week before Ironman, or in this case, Triple T. My house is a fucking mess, the amount of workout clothes I'm going through is amazing, I always seem to be fixing bottles of something or other, and I have so many things I need to schedule and my training volume isn't decreasing anytime soon! And then the madness begins, first with Triple T, and well, just look on my sidebar it's jam packed with all sorts of fun!

I've been receiving packages of stuff I ordered online, and the boxes just lay around open and stuff is not put away, I have to actually try and get enough calories to keep me going because with all the training and work being very busy, my appetite gets messed up and so I find I need to start stuffing myself at dinner, which isn't optimal (I should just eat more earlier in the day), but tough shit, it's not like I'm going to gain any weight here.

I feel like I'm absolutely the right weight/body comp for racing--although I am very lean and it does impact my swimming, slap a wetsuit on me and that gets corrected...I will be sporting my neoprene on Friday's 3800 yard swim.

I am being "cabin Mama" for Triple T, and I've graciously volunteered to buy groceries for and do some cooking ahead of time and onsite for the 2 dinners for everyone in the cabin and also my bitch, Shelley and her BF. I already have the non-perishables, but Friday night I buy all the other stuff, do the baking of Triple Fudge Brownies and individual Margarita Pies this weekend, and then early next week I'll make the spaghetti sauce and spaghetti salad topping. I just hope I calculated the amount of food we will all need pretty well! I know since I've done this race twice before how much *I* need to eat, and I figure guys will eat more (although they are usually amazed at how much I can stuff into my skinny little body), and then figure some extra. I am also bringing snacks, defizzed Coke and Ultra Violence and coffee. I think my cabin mates will appreciate my effort, and I have requested they each bring an "offering" to the Pirate Zebra Queen!

Normally I say that training isn't hard, and the training itself isn't so much, but at the volume I'm at now, it makes it very difficult to fit in the rest of my life! But I'm trying, and it will be interesting to see how I fare at Triple T, since I want to do more than just survive it. I'm really looking forward to it, though, because it will be bracketed by 2 "just vacation" days in the woods there, and it's so peaceful and beautiful, and I'm looking forward to the time to just sit quietly, which will give me time to ponder the depths of my mind and life and how good it really is and how fortunate I am to have the health and means to do this stuff!

Falling in Love Sucks

I am hurting. I am grateful for the joy I got to experience in the last few months, but it won't erase the pain I am feeling right now.

Love stinks. But it is a wonderful thing, too. I just need to find some.

I will train today.

Weekly Workout Totals 05/04/2009-05/10/2009

I had a good, if depressing, weekend of training. The sun never did come out too much while I was out there, and I had a pile of emotions that wanted to be dealt with, I guess brought on by it being Mother's Day weekend. I thought I could train them away, but it's not working out that way. Maybe I train better when I'm miserable now. Who knows?

Anyway, yesterday I rode 4 hours in Fermilab in the crazy winds between 9AM and 1PM, and here is the wind profile
I had thought about doing 5 hours, but the wind, clouds and cool temperatures conspired to make me stop after 4. Although I was allowed to ride on the big Ring 3 times, so that was cool. When I started, I felt pretty trashed from all the running I'd done Monday-Friday, and so I rode pretty much easy. I was playing mind games about whether I'd try and run off the bike. I just didn't think I had it in me. But I made a deal with myself that I'd just do a couple of miles, and it was still cool when I finished riding, so I only took off the wind jacket and headed out. I was totally surprised I could run at all, albeit pretty slowly. I managed about 3 miles and considered it good enough. I was so tired that I didn't even want to stop at McDonald's, instead drinking my bottle of Endurox R4 on the drive home. Here I am at the end of the festival:


I had taken in so much caffeine while riding that sleeping (after copious amounts of painkiller) was fitful, but 3 Advil PM finally did the trick and I went down for 8.5 hours. When I awoke, I felt drugged still, and it sucked, and I started playing mental games about whether I would do any training (doing nothing would have been OK), a little bit, or what I was supposed to do. What I was supposed to do was get in 7 hours of biking for the week, meaning I should ride 3 hours. It was cool and cloudy again, and my emotional state was crap, but I suited up and decided to get on Clipless Fuck and just tool around the neighborhoods. Well while doing reconnaissance in an area where I used to do intervals but that has been under construction for over a year, I discovered the roads were almost fixed and actually pretty good (one more layer of blacktop is all that's needed). So I decided to circle around my 3-mile loop I think 5 times, and when I got home from that I had about 1:30 done, and knew I had to stop drinking the caffeine-laden Infinit if I wanted any semblance of sleep.

So I loaded another bottle with Gatorade, after swigging about 8 oz., and headed back out. A neighbor stopped by to chat, which was nice, and he asked where I was going to go, and I guess I decided I'd head east and see how I felt. Well, about 10 minutes into leg 2, I finally felt like I wasn't drugged anymore and in fact, felt like pushing it a bit, so I did. And then I decided I wanted to get in 50 miles on the MTB, you know, because I was going to hit 50 miles of running for the week. That was my logic at the time.

So I did, got to see a lot of nice spring bulb displays here and there, the air smelled nice from all the flowering trees and shrubs, and I even enjoyed a hill or three. On the way home, I got a crazy idea that I should drive to Greene Valley and run up and then down the huge hill (1 mile straight up basically) to finish out my 50 miles for the week. But once I stopped riding, I decided I could do that next week and I'd rather just run from home, so I got rid of the biking tights and put on shorts and decided I'd run 2 miles. I was really surprised that it didn't feel at all bad to run! This is what happens when you run 7 days in a row, I guess. I ran out east with the slight tailwind, and on the way back I picked it up just a little bit and negative split the hell out of the second mile. I was like where the fuck did that come from? All good, though, and here I am all finished:

Below are the numbers. I actually ended up running about :45 more for the week than planned. That is not something I typically do, but I turned into a mileage junkie this week and Monday-Thursday it just seemed like a good idea to run about 8 miles each day. I biked a teeny bit more than planned, too, but that's pretty normal, and I swam a little more than planned. Well all good, I guess, right? This coming week should end up about the same volume, only less running and more swimming and biking, and a lot of getting stuff ready for Triple T.

Weekly Workout Totals	05/04/2009-05/10/2009 This week's totals are sponsored by running
Swim:	11500 yards (6.53 miles) in 4.08 hours; 20% of weekly workout time; approx. 1429 calories burned Canadian: 10515.6 meters
Bike:	Approx. 127.75 miles in 7.3 hours; 36% of weekly workout time; approx. 3645 calories burned; Total TSS=432 Canadian: 205.59 kilometers
Run:	Approx. 50.68 miles in 7.5 hours; 37% of weekly workout time; approx. 3397 calories burned Canadian: 81.56 kilometers
Strength:	1.13 hours; 6% of weekly workout time; approx. 283 calories burned
All Sports:	Approx. 184.96 miles in 20.01 hours; approx. 8754 calories burned Canadian: 297.66 kilometers
Sleep:	8.39 hours avg./night
Stretching:	3.17 hours. Massage: 1 hours

My Addiction

As I sit here in my insulin coma preparing to ride, I let my mind spin and spin it does. Why? Why do I do this? All the things running through my mind...2 weeks ago was the 3rd anniversary of my Mom's death...Sunday is Mother's Day and I neither have a Mom nor am one...I feel stressed out but at my own doing...I want to analyze the fuck out of my relationships...I want to just flow through every moment...I long to feel appreciated, loved and valued...I want to be strong, so strong that nothing affects me...but it all affects me deeply--so deeply that I can only think of one way to get away from it all--all the thoughts spinning in my head--everything is the analysis I try to impose on it but everything is nothing it is just the thought that I have about it that causes me distress.

It is my self that I need to obliterate over and over again to the point where maybe, some day, it will no longer exist and I won't need to get away from it. Sometimes I intentionally torment myself by indulging in bizarre, irrational thoughts just to know that I can and that at times I do have control over my thoughts, but then I feel trapped in my own mind and all I can think of is that I have to get away from it--have to make it stop--so that I know that there is something besides going through the motions of my existence--serving, consuming, creating, destroying, loving, hating, enjoying, despising, connecting, breaking apart--that I can access.

So again today I will go to that place in (or is it outside of?) my own head where it is just my body doing its thing with my mind on autopilot just being. The only thing I will think of is to keep moving, keep feeding the machine, and while I may appear to be an unthinking, unfeeling machine, I will become my spirit moving through space and time, and maybe I can capture it and hold onto it a little longer.

Recovering, Running, Tapering and Tanning

I knew it would be difficult to recover from Sunday's ride and execute this week's planned training. Monday was pretty rough, so I only swam 1800 yards, but I had a pretty good 7.5 mile run, choosing a course straight uphill into the wind on the way out. It's rollers all the way, and I ran on sidewalk most of the time. I was pretty trashed after that, and slept really well Monday night.

Tuesday morning I still felt trashed, knowing in my head that a normal person would have taken Monday as a rest day, or run maybe on a soft surface, but I'm not normal, so I didn't, and yet I headed to the pool and knocked out 3000 yards, albeit slowly, and decided I'd better run on trail if I wanted to have any legs left at the end of the day. So I headed to Waterfall Glen and decided I'd just do 8 miles out and back. It was yet another gorgeous day to run. Two in a row! I was stoked, and fucking tired.

It was Tuesday that I decided I would begin my taper for Triple T by cutting out all the extra pushups, chinups, crunches and jump rope. I just couldn't see doing all that in addition to a goal of 45 miles of running as part of a 19-20 hour training week. Plus my little stick arms were a bit sore from all the climbing on Sunday. It was hard for me to JUST SAY NO to the extra stuff, and this may be the end of it for the season since I'll start riding my bike to the outdoor pool right after Triple T, and I just don't have the time for 18+ hours of training, :30 of stretching daily, a massage once a week and biking to/from the pool 3 times a week. Oh and manage to feed myself, wash dishes, bottles and laundry, get my yard in shape and keep it maintained, keep up friendships and throw in a few races!

I slept really well again Tuesday night (are we seeing a pattern here?), but still felt like I wasn't fully recovered from Sunday. Ya fucking think??? I was intentionally shelling myself knowing that hey, I've felt way worse in an Ironman or during Triple T's Sunday race or well, just in general--I mean nothing feels as bad as grief or being treated poorly by someone who is or who you thought was close to you.

Wednesday morning I knocked out 3300 yards in the pool, and I was actually swimming at a decent pace, so I could tell I was starting to be recovered (in the bizarre way that I define recovery) from Sunday. But I still needed a can of Ultra Violence to perk me up a bit for my run, and I decided I needed to run flat-ish, so I just headed west from home and ran along a route that I sometimes bike on, so the run served dual duty as reconnaissance. Still, it wasn't completely flat, as that just doesn't exist where I live, and I actually felt hot. I also fucked up a split on my watch (because I had stopped to piss or something), and tried to remember how long ago I had started up again but couldn't figure it out, so I just decided to keep going to some "logical" turn point which happened to be 4.3 miles out, and I turned around and made it back home feeling ultra fucking tired, but I had time to get into the bath tub (for the first time ever in the new bathroom!) and soak my legs in some cold water. I showered, dried off, put on my compression tights and actually thought I might feel ok the next day. I did stretch more in the evening (I've been stretching a little in the sauna after each swim), and thought I was starting to feel human again.

Today I woke up, again after sleeping really deeply and well, and did a short swim of 1900 yards just so I'd hit 10,000 for the week (I may still swim Sat. or Sun. not sure yet). I felt hungry while I was swimming, so I know my metabolism is all jacked up. Running a lot will do that to me. Luckily, my buddy the lifeguard, Vladko (who is the Masters coach), offered me half of a Clif Bar Nectar in a new flavor I hadn't tried--Cherry Pomegranate. It was tasty (I'm going to order a couple of boxes for snacks), and I washed it down with the rest of the coffee I had brought to the pool with me (you know I'm training hard when I forego Gatorade and just go with coffee or Ultra Violence while I swim), headed to the showers where I shaved down and then got in the sauna and stretched a little bit.

I hadn't planned on tapering down my strength training until next week, but since I'm not really tapering swim/bike/run until the week of Triple T, I figured what the hell let's start a strength taper this week. And I felt good enough after swimming this morning (since it was short) that I could knock out some of my weekly strength workout before heading out to run again.

I could tell while lifting that I am really pushing my own envelope. My muscles are pretty gnarly right now, but hey, I'm getting a great tan with all the sunshine while I'm running, so who the fuck cares??? I knocked out :41 of non-stop strength training, and now I'm getting ready to head to Waterfall Glen to knock out another 8 miles of running. As of this minute, I feel pretty good, but I'm trying to decide whether a Coke will do the trick or I need the Ultra Violence again. I'm thinking Ultra Violence since it feels like my tapeworm has taken up residence again and I could use the extra 30 calories and caffeine over Coke. I feel like I'm eating non-stop pretty much from when I wake up until I fall asleep, and yet waking up hungry and feeling hungry even while I'm eating!

I FUCKING LOVE THIS STUFF!!!!

Weekly Workout Totals 04/27/2009-05/02/2009 and Big Bike Week Report

So I took a rest day last Monday. And then in the next 3 days I racked up about 3 hours of training per day. On Friday morning, I swam and did some core stuff and jump rope, and I was thinking about running for an hour, but I felt, well, exhausted. So I didn't do any more training that day, and instead, began watching the weekend weather forecast to see whether I'd drive to Galena on Saturday to ride like 65 miles or go up to Dodgeville, WI on Saturday night to ride 100 on Sunday.

Since both Saturday and Sunday looked good, I decided on Dodgeville, although the prospect of 9,000 feet of climbing in 100 miles this early in the year was a little unnerving. But I figured it would take me about 7 hours and so I wouldn't need to ride on Saturday at all. And a friend of mine said he was going, too, so now I was on the hook for it, but looking forward to it, too.

Saturday morning I woke after a long sleep and thought at first that I felt pretty good, and I was thinking about swimming maybe :45, biking (easy) 1:15 and running (easy) 1:00. That wouldn't kill me the day before a hard 100-mile ride. But as I began moving around, a few things began happening. My nose was running like a faucet and I felt exhausted. I thought, whoops, maybe I am finally cracking! I took some allergy meds, aspirin (I had a pretty good broadband headache, but not sinus), and began drinking a lot of things--soup, Endurox, Gatorade, water, and got back in bed for a few hours. I didn't fall asleep, but I clearly needed some more rest, and after a few hours, I got back up, drank a Coke and headed out into my yard.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, and it hadn't rained in 2 days (we broke the record for rainfall in April), so it was nice to get dirty in the yard. I got my front pretty much cleaned up and even made a dent in the back. And I started feeling human again! I think I needed rest, fresh air, and stimulus other than boatloads of training for once.

Got on the road for Dodgeville a little before 6PM and I was finally feeling like I wasn't truly sick and was going to be just fine for the ride. I had made one of my (to me, anyway) famous Italian focaccia sandwiches and we had part of it right after crossing the border into Wisconsin, and then more on the road and also some Perugina chocolate. Since my appetite had returned, I knew I was in good shape.

To the hotel in Dodgeville where I'd stayed once before for Dairyland Dare (a beast of a ride), check in, unload, settle in, get some sleep and wake up and try and decide what to wear to ride. It was only in the low 40's to start, but the ride email said they would collect clothes you wanted to shed at the first rest station and take them back to the start! How nice! We started out conservatively, I guess, although when I am doing all that climbing, I don't even bother looking at the power meter because it is what it is. I just try and remain seated so I don't spike the power too much.

The first loop didn't seem too bad, but there were some tough climbs right away. But it was a bright, sunshiny day, and we were happy to be riding even though we knew it would hurt at some point.

At the second aid station, they also took clothes, which was a pleasant surprise, so off came the tights, under top layer, helmet beanie and arm warmers.

And then the wind picked up. I like hills, I like wind, but I don't really care for them together! Oh well, I felt like I was riding OK, and would finish in a decent amount of time. When we got to the place where you can decide whether to do 85 or 100 miles, a second guy who had joined us for awhile looked like he was flagging, and he said he was bailing on the 100. I had one of those split-second evil brain thoughts of just doing 85 myself, but then my bike magically turned onto the extra loop for the 100-mile, which had black markers, much like a tough ski hill usually is "black diamond."

The black loop started out innocently enough with some almost flat areas, but then (and I don't remember which road it was on), there was a climb that seemed to last for 2 miles or so. It was either Cty Y, YZ or Z. Anyway, when I finished it, I said to my friend, "That was SICK." We got to enjoy headwind AND climbing.

At the next aid station, which I thought was the last one, I let my friend go on and hammer home (that's what friends do), although truth be told, I think the reason he was able to do that was because I had been riding a good pace to set him up for it ;) Whatever, I took my time and enjoyed some alone time. I'm not really much of a talker on rides--but if I'm with someone, I let them jabber at me as much as they want--just don't expect me to say much, except for when I get some silly thought in my mind, then I get asked what is so funny, and it's probably only funny to me. It was interesting that I wasn't cursing aloud so much on this ride, but in my head I sure was. I remember being on a ridge, climbing, and saw a sign for a tree farm, and in my head I was thinking, "Big fucking deal. Stupid fucking tree farm." Exactly that! I guess I wasn't so amused anymore.

It turned out there was one more aid station, and it was well placed. I was playing a mental game with myself to not check mileage until I was at 6:15 of ride time. Had to find something to keep me motivated! There were about 10 riders hanging out there, and I peed (huge congratulations to me for peeing in actual porta-potties or restrooms throughout the ride! I think that was a first!), grabbed a little more water and got on my way.

I sort of was riding near a group of 2 girls and one guy, and they were all way younger than me, and looked to be good riders, but I was going to ride my own pace now. On some of the climbs, I would get ahead of them and then I would rest a bit and they'd catch up (or should I say, the girls would catch up because clearly the guy was much stronger). The girls chatted me up a bit, which I wasn't really into, which is why I would rather ride alone or with a guy who isn't going to get all girly on me. Anyway, they were nice people and one of the girls commented to me towards the end that I am a strong rider. I was like WHAT? I wasn't feeling that strong towards the end, but hey, I HAD caught them and they were only riding 85 miles, so good on me for that.

I have no idea how many women even completed all 100 miles. It ended up being only 7,800 feet of climbing (yes, I got gypped out of 1200 feet!), and again this ride came through because they had showers for us to clean up which is especially nice if you are driving 3 hours home! They also had good food out.

My total ride time was 6:55, only because I decided I had to walk up one really short hill on Otter Road--but it turned out to be a good move because my legs were totally good after that, even though I did stop halfway through a 2-step climb where it flattened out, and the girls went by me like "why did you stop?" But I got right back on after about 10 seconds and climbed right past them!

The drive back was relaxing in a traffic-y sort of way, I got dropped off and sort of put a few things away, cracked a beer, fixed myself a sandwich, downloaded the power data and then got in bed and read a little before passing out.

I actually set my alarm for 6:30 but woke at 5:10 feeling pretty good, so I did get in a swim this morning. Only 1800 yards, but the cool water felt good, even though I was swimming really, really slow. This week is big running week, so I need to kick that off with a 1-hour run here soon, and then repeat swim and run for the next 4 days--no biking until Saturday--although I am already stalking the weather forecast for the weekend since I want to get in some good riding.

That ride yesterday was fucking awesome. Beautiful countryside, great company, I survived 2 stings already, I felt pretty strong riding, and it was awesome preparation for Triple T, which is now just 3 weeks away!!!! Oh yeah--we saw a bald eagle, too!

I didn't do as much swim or run training as planned last week, but I did accomplish the week's goal, which was a lot of riding, so I will consider it a success! And I guess it counts as a "rest week" since this week I should hit 19-20 hours. So all good, and even as tired as I am, I'm looking forward to running, as long as it's warm and sunny, so I can get rid of the stripes on my arms and legs from yesterday! And I'll be fine with putting LGL away for the week, but hope the weekend brings good weather for riding. There are no organized rides locally this weekend, so maybe I'll haul myself back up to Wisconsin for some more hill fun.

Here's what I did last week:

Weekly Workout Totals	04/27/2009-05/03/2009 This week's totals are sponsored by HILLS!
Swim:	8100 yards (4.6 miles) in 2.93 hours; 17% of weekly workout time; approx. 1027 calories burned Canadian: 7406.64 meters
Bike:	Approx. 162.8 miles in 10.42 hours; 61% of weekly workout time; approx. 5840 calories burned; Total TSS=755 Canadian: 262 kilometers
Run:	Approx. 17.74 miles in 2.63 hours; 15% of weekly workout time; approx. 1183 calories burned Canadian: 28.55 kilometers
Strength:	1.13 hours; 7% of weekly workout time; approx. 283 calories burned
All Sports:	Approx. 185.14 miles in 17.11 hours; approx. 8333 calories burned Canadian: 297.95 kilometers
Sleep:	7.82 hours avg./night
Stretching:	2 hours. Massage: 1 hours

Wheels Haven't Come Off Yet!

Wednesday's workouts went well. Like this:

• 5:45AM 15 chinups, 60 pushups, 135 crunches and 6' of jump rope
• 6:20AM Swim 3100 yards
• 8:12 AM Run .6 miles (to/from neighbor's for compression stocking duty)
• 12:15PM Run 1:10 including strides, about 8 miles
• 5:30PM Lift for :20
• 6:45PM Run .6 miles to/from neighbor's again

Needless to say, I hadn't originally planned on getting in 9+ miles of running, or doing all the other things all in one day, but it had to be done, and so I did it. Was I tired after it was all done? Hell fucking yeah. The running wasn't particularly fast, but it was fun running up the hill from my house 3 times in one day (it's .3 miles up), wearing 3 different outfits!

While I slept deeply Wednesday night, when I awoke yesterday I felt, well, fucking tired. I'd had an inkling to do a 1500 yard swim in the morning, but opted to sleep in since I'd gone to sleep late. The combination of a big day at work, all the training and being on a pretty tight schedule meant I still needed my "me" time when it was all over, which is usually reading a book in bed. And I also needed more food!

I didn't swim yesterday morning, but I did get lucky in that I had a 9:30AM meeting during which I was able to finish up my lifting for the week! See now that is one of the advantages of working at home in the same room with your weights! I had to finish up legs and a few upper body things and abs, and it felt good to do it.

In retrospect, I should have probably had a protein shake after that short little workout since there's no way I'd restocked my glycogen stores over the 2 prior days. I got on the trainer (it's been raining for days now) at 12:15PM for a 1:30 ride, and since I was a little tired, I decided to drink a can of Coke while riding. Usually that would be more than enough calories for a standalone ride like that, and I didn't even think about it. The ride went well, despite my legs feeling like I'd done a ton of squats (funny, I had), and I kicked out good power.

It only took me maybe 3 minutes to throw on a singlet, hat and running shoes and head out the door. It had stopped raining, and I didn't have time to drive to the Y to run anyway, and it was fairly warm. I felt the humidity in my house while on the trainer, and as soon as I got outside, it was like I was in a sauna! The wind had picked up, but not so bad that it would impact my run speed much at all.

As I ran up the hill (I hadn't run up it earlier in the day since it was raining really hard so I walked to my neighbor's in the morning), I noted that my legs didn't feel all that bad, but what do I know maybe I am just used to sucking? I made it out one mile just under 9 minutes, and that told me that I was pretty tired, but that's OK, I've been putting the hurt to myself.

When I got out 20 minutes to turn around, guess what? It started raining. Not hard, but just misting enough to make me a little chilled, but too bad. I saw another person running in it, and we just smiled at one another. I only had about 2.5 miles to go.

I kept about a 9mpm pace, got home, tore off my disgusting clothes and started sucking down Endurox R4. As it turns out, I think I was bonking pretty much the entire time I was running. My legs didn't feel that bad--they just didn't have much oomph, and while 140 calories in 1.5 hours on the bike would be fine if that was all I did, running afterwards not so much! Still, the caffeine prevented me from totally bonking and besides, I'm pretty familiar with running while bonking, so I can push through it even it it means slowly. Not like I needed to run a marathon!

After I finished working, I made the .6 mile run one more time for the day, and that was after stretching and having a beer, and I was laughing the entire time because I'm wearing an outfit that is pretty stylish and "jogging!" I know everyone up and down the street knows who I am from seeing me running all the time, but usually it's not with "regular" clothes on.

I slept really well and long last night, and today is just a swim and a short (that I really don't need to do) run. So of course, I'll kick it off with some jump rope and other stuff.

The weekend looks like no rain, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to just swim, bike and run a little on Saturday, fix myself an awesome focaccia sandwich, and drive to Dodgeville, WI so I can start riding by 7:30AM on Sunday for 100 hilly miles. That will cap off my big week of biking with a bang! I am sure I will be well shelled by the time I am back home Sunday night, but I hope to sleep like a baby because next week is my big running week! Not like I haven't been doing a great deal of running anyway, but next week's goal is about 45 miles!

There is nothing else I'd rather be doing, and I'm enjoying the challenges I've been giving myself.

Life is FUCKING GOOD!

Into a Big Week

Monday was a much needed rest day. All I did was get a massage, and then it was early to bed.

Yesterday I awoke feeling still tired although I'd slept well. That is to be expected. Although I was going to technically just skip Monday's workouts, the little voice in my head said I could make it up throughout the week, so I thought I'd start the day with a short swim. The water was too warm for me, and I swam pretty damn slowly, but it still felt good, especially since I hadn't done any pushups or chinups right before!

The plan called for a 2-hour ride and :20 run, but I figured I'd run for :30 just to put a dent into the missed running from Monday. It wasn't even 60 when I started riding, so I used the helmet beanie, booties and wind gloves. I was a little chilled at first, but warmed up quickly. I rode straight into the east wind, and just kept going east in the big ring, standing on any hills. Somehow I managed to ride exactly 2 hours, and when I downloaded the data this morning, the entire ride was at 82.5% of FTP, which isn't bad considering I had a bit of a tailwind on the way back in and there was a lot of stop and go, as I was basically riding through residential neighborhoods. All good, though!

I made a quick change into running tights and headed back out into the wind. At first, I felt too warm and thought I should have left the long sleeved shirt at home, but once I went directly into the wind, I knew I was dressed just right. My hands never were warm. The run didn't suck too badly as I'd had caffeine on the bike, but I still felt it. I didn't run particularly fast, but my usual steady, and I was just glad to get it done.

Since I did such a long workout in the middle of the day, even though I had begun work pretty early, I still kept going until about 6:15, and I really wanted to make a dent in my strength training for the week, so I motivated and got about 1/2 hour of that done, then quickly walked to a friend's house down the street for my physical therapist duty.

This friend just had a hip replacement, and her husband is out of town, so she needs help putting on and taking off compression stockings on the affected leg, and I am happy to help out. Evening all I have to do is strip it off, and starting today in the morning, I will stop by and put it on for her. Her house is at the top of the hill from my house, and it's 1/4 mile there, so I figure I can get in a little extra running there and back, too!

After that, I came back home and stretched and finally ate dinner around 8PM, and I think I should have eaten more (but I did have my first Twinkie of the year!), but I was too tired to keep eating and wanted to read a little before going to sleep.

I woke up a little early today because I was hungry, but I should be able to do better on the whole scheduling thing as I should be done swimming by 7:30 and can start work then, and I only need to run for 1:15 in the middle of the day, so I can be finished working by 5:00, get my stretching done, go see my neighbor, eat at 7:15 or so, have time to read and get to sleep early. I may try and get some more strength training done today. Or not!

I am watching the weather (it continues to rain a lot here), and don't yet have firm weekend riding plans. I may drive to Galena to do a very hilly ride on Saturday, or if Sunday has better weather, then I'll head up to Dodgeville, WI and knock out maybe 100 miles which will be totally hilly. Funny thing is I'm not even sure I'm ready to ride 100 miles let alone 100 miles with 9,000 feet of climbing! But if I end up doing that, I will not do much on Saturday.

This is a hard week of training. I've done this before, but each time I do it, there is something different about it. I always wonder how I got it done before but then once I'm into it, I stop thinking. So all of this planning and scheduling and orchestrating and controlling is all designed to put me into a position where I can train and not think, and that is a most beautiful thing.

Weekly Workout Totals 04/20/2009-04/26/2009 and Finally Shelled!

I am, unless something changes significantly, taking an unscheduled rest day today. Who is the fucking bitch that wrote on my training plan today that I was supposed to do a 3500 yard swim and a :50 run? I swear I am going to fire my coach today!

Yesterday was another day that was supposed to be warm with a "chance" of rain. When you wake up and it's already raining, how does that translate to a chance? I was going to go do an organized ride that begins northwest of me, and I've done the ride many times before, but the radar didn't look to be improving, so I began thinking about Plan B.

I had wanted to ride for 4 hours, since Saturday was the shorter ride of only 3 (although originally my training plan had called for a 4-hour and 2-hour ride--see how I ignore my coach?). It looked like the rain should clear out by maybe 11AM, so I got to doing other things around the house, and kept checking on the radar. I was going to drive to Fermilab, and did not want to be on the trainer!

Well, it was drawing near to 11AM and still raining...what to do? I ended up putting LGL on the trainer and started into a warmup as if I were doing my shorter, harder Tuesday ride. I wanted to see what I had left in my legs after Saturday's rather hard riding. Apparently quite a bit! I checked the weather after 1/2 hour, and decided to keep going for another 1/2 hour, which turned into 1:15, at which point I loaded up the car and headed to Fermilab.

The roads were wet, but with the sun coming out and the temperature rising rapidly (I think it did make it to near 80), things would dry up in a hurry, but I still got some nice spray up my ass. The wind was out of the east when I started, and since I was heading generally west, it was great! But a little over halfway around my 16-mile loop, the wind switched to south, and it picked up in a big way. No worries, wind makes me work!

I approached my entrance to the Big Ring but was being stalked by security, so I rode past it, doubled back and got on, and was quickly spotted by 2 security cars, and I got booted off. Damn! I had really wanted to do 2 laps around it.

No worries, with the wind picking up I was getting plenty of high powered action riding right into it and figured I'd just need one more full loop to get to about 3.5 hours total (including the trainer time), which would be enough on the day. But I did struggle with my inner voice which kept saying, "Listen fuckhead you said you were going to do 4 hours and it's not like you don't have the time so why don't you keep riding?" Still, I rationalized that I was going to end up riding more than was on the training schedule, so it was all good.

When I finished, I wiped down LGL to get rid of worms, sand and road spray as best I could, wiped off my own face, and drove home. I unloaded the car, and now it was really nice out, so I decided to plant a few things that have been waiting to get into the ground for a few weeks--6 lilies (Casa Blanca--pure white orientals that are gorgeous assuming they still grow since I should have planted them weeks ago), 3 heliotropes and an Angel's Trumpet that I had forgotten I had ordered.

While I was at it and dirty and smelly, I figured I should start raking the back lawn again, which was necessary since my neighbors never raked their leaves last fall so I got the pleasure of their leaves blowing onto my lawn during the winter which was not really good for the grass, all the while they are out there grilling and listening to tunes and most likely boozing it up.

I raked for maybe 1/2 hour, and was feeling famished and needing a shower, so I finally went inside to clean up and grabbed a beer. I was just beginning to stretch when a friend dropped by and we had some eats and then went back outside to enjoy the weather and my neighbor's girlfriend came over to have a conversation with us. She was pretty well blitzed, and she began asking me to go work out with her. I'm like OK whatever just get up at 5AM and we'll get to it. Not likely...she needs to quit smoking, but says she used to run cross country. She asked us how to get her butt in shape to wear a bikini on an impending vacation and we are like DO HUNDREDS OF SQUATS! That was an entertaining conversation.

This morning I am tired, sore and needing some major rest, so after waking up late and skipping the swimming, I think I will follow suit and skip the run and just get a massage this afternoon. Four straight weeks of 18+ hours and I am pretty worked. This is my big biking week, so I'll kick it off tomorrow with a 2-hour ride and short brick run.

Here's what I got done last week:

Weekly Workout Totals	04/20/2009-04/26/2009 This week's totals are sponsored by WIND!
Swim:	9700 yards (5.51 miles) in 3.5 hours; 19% of weekly workout time; approx. 1226 calories burned Canadian: 8869.68 meters
Bike:	Approx. 145.81 miles in 8.17 hours; 45% of weekly workout time; approx. 4778 calories burned; Total TSS=567 Canadian: 234.66 kilometers
Run:	Approx. 36.27 miles in 5.39 hours; 29% of weekly workout time; approx. 2434 calories burned Canadian: 58.37 kilometers
Strength:	1.22 hours; 7% of weekly workout time; approx. 305 calories burned
All Sports:	Approx. 187.59 miles in 18.28 hours; approx. 8743 calories burned Canadian: 301.9 kilometers
Sleep:	7.93 hours avg./night
Stretching:	2.7 hours. Massage: 1 hours

Great Saturday

Start of yesterday's ride in Fermilab

It's 45 degrees here at 5:20AM as I write this, and the heat is on in my house, which means I am not going to be driving north to ride today. I will eat the breakfast I was thinking about at 3AM of scrambled eggs and toast around 8, read the Sunday paper, and then motivate back to Fermilab for 4 hours in warmer temperatures.

Yesterday's forecast originally called for 80's, but upon waking, even though it was already near 70, there was a much higher chance of rain than originally predicted, too. Since I was up early, and since my access roads are under heavy construction now, I loaded LGL into my car plus running gear and headed to Fermilab with the goal of riding 3 hours or 60 miles, whichever came first.

It was plenty humid but not actually raining when I started at 7:15AM. At least I didn't need arm warmers! But it was quite windy, and so I knew my speed would be depressed, but wind usually makes me work hard, so I'd be riding by time today. Below you can see the wind data for yesterday:

I think I got about halfway around one loop when it began raining. Since there are plenty of buildings in Fermilab, it's usually easy to duck in somewhere and wait out rain, which I did way

too many times last year. The way it's been raining so regularly this year, it may be a repeat of last spring! This time I was a ways from a building on my way to the West Gate, but there is a shortcut bike path to the Ledermann Science Center, so I hightailed it there and made it up the ramp after a near soaking. I think I waited less than 10 minutes for that shower to blow over. I know, I know--I am a wimp, but if I don't have to be soaked, why would I?

Back on and around to the Big Ring, and I just got on there and the sky opened up again. I ducked behind some building that had some sort of generator thing next to it and waited for the short downpour to stop. I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the lap, pushing hard, and even saw a group of 3 deer in there. I was also enjoying some tunes. Now that I finally have an MP3 player, I've taken to riding with it, but only when I'm in Fermilab. On residential streets it would just be too dangerous. So even though I'm just circling around, it's a little more enjoyable than it used to be.

I made it back to my car to grab another bottle of Infinit (my first bottle was leftover from a few weeks ago and was pure Money Shot, aka loaded with caffeine, but my other 2 bottles weren't as potent) and decided to strip off the bike jersey and go with a singlet--gotta work on the tan! Even as breezy as it was, I was quite comfortable, but now I began watching the gathering clouds, as the sun didn't want to come out.

I got sprinkled on some more but didn't need to stop for it and headed back to the Big Ring for another round. Once I got in there, and about halfway around, the sky started to look pretty ominous, so I began thinking whether I should go back out to the South Gate or not before heading back to my car. I decided against it, and of course, as soon as I got off the ring, it began raining again. At least this time, I thought "GOOD DECISION," but it wasn't stopping anytime soon, so I just pedaled really hard to get back to my car and load up.

I got in almost 2:30 of riding in Fermilab, and not very fast at all with the winds the way they were. But it was all good, and I figured I had time to drive home, ride another half hour (outside, weather permitting), get in my planned :40 run and then a short swim (on Saturdays the only lap swim is 12-1PM so it limits when I can sneak in after a long ride). I made it home pretty quickly, took LGL out of the car, put some stuff in the house, and headed back out. I decided I'd just big ring it hard for the remaining time.

I was pleasantly surprised at how the winds had either died down (it was about 10:30 now) or else just because I was no longer in the wide open spaces of Fermilab it wasn't as bad. At any rate, I enjoyed standing up as much as possible since I was just riding for 1/2 hour. When I got back home, I stripped off my disgusting cycling clothes and changed to go run.

As I headed up the 1/4 mile gentle hill right from my house, I thought, hmmm...I must have ridden fairly hard based on how my legs felt. But I was able to run OK, taking tiny steps as is mandated when beginning a brick run. I needed to decide which direction I would run, and being the masochist that I am, I decided to head south on Main Street to McCollum Park, which is basically 1.5 miles uphill, and with the south wind blowing, even better! Kind of like how the Triple T run takes you 2 miles straight up!

I was hot, disgusting, but I was running and went by a man who had been running, but as he turned to begin up the hill was walking. As I went by him, I told him to keep running! As I kept climbing, I thought to myself what the fuck am I doing, but of course I was doing exactly what I wanted to do and was even enjoying it.

When I got to the park, I ran a lap around it, which is about 1.25 miles, mostly flat, so that was a nice break from the hill climbing and the wind. When I finished the lap, I just stopped and thought now what? If I just turned around and went home, I wouldn't make :40, and that would be OK, but I'm a masochist, so I turned to head further south on Main Street which entailed climbing uphill some more, and I just set my sights on a particular street at which to finally turn around and head home.

Since the way back was mostly downhill and slightly wind assisted, it felt pretty good, and I do enjoy going down much more than I ever used to and do it confidently, so I was having a great time. When I got home, I was so disgusting that I couldn't sit down on any furniture, so I just stripped off my running clothes (throwing them downstairs onto the floor!) and put my swimsuit on and a pair of shorts over it and a dirty t-shirt. While this swim wouldn't be training per se but rather just cooling down, I didn't need to do it, but knew it would feel good at some level, so off to the Y I went.

I never know what I'm going to end up doing when I swim after a solid bike and run, but I knew I did not want to kick at all. So I just started in with the pull buoy, and ended up just swimming 1,000 yards straight. The water wasn't as cold as I would have liked--either that or I was just too heated up. I showered and wanted to stretch a little in the sauna, but when I went in there it was just too hot for me, which meant my core temperature had to be up, so I skipped it.

I got home and ate some lunch and crawled into bed for a little lay down and heard my phone chirp and figured it was my niece, so I got up and it was and shit, figured I should just get up and get going on to her place. She had organized a clothing swap with some of her girlfriends, and honestly I get a kick hanging out with her (she's 25). I was pretty tired when I got there, but had fun trying on all sorts of things. I ended up with some really neat stuff, some of which I am calling "skankwear," but hey, can't have too much of that, can you? At one point, I asked Michelle if she had anything made of sugar, as I could tell my blood sugar was crashing and I needed some calories. She gave me some Ho Ho's which was perfect considering the skankwear I was wearing. That fixed me right up!

When I got home, I fixed this really great salad of shrimp, grapes, pineapple, almonds, litchees, celery and water chestnuts, then got down and stretched, then ate, read a bit, and fell asleep early.

I had intended to drive somewhere to ride, but I'm not too keen about riding in the 40's, so another breakfast and reading the Sunday paper seems in order before I head back to Fermilab.

Oh yeah, when I downloaded the Ergomo data, turns out I did ride hard, at 85% of FTP! So no wonder my legs felt a little toasted while I was running, but since I got a good 8 hours of sleep last night, I don't feel too bad, plus I don't have to run today!

Happy Sunday!