Check Out My Jammies! (also free recipe)

I bet you thought this was going to be something racy....not today, sorry.

I finally finished sewing 2 pairs of flannel PJ's this morning. It's hard to photograph them 1) because I only have a stupid camera phone (no, I am not buying a digital camera just for blogging) 2) because the prints are rather large, but I did anyway.

The first picture is of the poodle print. It has pink standard poodles all over and their names--Fifi, Mimmi, Coco, Frou Frou, Lulu. But even better, EIFFEL TOWERS!!! So not only is this a French theme, but it is bicycling-related.

The second picture is of the Chinese takeout print. You can't see all the things on there, but they include: a takeout box, chopsticks, eggroll, fortune cookie, soy sauce packets, tea cups and a menu.

The third picture is of 2 pairs of what I call "pool pants." I have a number of pairs of flannel pants that I've made from my PJ bottom pattern that I wear all winter long for, well, basically trips to the pool/gym. They are comfortable, warm, and since I make them myself, I get to choose interesting prints. The pair on the left also has poodles, but they are enjoying a bit of lunch at a French cafe. The pair on the right are made of fleece, which is also warm and cuddly. You should see how excited little girls get when they see me wearing these!

I've been sewing since I was in the 7th grade. I basically taught myself, although I asked Mom if she'd help me if I got stuck. I took to it like a duck to water, and in high school, I sewed clothes for my entire family, because I enjoyed doing it so much. While I was married, I made Ken shirts, PJ's (we had matching plaid flannel for a few winters and then matching brilliant orange and black tiger stripes) and even a few pairs of shorts. All the throw pillows in my house were made by me, as are all the drapes, except for the ones in the living and dining rooms.

When I worked in downtown Chicago in my 20's and 30's, before the advent of business casual dressing, I was dressed to the nines in dresses and suits I made, most of which I still have, since I was tiny but skinny back then (now I'm tiny and muscular!). Beautiful clothes, I might add--as I have a penchant for haute couture designer stuff. When you make it yourself, you can have a beautiful suit for maybe $150 that would go for 10 times that were you to buy it retail. And yes, I do all the tailoring stuff, except that I don't make bound button holes (I use the machine). I've got some amazing "party dresses" that I pull out every so often just to put them on and marvel at my handiwork, since they are not the kind of thing you wear every day.

I had cut out the PJ's back in December, but you know what happened--I was into a big training phase for Goofy Challenge, and now my weekends are filled by crazy training and racing, and then I had a 3-week spell of working too many hours.

But no worries, I live in Chicago, it's March, and it's SNOWING AGAIN, so the new jammies have at least a month of use in them, sadly probably more like 2. This morning I also finalized my shopping list of parts for the new bike, and shortly I get on the Griffen for a nice 2:30 ride followed by a :30 run, and then it's off to the bike shop I go!

I slept really well last night for the first time in about 4 weeks, so I finally think the stress of work is wearing off. And I've decided I'm going to move my Saturday workout to Friday next week so I have a *taper* for my next sprint race. I'll show that woman who has beat me--wait until she sees what a Crackhead can do with a day's rest. Or at least I hope I show her something great. I may still not beat her, but I'm guessing it will be damn close.

So today is a wonderful, wonderful day--I slept really well, I finished making something nice for myself, I'm looking forward to my workout, I'm going to get fitted for my new bike and hopefully pick out wheels, and when I get done with all that, I'll be eating something I cooked that is so incredibly good--see below for recipe. It's not exactly low fat, but after what I'm doing today and for what I need to do tomorrow (1 hour swim and 1:40 run), it's not like I can't use the calories. And oh--that extra weight from one antibiotic pill is GONE!!! I am 1 pound away from my fighting weight (112). Next week, I go on maintenance level of strength training, so I will be even more rested up for my next race. And tonight I get to wear new, homemade jammies--I am not sure which pair I will break in first!

Life is SOOOOOOOOOO good!

Farfalle with smoked salmon

(1) 16-ounce package farfalle or bow-tie pasta
2 tbsp. butter
1 giant onion or 2 large onions, coarsely chopped
2 large carrots, grated
¾ cup dry vermouth or dry white wine (vermouth is better, trust me)
1 cup light cream or half-and-half
1 teaspoon salt
ground black pepper to taste
¾ lb. salmon filet, broiled and flaked
4 oz. Nova salmon, chopped into 1/2” pieces
1 small jar red caviar (optional)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Melt butter. Add carrots and onions and sauté until onions are golden (about 2 minutes). Add ¾ cup water. Leave off heat until pasta is almost done.

In saucepot, prepare farfalle as label directs; drain.

Add vermouth to carrot/onion mixture and heat to boiling; cook 1 minute. Stir in cream, salt, and pepper; heat to boiling. Cook 1 minute. Remove skillet from heat; stir in salmon pieces and chopped fresh dill and parsley. Toss salmon mixture with pasta to serve. Top with caviar.

To make the dish even more heavenly, put some crumbled bleu or Gorgonzola cheese on top before serving.

Crackhead is Getting a Shiny New Thing!

I am in process of specing components to go on this beauty, the Eddy Merckx Carbon 3XM. Dura Ace 10 speed gruppo, Ergomo powermeter on compact crankset, Oval carbon bar, carbon cage, and now I'm wheel hunting, although I already know I'm getting red Salsa Ti skewers. What could be more fun?

I already ride quite a bit, and have plenty of opportunities to be on a road bike; but my existing one is cheap (-ish--it cost me about $2k way back when) and has a crappy gruppo on it. I was considering just upgrading the gruppo, but I was convinced by my coach-and-near-bike-shop (a total enabler, by the way), to just get a new bike. So I'm doing that.

I'll get to use the new steed at least for the 200K and 300K rides I have planned this year, and this would be a sweet ride should I decide to do Silverman (I wouldn't even consider that course on a tri bike). Next year, I'll be attending my coach's elite camp that will follow the Tour of California course, only we ride ahead of the peloton every day (and really, I won't ride every day--I'm not that much of a Crackhead).

What the hell, maybe I'll even smack my new bitch up for Desoto Triple T, as that course is VERY hilly. Whatever her name (sorry, girl, but "Bitch" is already taken by the Griffen Vulcan), she is going to suffer and like it!

Weekly Workout Totals 2/18/2007-2/24/2007 and Getting Back on Track

Wow, is all I can say to the last week of my life. I came out alive and kicking.

Yesterday I awoke to about 3" of not really snow--it was more like the remains of a Snow Cone machine--covering my driveway. I am a nice guy and didn't want to drag the snowblower out at 6AM on a Sunday (not even to spite my neighbor who was the cause of no sleep the day before), and I wasn't sure whether the snowblower would handle it. But I had to leave home at 7Am to make it to my race, allowing for extra time to travel, since it was sleeting now, too.

It took me an hour to shovel my 75' driveway, and I didn't even do it as well as I usually do, because I didn't have time, and the snow was so heavy. I started a little before 6 and when I got back in the house, I had estimated :45, but it was an hour! So it was 7AM and I had to get rolling. I had packed earlier in the morning, so there were only a few more things to get ready and then get out the door. I removed my thoroughly sweaty shoveling clothes (it was 37 degrees outside), put on my swimsuit and street clothes, and took a moment to decide whether I was still going to race. I knew I had just cost myself some speed and power by essentially doing a strength workout (I don't shovel slowly) first, and as my mind quickly recounted the week's events, I just about lost it. The streets were not in good shape, and was I crazy to want to drive anyway just to do an indoor sprint? I thought about what I had written the day before and decided HELL NO I'M GOING.

I went to the bathroom one last time, and just for dramatic effect, the toilet (which I swear wasn't clogged) decided to overflow, as if to give me one more test of my will. At that point, I began laughing like some sort of crazed monster who is able to crush anything in its path simply by looking at it. I've got a race, dammit, and I'm like a bionic mailman at this point, because no snow, sleet, freezing rain, blizzard or some stupid dog who bit me is going to stop me. And I am the mailman that BRINGS IT.

When I got outside my house, it was raining. Not just light rain--big, almost pouring, rain. Great. Let's do this thing. My residential street was a total mess of snow, ice and slush, but as soon as I hit the main street (literally, "Main Street") the roads were pretty clear, but there were patches of ice and slush, so I had to keep things to the speed limit or slightly less.

As I got to the destination town, Wheaton, I recalled the last time I had raced at this venue--2 years ago, and the weather was almost as bad. On the bright side, I had wanted to get my car washed, but the driving rain did a pretty good job of rinsing the salt off! I got to the club, and some nice volunteers asked me how I was doing, and all I could do was laugh hysterically. I couldn't believe I was there, wanted to put myself through a redline sprint race. But I was going to do it. To add even more to the event, I noticed that I was all bloated from taking only one of the antibiotic pills. My body just doesn't like foreign substances in it. I felt fat (the scale showed 5 extra pounds), tired, but determined.

I changed and went to the pool deck. I had to ask another woman to clear her stuff off a bench so I could stretch out my back. She asked me, "You need the whole bench?" I said, "Yep." She wasn't sitting on the bench--it was her precious dry towel that was on it. What a bitch. She's lucky I didn't deck her right there, but I was more interested in stretching.

I met my "person," or my personal timer guy, Cedric. SCORE! I got another hottie, just like 2 weeks ago. He asked me if I wanted him to do anything special while I was racing, so I told him what position the bike seat needed to be, and a few other things. He had done one triathlon, and asked me if I'd done any. I said, "A few." Of course, I smiled and told him it was around 60 now.

I warmed up 100 yards and felt all wrong. I think the torque applied to my core from shoveling had messed me up. Oh well. I still managed 500 yards, all the while struggling mightily to overcome my body's attempt to stop me in my tracks, as well as the pontoon boat swimming in the same lane with me.

Hey, I'm still moving around--I'm OK. Head to the locker room and ask someone to point me to the shower. Another woman racer asked me why, as if I shouldn't want to rinse off the chlorine? Come on, we had 10 minutes to change and get to the bikes. That is like an eternity of time! So I took my shower and went to change.

We got to the bikes, and my main man, Cedric is there with everything set up. I tell him I'll be on my own tunes, Best of Motley Crue (as always in these races), and that I won't be able to hear anything else. They start us off, and I'm doing my same methodology as 2 weeks ago. The effort is extremely hard, but it isn't painful. I think I can do better in 2 weeks. At any rate, I once again put out the most miles in my wave (all of whom were younger than me and a few men included)--5.96 miles.

As we mosied a few feet to the track (the bikes were inside the track), one of the other women asked me how I got so many miles. I told her it was a secret. I would write it here, except you never know who's reading! At any rate, it's more a matter of the stinking hard bike workouts I am accustomed to. This woman and I exchanged names of our coaches (I knew hers; she didn't know mine), she told me she rides Computrainer, and I told her I bet I still do harder bike workouts than she does. I've been training by power for almost 4 years now--and unless you've worked up to it, many people would have a hard time doing what I'm doing.

Anyway, the next gun goes off for us to run. Running does not feel so good--I can tell I am going to be a little off here, and I was right, but I start out at a good pace (my man Cedric is calling out lap splits for me), and manage to hold it.

In the end, I was only slightly slower than 2 weeks ago. As it turns out, 2 weeks ago I was in the top ten women overall! I hung out to get a massage (the folks from the school were happy to seem me again), and then I saw a couple of guys I know on the bikes, so I went over to harass/cheer them. One guy, Jason, only did 6.2 miles on the bike, and he's a good athlete, so I think that shows my biking ability. I hope to actually beat him on the bike in 2 weeks (he's maybe 30?).

On my way to the treadmill, I decide to have a cup of Accelerade. The company had reps at the race 2 weeks ago, only I didn't drink any then. I figured it couldn't hurt, seeing as how I needed to stay fueled for my next workout. I was going on cup #2, when the dude hands me an Accelerade water bottle and tells me it's mine. SCORE!

I needed to go get my long run in, so I headed to the treadmills. At this facility, the treadmills are upstairs. Not a good sign. It has GOT to be hotter up there, and it was, but not as bad as my silly Y. I was about :50 in and feeling plenty tired and wanting to bag it when a young woman gets on the machine next to me. She sees the numbers all over me (I had a volunteer who was new to body marking do mine, and at first she did really small numbers, so I taught her how to do them right, and ended up with extras), and asks me about the bikes. I ask her if she's raced before, and she says yes, and I ask her if she expects to win her age group (seeing as how she's asking about bike strategy), and she tells me she intends to win overall! So I ask her her name, and it turns out I have heard of her--Jennifer Garrison, a local oustanding triathlete. I am delighted to meet her, and we share all sorts of stories as she warms up, and I continue inflicting pain on myself (she was also going to do a long run after her race). It was great, because by having a conversation with her, I got myself to run longer than I thought I could. I ended up doing 1:20 on the machine, and then went downstairs to run :05 on the track, which would be good enough for today (I was supposed to run 1:40, but no worries, this week has been challenging enough).

I'm running on the track and people are looking at me since I have numbers galore, and am running a decent pace, but I smile since I am just about done working out for the day! I get one more massage, where one of the therapists tells me I should go to massage school since I already know so much about the body (she's right, and I am thinking about going to massage school, and I had asked the school's owner and teacher earlier what the cost is, and I can easily swing it), meanwhile the girl working on me is a bit tentative as she's only been to school for a month or so. Still, she does a great job and I tell her so, and I look forward to some pizza.

I head to the post-race food area, and they only have sandwiches, but I'm told pizza is scheduled to arrive in about :20, so I grab a small sandwich and walk around a bit, and end up talking to a couple more volunteers, who notice that I am salivating over the Clif Bloks. They tell me I can have as many as I want, so one of them makes a bag of about 20. I've never bought them, but I think that was another SCORE!

While waiting for the pizza to arrive, "Dumb and Dumber" is on the beautiful plasma TV (I am low-tech in my house--I don't want to make it more attractive to do something I don't need to be doing in the first place, but I understand the allure of big, beautiful TV's), which is perfect, as that about describes several of the people I've interacted with in the past week, only they aren't charmlingly dumb--just numbingly dumb.

The pizza arrives, and I get a plateful and tie into it. Yum! I eat pizza maybe 3 times a year, but this was great. I washed up and went back to the track to see who was racing, and I spotted the woman who beat me 2 weeks ago--well let's just say I could pick her out of the wave. She's about 6" taller than me, so of course, she's a torpedo in the water, and she looks incredibly fit, so my guess is she beat me again. But I'm at peace (pissed I can't win, but still at peace) with it, given my life circumstances, so I finally get in my car to head home.

It is still pissing cats and dogs as I leave the club, but hey, my car is cleaner than when I arrived! The rain is pretty driving, and I approach a railroad crossing in town and a freight train is at a DEAD STOP. WTF??? I look up and roll my eyes and shake my head and ask the higher being why do you keep testing me? I drove a few blocks to see if I could see beginning or end or a way to get over the tracks and home. Even though I was refueled, my body was insisting that I lay down now.

In less than 5 minutes, the train began to move--slowly, but it was going. I only had to wait about 5 minutes more, and we were clear to go.

When I am about halfway home, the rain changes over to sleet and then snow as I watch the thermometer in my car go from 37 to 35, to 34 to 33 in all of 10 minutes. Great! At least I will make it home before it turns into another bloody mess.

But by the time I get home, my driveway has another 2" of new snow on it, and I decide I better get a head start, so I drop my bags in the house and go back out to shovel some more. I get lucky, because my youthful neighbor, Matt, arrives back home, and I decide to have a chat with him about the noise levels. I had rehearsed a nice way to do this the night before, so I was prepared. I told him I needed his help, but that it was quick. Of course the guy doesn't wear "real" winter clothing, because he's a young hipster (er--what is it you call a stoner with a job?), so he walks over, we meet halfway, and I tell him I can hear his stereo loud and clear in my bedroom. But I don't want to be a fuddy-duddy, and I'm OK with it up until about midnight. But after that, not so much. He says he didn't know (and I think he was stoned while I'm talking to him), and he was glad I had said something. I told him I would have called, but his number is unlisted. I was nice, but let him know that if it keeps me awake again, I will not be getting out of bed and knocking on his door--it will be the police (not so good if you are stoned, huh?). I told him I hope it doesn't come to that, and he is actually a bit apologetic. At any rate, he knows that I was being honest AND nice, so let's hope I don't get awakened at 3:00AM any more!

Once I am safe and sound in my house, I decide to look up what my race times and workouts were 2 years ago when I did these races and won my age group to see how I compare now. Turns out I am as fast as 2 years ago, but with much longer and harder workouts the day before. So in a twisted way, I feel pretty good, and I believe I can go even faster. We shall see in 2 weeks, as I taper off the long working hours and a few more things.

Now it's time for me to get back to weekly goal-stating here, since I've been a slacker about it, and if I really want to race well in 2 weeks, even if I do a nasty 2:30 brick the day before and even if more snow comes and I'm tired when I begin, I want to do better.

So here's what I managed to pull out for last week in the face of too many obstacles to count:


Weekly Totals 02/19/2007-02/25/2007
Swim: 4400 yards (2.5 miles) in 1.5 hours; 14% of weekly workout time; approx. 525 calories burned
Bike: Approx. 77.13 miles in 4.4 hours; 40% of weekly workout time; approx. 2114 calories burned
Run: Approx. 23.02 miles in 3.54 hours; 32% of weekly workout time; approx. 1608 calories burned
Strength: 1.67 hours; 15% of weekly workout time; approx. 418 calories burned
All Sports: Approx. 102.65 miles in 11.11 hours; approx. 4665 calories burned
Sleep: 7.57 hours avg./night
Stretching: 1.47 hours.
Massage: 2 hours

Goals for This Week:

• Work no more than 40 hours
• Sleep at least 8 hours per night
• One less cup of coffee in the morning
• No alcohol for the foreseeable future
• Stretch :30/day except the day I get a massage
• No more Valentine's candy until my weekly hours go over 14
• Back on strength training (I skipped it last week except for shoveling)
• Get in 3 solid swims of at least 2500 yards

Gee, from the sound of it, these goals are to get me back in line with my usual life. YEAH, BABY!

Rolling with the Punches

I know that in the big scheme of things that I have very few life issues to deal with. I am not married and don't have that sort of relationship to maintain. I don't have children and all the responsibility they entail. So when I experience my own life stress, I tend to downplay how much it is affecting me, because I think that I should be able to "deal," given my generally easy life.

Now this is not to say that I don't have good coping mechanisms--I believe I do, and I cultivate resiliency on a daily basis. It's funny that exercise is spoken of as a stress reliever--but when you do as much as I do (and as much as many of you who read this blog do), there comes a point when the exercise has to go.

If you were here reading about a year ago, you saw me continue to train like crazy even while my mom was hospitalized and her condition worsened. Even the week of her death, I managed to bang out my heaviest training week in preparation for Ironman Brazil. On the plus side, though, I didn't work that entire week, so there was a sort of balancing act going on. I can usually handle life stress plus exercise; life stress plus work stress plus lots of exercise not so much.

And so that is what happened to me this week (and it gets even better--keep reading!). I got a new boss a week ago Friday. That was to the good. Then the almost old boss gets on my case about why am I working so many hours, as if to tell me that I shouldn't want to create a quality product (since nobody else was putting in the hours). Well (language) fuck me in the ass for wanting to do a good job. Then she (the almost ex-boss) instructs a coworker of mine to do the dirty work for her (who is also too clueless to understand what I am doing) by chewing me out in front of another colleague. This went down on Thursday.

I already hadn't been getting adequate sleep for 2-3 weeks. This past Tuesday, I got on my bike, and after about 1/2 hour, decided it just wasn't going to happen. On Wednesday, I skipped 2 workouts and decided that as long as I was going down, I may as well go down in style, so I had a few too many beers (3) and ate a bunch of chips as part of my dinner. This is not something I normally do, but I figured as long as I was temporarily a workaholic and skipping workouts that I may as well see how the other half lives. I do not like it!

Later in the day on Thursday, I had a talk with my new boss, and we agreed that if I was at a good stopping point for the week that I didn't need to work on Friday! Yippee. That is something the soon-to-be-ex-boss would never have done. So I looked forward to yesterday.

The day started out promising enough. I had a great swim, in cool, clean water (a direct result of the chat I had with the Aquatic Director on Tuesday). I went to Starbucks and bought 2.5 pounds of great beans with a gift card I got for Christmas. I contacted a few friends. I ordered FOUR more Splish swimsuits--I wrote in my order comments that I am addicted to their product. I ordered a new battery for my cellphone (I get a discount through work, which is nice). I did a little housecleaning. I guess I was catching up for my last 3 weeks gone badly.

I decided to get in a :30 run, since I had skipped Wednesday's track workout, and I was going to run outdoors. I had to call a customer at 2PM, and that call lasted longer than I had wanted it to (and I hadn't yet eaten lunch), but I controlled the situation (unhappy customer, part of my job), and we ended up on a good note. I checked my email, and I had received something about this project I'm working on from someone who, frankly, is a bit of a loose cannon at times. I wrote very detailed specifications about file manipulations, and there was extra data on a transaction record, and I had told him about it. From the tone of the email (which as you all know, you cannot read into, but it's natural to do it anyway), he was telling me I had written poor instructions. Rather than continue on in accusatory email, I picked up the phone and called him. We straightened things out, I think, but I still have concerns that he just goes off and does stuff when it's not necessary.

So now it's 3:30 and I still haven't eaten lunch and I go to run outdoors, because it's about 30 degrees, and I haven't run outside in awhile. I can tell that I am still stressed out, because of how the run feels to me, and my first mile was slower than I expected. But that's OK, I was just running for frequency. About 1.75 or so miles out, I turn around to head home, and thankfully the winter wind is now at my back. I'm at the 1 mile from home mark and out of the corner of my right eye I see 2 young boys (8-10 years old) walking 2 small dogs on the sidewalk (I'm on the road). No big deal, right? Nope. One of the dogs gets angry, the kid loses the leash, and the thing runs up and tries to grab my hand to bite. So I let loose of my glove (my hand is more important) and the thing bites me in the leg, all the while I am screaming at the kid to get the dog under control. It was an old beagle. I ask the kid for his phone number (because I am not going to chase him home with that angry dog), and he lies to me (as the police later verified), and I run home, loaded with adrenaline coursing through my body. I at least drank some Endurox R4, called the police to file a police report, and then I had to go to the ER to get a tetanus shot and antibiotics. I have not eaten since 10AM at this point, so I took a bar and a bottle of water with me so I didn't pass out from hypoglycemia. I was there 3 hours, so the rest of my "restful" day was not so much. On my way to the ER, I parked and walked a bit near where I was bit, and I think I know where the dog lives. Trust me, I will figure it out, and Nick, the nice policeman, said to give him a call if I can identify the house where the dog lives. I'm out $50 for the ER visit and another probably $25 for the drugs. I am also going to tell them to pay for my $80 running tights which are now ruined.

And then this morning my neighbor wakes me up at 3AM with the stereo blaring, which is why I'm now awake and writing, as once I woke up, my brain just started replaying all the events of the week. I figure I'll somehow make it through some level of workouts today, and then pass out and be raring to go for my race tomorrow. My left arm hurts where the nurse gave me the tetanus shot (I declined on having it in my ass because I am on my bike today), my right leg hurts where I was bit by the dog, I did not get any sleep last night, I am probably behind on my nutrition for the day, and I have a 2:30 workout to do and groceries to buy.

But wait, there's more--this afternoon we are under a winter storm watch, so I am crossing my fingers that it's not so bad early tomorrow when I'm driving to my race.

On the plus side, I am getting a lot of life crap over with in a few weeks. At the end of the day, I am still very happy about my new boss--he's a straight up guy (ex-Navy), and I already feel like I can say anything to him. And he's a CHUCK NORRIS fan! What's not to like about that? And I know that I am going to get back on my sleeping and nutrition.

I know that I am a person that is challenging to manage and relate to--I have exceedingly high expectations not only of myself but of others--but I also deliver, and I deliver well, and I deliver quickly and honestly. But more and more, I am coming to the conclusion that in business and in many areas of life, what the people want is mediocrity. I am not that. I will not be that, I will not become that, I will not stoop to the level of not having goals, not wanting to make a contribution, not becoming as knowledgeable as I can about things that matter to me and the rest of the world, not wanting to stand out and shine, not wanting to excel, not wanting to be my very best as often as possible. I will not be the person who learns nothing, knows nothing, says nothing, does nothing, acts randomly, cultivates excuses and coasts through life. Others may not like me for demanding so much of them, but in the end they like themselves better because of it. Why? Because that's how we become better people. By seeking new challenges and rising up to meet them. I cherish and will defend to the death friends and relationships (business and personal) that challenge me in ways that force me to learn and grow; otherwise, I mentally toss them aside as mere chaff. Harsh, you may say, but nobody ever became great by submersing themselves in mediocrity. When I find myself surrounded by mediocrity and piss-poor standards, I make my own challenges and raise the bar. Some would accuse me of being a troublemaker or malcontent. Fine. Keep living in your vacuum of consciousness and world of inertia. Not me. Not today. Not ever.

This One's for Momo

I can't believe I hadn't found Momo before. But now I have. Thank you, Momo, and others for being real people.

Those girls to the left? Them's be part of my bitchin' collection of Barbie dolls. I have others--the current count is 16. I got one at Ironman Brazil last year that's wearing FMP's. I have Cali Girl that I refer to as "Whore Barbie" (well, really all of them are stinking whores, who am I kidding?), because when my mom bought it for me, she told me she asked the store if they had "CALL GIRL Barbie." I have the first Barbie doll I got when they were first made, and she's wearing a hula outfit right now.

These girls do NOT exercise. And yet they have hourglass figures and are beautiful and have a nice complexion. BITCHES!

I'd like a Triathlon Barbie. I could make her outfit except that my vision is so wacky now that forget it trying to sew minute little things out of spandex. Damn, though, if I DID have triathlon Barbie (TB), then I would be firing up a whole NEW collection of gadgets for her. Like my own obsession isn't enough.

Triathlon Barbie gets her first tri bike.

Triathlon Barbie gets a power meter.

Triathlon Barbie gets race wheels.

Triathlon Barbie gets a coach.....

Then I'd have to start another blog about TB's training exploits. I can tell you that I, as her coach (who else would coach her? Oh wait, she has a huge rack I guess they'd be lining up) would make her do harder workouts than I do, and then I'd get to watch her boobs disappear because her bodyfat got so low and she'd stop wearing makeup (too time-consuming) and perfume (hard to hide that chlorine smell). Every other day I would yell at her, "Hey you stupid bitch, get on that bike right now and give me 5 FT intervals." And she'd be all like, "My legs don't bend so well I'm having trouble on the bike," and I'd be all, "Too bad, bitch, saddle up and make the best of it."

If I had TB, then I suppose I'd have to get Triathlon Ken (it is ironic that my ex-husband's name is Ken). But TK would get all wigged out because TB was getting so fast on the bike and even letting him draft occasionally in training (again, ironic, because my ex-husband was insecure because I am so much smarter than him and he told me so--not that he was a dumbass, he wasn't, but still he claimed I "intimidated" him. And I helped him with his master's Computer Science project which he couldn't figure out on his own). And TK would be all like, "Hey, TB, I'm not getting enough lovin' because you are so competitive and always training and tired from training." And then TB would have to boot TK's sorry ass. Sorry guys, I'm not saying you are all like that. But I KNOW that Triathlon Ken probably is :)

I guess it's a good thing that Triathlon Barbie doesn't exist. I really did try to write to Mattell to tell them to make one, but you aren't allowed to do that on the Internet. They could make a small fortune off of Triathlon Barbie and all her gear. Maybe I should write Graham Fraser and ask him to team up with Mattell for Ironman Barbie. They could sell her when you register on Active.com. That's a no-brainer. Even guys would buy her, or better yet, offer Ironman Ken for the guys (ironically he is built nearly anatomically correct for a male triathlete). I'd strap Ironman Barbie onto my X-Lab on the bike and make her suffer while I'm putting out wattage.

Thanks, Momo. You inspired me.

Dear Anonymous

I changed my Comments settings to disallow anonymous comments.

So whoever the anonymous folks are trolling around looking to post their little angry judgmental anonymous comments, "TA TA."

If you're not big enough to say who you are, then I don't care. I don't comment anonymously on your (invisible?) blog, so you don't get to do so on mine. If this gets you all fired up and you get a userid and still flame away, great, but no identity, no tickie. I'll be sending Chuck Norris after you. And trust me, he KNOWS who you are, even if I don't.

I didn't ask you to come here, so from now on, you don't like what you see or read, you can stew in your own juices, talk about me on some private website or whatever it is you do.

And oh, yeah, I have grown up and I DO, in fact, have a sense of humor, so sometimes I might post something a little risque or non-PC (according to your standards). But you know what? I accept whatever comments come my way, even the "get a life" ones, as long as the person is upstanding and willing to say who they are. Because all perspectives are welcome.

To all of you brave enough to have an identity (talk about an oxymoron) and tell me what you think, whether it's "you're inspiring" or "you're an ass" or whatever, that's what I'm here for.

Weekly Workout Totals 2/11/2007-2/17/2007 and Chuck Norris Helped Me Out Today

Have you seen the new Chuck Norris commercial for Mountain Dew? Go here and click on the link for Chuck. This is like combining two of my favorite things--Chuck Norris and Mountain Dew (well really Code Red, but I'll let that one slide).

So I'm at the Y today. I watched some sort of ski racing, where 2 guys would downhill together in a 1 on 1 race, then some pretty extreme snowboarding. At some point, the Chuck Norris commercial came on, and I had to even move my headphones to the TV set to listen to it. I like many of the Mountain Dew commercials--they are just so catchy and chock full of action. 1 hour into my 1:40 run (after a 1-hour swim) I needed to go to the bathroom. On my way there, I decide to ask two of the trainers there (one of whom I'm friends with) if they've seen this commercial. No they haven't, but one guy (the one I don't know well) and I exchange "Chuck Norris-isms" and have some good laughs.

I head to the ladies' room and I am just getting out of the stall when in rushes this woman who I notice has 2 bloody hands. I asked her what happened, and she said something about a basketball hitting her, and I could see she was bleeding profusely, and I just happened to have a sweat towel in my hand (I had picked up a fresh one to use once I got back on the gerbil wheel) and I told her to give me the hand that was hit. Here she was trying to wash off blood that wasn't going to stop coming. I compressed the towel around her hand and held it in the air and told her to try and relax that we would go get some help. On the way out, I told her that she wasn't to do anything but keep her focus and stay with me. I opened doors and knew what to do. I marched her back into the cardio room and told the people at the desk that she needs medical attention. I knew she needed constant compression on the hand (her pinkie finger, actually) to stanch the bleeding, and I thought she would probably need stitches. She was really frazzled, but we got her in a chair with her arm raised, someone called her husband, and once I knew things were under control, I returned to the treadmill for my last :40.

So if I hadn't seen the Chuck Norris commercial, I wouldn't have stopped by the trainer desk on my way to the bathroom and wasted about 3 minutes, and then I wouldn't have run into this woman who was bleeding like a faucet, and gosh, she might have passed out on the floor of the bathroom or hit her head on her way down or something! So hats off to Chuck Norris--he really does control everything.

This week in training was interesting trying to recover from last weekend's festival, and I continued to put in a lot of hours at work which caused me to sleep less, and you know what happens with that combination--my bike workouts were for shit, but I still swam and ran well, including another track workout on Wednesday (it seems I am running on a track a lot lately!), and today's suffer fest running after a swim, preceded by yesterday's, OF COURSE, fucking monstrous bike workout with a brick run afterwards.

Yes, there were days this week, actually every day, when I thought how the hell am I going to work out, but I know that I would feel worse if I didn't in terms of stress control, so I did everything I was supposed to. My workload eases up this week, thankfully, since I have another race in a week! And yes, I stalked the woman who beat me 2 weeks ago. My nemesis is in a wave after me this time, but that doesn't matter, I have to go harder than 2 weeks ago! Turns out we were pretty equally matched on the bike and the run, but she's clearly a better swimmer, and I might not be able to top that unless I really give it hell on the bike (since you are scored by total distance covered). On the plus side, in years past when I've done these races, I didn't hit my stride until the 3rd or 4th one, but I'm already doing better on the first time out, so maybe I can beat her. If not, well then, I just suck donkey balls. I did stalk my nemesis totally--turns out she's a "sprint" racer is all. Sure, I feel good knowing that I can haul ass in a short race, too, given that I train for the long shit, but I still want to be fast and place whenever I race. That's just me. Give me something to be competitive about, and I'm all over it.

Speaking of which, on Friday, we had a meeting at work in the late morning and there was a management shakeup. I think it's for the good for me, though, as I know someone who works for my soon-to-be manager, and the new guy is an ex-Marine, just like my fabulous, hottie coach, and I get along well with people like that, because I'm a no-small-talk, let's get it done sort of person (gee, could you tell from reading this blog?). But of course, when you switch managers you need to prove yourself all over again, and again, I think I'm in a good spot being the mastermind behind the current project I'm working on so that's cool.

Oh and we got a good dumping of snow here in Chicagoland this week, so I got in extra strength sessions shoveling snow. It's all good.

All I need to do now is get back on my sleep. I feel poised for some good--no, GREAT--bike workouts this week, and intend to hit the next indoor triathlon with all pistons firing.

As an FYI, if you went looking for a post that disappeared, well, sorry about that. I posted some pictures of myself that one person found offensive (I am not sure why--it's not like I'm disgusting, or if I am, someone PLEASE TELL ME), and then I thought about it and thought hmmmm...maybe I shouldn't leave those up for the world to see. But trust me, they are GOOD pictures, and I am not ashamed in the least, but then again I don't need pervs downloading pics of me to do whatever they like to do. Oh well, I am not doing this to become (in)famous!

Here are the happy totals for the week that was:


Weekly Totals 02/12/2007-02/18/2007
Swim: 7300 yards (4.14 miles) in 2.62 hours; 18% of weekly workout time; approx. 917 calories burned
Bike: Approx. 84.88 miles in 4.85 hours; 33% of weekly workout time; approx. 2321 calories burned
Run: Approx. 25.3 miles in 4 hours; 27% of weekly workout time; approx. 1820 calories burned
Strength: 3.37 hours; 23% of weekly workout time; approx. 843 calories burned
All Sports: Approx. 114.32 miles in 14.84 hours; approx. 5901 calories burned
Sleep: 7.93 hours avg./night
Stretching: 2.63 hours. Massage: 1.5 hours

Weekly Workout Totals 2/5/2007-2/11/2007 and Totally Gonzo Weekend 1

But first, some pictures (click on them for full size!). The first one is from the 1/2 marathon at Goofy Challenge from this past January, and the second is from the Miami Man 1/2 Ironman last November (where I won my age group).

Since I do a fair amount of racing, it can be expensive to purchase race-produced photos, but some are just worth it to me. I hope that when I am 70 I will look back on these photos of me at the age of 50 fondly. Plus, for some reason, my sisters and dad wanted copies of these, and it would be rude to make them pay for them, and one extra copy doesn't cost too much, so I got me some, too.

Last week was amazing in many ways--my first totally Gonzo weekend, including a race followed by a 1:40 run (more on that later), I figured out how to program this database stuff at work for this big project I'm working on (finally!), and I had some car problems.

Yes, on Saturday, after spending 2 brutal hours on the trainer, I was on my way to the Y to do a short brick run, and I was maybe 2 doors from home, and I could tell something didn't feel right, and I suspected a flat tire, and I was right. So I backed up and drove into my garage and fixed it. I have these rims on my car that I've been told are susceptible to the tire coming off, especially during the cold because of all the chemicals on the roads for snow and ice control. So I decided to bag the run and change the flat. No big deal. I've done this before, and at least it wasn't -10 like it had been earlier in the week!

After changing the flat, I went back inside to eat lunch and relax a bit before heading out to the grocery store and fill up my car with gas. I get in the car, hit the ignition and hear, "CLICK CLICK CLICK." Fuck. I was pretty sure it wasn't the battery, but I did 2 things: went to my neighbor's house and asked him if he'd give me a jump and called my Dad. The "kid" (I think he's late 20's maybe early 30's) next door was probably stoned when he answered the door. He said he didn't have jumper cables, but I said I did. Meanwhile, I was on the phone with my Dad, waiting for this idiot next door to show up. It was over 10 minutes before the kid showed, so clearly he wasn't moving very fast. At any rate, Dad and the kid all agreed it wasn't a battery problem since the headlights illuminated fully as did the accessories. It's probably the starter motor, and I'm getting it towed in today to fix that, the flat tire, and gee, it's time for an oil change! So I guess I'm lucky all this happened from home, right?

Next issue: How do I get to my race (yesterday)? After laughing off the car troubles, I called my friend (and massage therapist) to ask if he could drive me to and pick me up from my race/workout the next day. Luckily, my race wave didn't go off until 1:00PM, and Harlan usually meditates for about 3 hours on Sunday mornings, so I didn't think this would mess up his schedule. He said he would chauffeur me. In exchange, well this is really comical and will show you what a nerd I am (and Harlan, too, which is one of the reasons I like him so much).

Friday evening when I was getting a massage, Harlan and I were talking about all sorts of stuff, and I told him about the project I'm working on at work, and how I enjoy doing that sort of thing, but that I always have this sense of repetition about the process. I am one of those people who sees things as more alike than different, when it comes to qualitative analysis. Included in my mathematics studies in college was topology, which was a class I just HAD to take because when I was a kid, we had this set of Time-Life books on various subjects, one of which was mathematics, and the stuff about topology fascinated me. Anyway, when you talk about things being the same, that has an analogy to the topological term "genus." So I thought about that and then Harlan and I talked about Mobius (sorry no umlaut) strips. I told him that sometimes I felt one-dimensional like that but that at other times it feels as if my mind is all around me in space like scattered molecules. Turns out I was experiencing a moment of what I would say is close to Nirvana--my body was feeling most excellent being worked on and I was describing my thought processes and my sense of sometimes feeling one-dimensional yet at the same time feeling way more than 3-dimension from a mental perspective. It's tough to put it into words here, but it was truly a special moment.

Anyway, I told Harlan that occasionally I would make a huge Mobius strip out of newspaper so that I could cut in half, and again in half, just to see what the thing turned into. Harlan had never done that, so I made him a 6-foot circumference (although technically, the circumference of a Mobius strip is infinite) Mobius strip, and gave it to him when he picked me up yesterday around 11:45.

I went to my race, and truthfully, I had no idea how I would do. I got there in time to see a friend, Mary Jo (new blog link to be attached once I get her URL), on the bike, and so I cheered her on for a few minutes. I then went and got a 15-minute massage (I AM a massage whore), which felt awesome. As I was about to start my swim, MJ and her husband came on deck to be my personal cheering section! They really didn't need to stay, but it was so nice of them. I complimented MJ on her newly buffed out physique, and she told me I was her inspiration (aw, shucks).

I swam evenly, but I guess not too fast--only 500 yards in 10 minutes? I am slow, but not THAT slow (I will check the results when they are posted online later today). I think they stiffed us on time or else I was just tired. Whatever. Next we head to the bikes, and MJ and hubby are there. Oh, by the way, I have this total hottie volunteer guy, Joe, as my scorekeeper. He asked me when I wanted to be fanned on the bike, and I told him I would just point. I had brought my Motley Crue (again, missing the umlaut, what's up with umlauts in this post?) CD to listen to, which was good considering the music they were playing sucked. I'm jamming, I'm getting fanned, I'm hurting, but I banged out 6 miles on that fucking Precor bike (I HATE those things). When I got off the bike, I just about puked, but I was actually looking forward to the run. Oh--I was the best biker in my wave, beating all the men. MJ told me that very few people were getting 6 miles on those things. By the way, she's an AWESOME athlete--freaking great swimmer who has turned into a great runner (she qualified for Boston a couple of months ago) and triathlete.

Upstairs to the track, and here we go. I left the headphones off, as I just wanted to run. My hottie, Joe, is yelling "Go Sheila" after every lap, and then I can hear MJ yelling, and then I hear someone calling my name on the megaphone. Turns out that the head dude decided I was the one in the wave to be cheered on. It was so much fun. I had my own personal cheering section! But I encouraged other, slower athletes, while I was out there, after all, we are all doing the best we can. Every so often I would try and crack a smile just to let my "fans" know I was doing OK. Good thing Joe was counting my laps, because after 1 mile (the track is 12 laps to the mile), I just lost count and was just trying to maintain pace. I went out a bit too fast (someone called out my first lap split to which I replied, "TOO FAST"), but then settled in. Turns out I ran dead-on 8:00/mile. Good thing on Wednesday I did a track workout where I decided that my 5K track pace repeats should be at 7:55. I guess I should go lower this Wednesday!

So after all that, I had a great race and figured I HAD to have won my age group. Nope. I SUCK. Some woman that I don't know beat me by probably 1 swim length or something. I need to look at the final results to see what I need to do next time to beat her (which I fully intend to do if she shows up).

I said farewell to MJ and hubby, and then got another massage. THANK GOD! Actually, I didn't feel that bad right away, after all that was a short workout. But then I headed to the treadmill to bang out a 1:40 run.

The first :30 didn't feel too bad, as it was Zone 1 pace. As I began to go into Zone 2, though, not so much. But, hey, I asked for this, so I'm going to do it. I have to say, though, that getting some "strange" (running in a gym that I don't belong to) made it a little more bearable. Plus, I got to watch the volunteers take down banners, move the Precor bikes back to their homes and lower the basketball hoops (the bikes were put onto the basketball court for the race). I decided to extend my :30 of Zone 1 to :40, which was a good idea, as when I went into Zone 2 it didn't feel too bad. I decided that my last :20 of the run would be back on the track, just to see what I could muster at that point.

Believe it or not, it was cooler on the track, even though it is upstairs from the treadmill at this club. Their track is nice and cushy, so it felt nice to be on it again. I managed a decent Zone 3 pace, but it felt like a lot more work than it usually does during a long run (gee, I wonder why?).

I was so happy to be done with all of that, and bonus, I scored some Accelerade (they had reps there, but I didn't touch the stuff while racing because it will make me puke, but I can use it at other times) and fruit. Since I will be without car for 2 days, I won't be able to go buy fresh fruit, so again, the universe shined on me by providing me with some fruit for the next few days.

Oh, and I did do "work" work on the weekend, too. So it made for some pretty Gonzo stuff, is all I can say. My workout totals don't look all that great, but trust me, it was hard stuff! Now the trick is to see how I recover from this. I stretched out well last night, and slept well, but I am sure I'm behind on some calories (I didn't eat any "real" food between 7:00AM and 6:00PM). I have an easy run scheduled, and I think I'll be fine there, and also I will lift weights today. I may ask my mechanic to at least drive me to the Y (I can walk home) after they pick up my car with the tow truck.

My last thought to pass along--the neighbor kid told me I must be really bummed about my car. Truthfully, I wasn't. I told him that a lot worse things could happen. See, this is one of the things triathlon (especially the long-distance variety) gives you. A perspective on things that the little things really don't matter much. I had no car, I still raced, I did well, I lived to tell the tale. It's all good!

Weekly Totals 02/05/2007-02/11/2007
Swim: 5000 yards (2.84 miles) in 1.65 hours; 14% of weekly workout time; approx. 578 calories burned
Bike: Approx. 87.21 miles in 4.98 hours; 42% of weekly workout time; approx. 2389 calories burned
Run: Approx. 24.61 miles in 3.75 hours; 32% of weekly workout time; approx. 1706 calories burned
Strength: 1.5 hours; 13% of weekly workout time; approx. 375 calories burned
All Sports: Approx. 114.66 miles in 11.88 hours; approx. 5048 calories burned
Sleep: 7 hours avg./night
Stretching: 2.22 hours. Massage: 2 hours

Weekly Workout Totals 1/29/2007-2/4/2007

I'm in mourning over the Bears loss to the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday. The Bears stunk up the joint. No further comments.

This Sunday I have my first indoor race in the series of 4. It should be interesting. For 2 weekends straight now I have knocked out some serious intensity. A week ago Sunday I thought I was going to collapse after the 1-hour swim/1:40 run combo. This past Sunday when I did it, it was almost worse, because, you guessed it, the bike workout on Saturday was even harder than the prior week. And that Saturday bike workout gets harder this week, too (as do my Tuesday/Thursday bike workouts). And my strength training is moving along. I'm in week 2 of 5 weeks of strength/endurance. This week is a mix of 2x8 power (heavy weight) and 2x20 endurance (slightly lighter weight). And tomorrow I start doing track workouts!

Truth be told, I went to sleep at 8:30 Sunday night. I was so shelled and the Bears were doing so poorly, I figured I wasn't going to miss anything, so down I went. Yesterday morning, even though I had slept long and well, I still felt pretty worked. But my priority for yesterday was a run, and then perhaps a short recovery swim, and then if I had anything left at the end of the day, knock out some of the ghastly strength workout.

Without even drinking any additional caffeine besides my morning coffee (and I love that morning coffee), I headed to the Y a little after noon. I got on the treadmill, and as tired as I was, running felt absolutely great! I didn't feel the least bit muscularly fatigued. I guess that means my body is adapting to the Gonzo training. I suppose having 2 Goofy Challenges under my belt doesn't hurt, either.

I needed to decompress from a work project (yes, work--I actually worked 56 hours last week--something I haven't done for about 5 years--on something that I am thoroughly enjoying, because I am writing technical specifications for essentially all this database massaging), so I hit the pool and banged out 1100 yards at a pretty good pace. I went back home and worked until 5:00PM (I had started at 5:30AM, ah the pleasures of working from home), and was trying to decide did I want to get some of my strength workout in or did I want a beer and nachos? I had made 2 small trays of my best nachos (good tortilla chips, smear about 1 tsp. fat-free refried beans on each one, top with a generous slice of pickled jalapeno, add about 1 tsp. Newman's Own medium lime salsa, and finally top with a suitably sized slice of Gouda, microwave for about a minute until cheese is melted), and you'd think I could have finished them all on Sunday night, what with the amount of exercise I had done. But no, I had (still have) leftovers, and boy are they tasty, so last night I really was struggling between doing a third workout and having a beer and nachos.

I must be nuts, because I decided to hit the weights, knowing that those nachos would taste a whole lot better afterwards. I got in :48 including abs and core, legs, tris and back. So all I have to finish up today are chest, bis and delts. And I slept really well last night except for 1 hour where I was laying in bed "scrolling" (just thinking about stuff--I never obsess about this, as when it happens it seems to be necessary for my brain). And I feel wonderful this morning, despite all the strange dreams I had.

So all in all, life is good. I'm enjoying running a rather large, global project at work, I'm doing nutso training, I get to start racing, it's stinking cold (yesterday it was -12 when I woke up; today only -2) and I'm feeling pretty strong, which is amazing considering it's only been FOUR WEEKS since Goofy Challenge! And I thought last winter I was doing some pretty amazing training. As always, I can't expect to get stronger doing the same thing, so now it's more, more, more!

I leave you with the Crackhead motto and then my weekly totals for last week, which doesn't appear to be a lot of volume (not for me, anyway), but trust me it's intense:

"Harder, longer, faster, tougher, repeat."
--Crackhead

Weekly Totals 01/29/2007-02/04/2007
Swim: 9750 yards (5.53 miles) in 3.33 hours; 25% of weekly workout time; approx. 1167 calories burned
Bike: Approx. 81.09 miles in 4.63 hours; 35% of weekly workout time; approx. 2385 calories burned
Run: Approx. 24.61 miles in 3.83 hours; 29% of weekly workout time; approx. 1744 calories burned
Strength: 1.28 hours; 10% of weekly workout time; approx. 320 calories burned
All Sports: Approx. 111.23 miles in 13.07 hours; approx. 5616 calories burned
Sleep: 8.29 hours avg./night
Stretching: 1.95 hours. Massage: 1.5 hours

Weekly Workout Totals 1/22/2007-1/28/2007 and Beginning of Gonzo Training, or FEAR OF LOAFING

As readers may have come to expect from me, it's been 3 weeks since Goofy Challenge, and I am already training for my next big thing. If I haven't said it before, I love my coach, because we have a good relationship whereby I decide to do crazy shit, and he and I work out a good training plan together.

Beginning 2/11, I will be doing an indoor sprint triathlon every other Sunday for 8 weeks, so there are 4 of them. When I have done these in the past (I skipped last year, but did them the prior 3 years, capturing tons of medals, winning my age group for the series in 2005), that would be all I would do that day. But I'm preparing for Desoto American Triple T, so this time, I will do the race and then do my long run afterwards.

Coach structured last week's training and the next 4 weeks taking this into consideration. Last Friday, there was nothing on my schedule. NOTHING. A REST DAY. But in my infinite Crackheaded wisdom, I figured I could swim and get in a 5th run for the week. I did the swim in the morning, but as the day wore on, it seemed like running would not be a good idea. So I didn't. And I understood why there wasn't one scheduled. Saturday I did a 2-hour ride with plenty o' intensity followed by a :30 run (and once again I nearly fainted on the treadmill it was so fucking HOT in the gym), and then yesterday I began the pattern of training for the next 4 weeks, with a 1:00 swim and 1:40 long run scheduled.

Yesterday I figured I should swim before the long run, to prepare for 2 weeks out where I will do a race first and then a long run. I got into the pool yesterday morning thinking I only needed to swim :30, since I had added a swim on Friday, but then it felt good to be in the (relatively) cool water, and I thought it would cool me down before my treadmill run, and I was just doing drills, so I kept going and swam 2800 yards. While I was swimming, I kept telling myself to think only about swimming and not the fact that I needed to run 1:40 afterwards. After all, I do this all the time in races, right? Even though I was doing a drill workout, I thought that I am starting to see an impact of some of the things I've been doing in my swim workouts this season. I may even be getting a bit faster again!

Anyway, I get on the treadmill and it's plenty hot. Funny thing is that before I began working with Rich, I would swim about 1 hour and then do a long run every Saturday. And true to form, I was trashed most of the time when I trained that way, because I would do a long ride on Sunday (>3 hours), and that sequence just doesn't work for me (in spring/summer, my long run is on Thursday so I can ride long on Saturday and Sunday; right now my "long" ride is only 2-2:30, so I can easily tolerate a hard long run the next day. General wisdom says you should separate your key workouts by 48 hours). So I was curious as to how yesterday's run would go. As it turns out, no worries--my legs felt fine, and I even forgot what my different paces were and ended up running a bit faster than I needed to. I was careful to eat a gel every hour, so when I finished the run I wasn't quite starving. But I went home, grabbed Endurox R4, drove to Radio Shack to get a battery for my cordless phone, and during that short trip (under :30), I realized how tired and hungry I was. I went home and enjoyed some pasta (I will need to eat pasta on Saturday and Sunday for the next 8 weeks or so to ensure I am taking in sufficient carbs), put a chicken in the oven to roast, stretched, and then ate again around 7PM.

Today I'm scheduled for strength training and an easy run, but I will also do a short recovery swim. So Rich has me basically off on Fridays, and very easy on Mondays, with Saturday and Sunday being pretty difficult. Mind you, it's not like my bike workouts are in a holding pattern here--they are getting progressively harder every week, and I am now in the Power/Endurance phase of strength training, and beginning a week from Wednesday, I start doing track workouts on Wednesdays (5K and 10K intervals), so you put all that together with 4 races in 8 weeks, and that's what I call Gonzo Training.

I got excited thinking about it Saturday when I looked at my upcoming training schedule. I am excited to see how well I can do in the races with such a hard workout the day before, and to see how those long runs are going to feel and how well I will recover. And I know this is absolutely *perfect* training for Triple T (not that Goofy Challenge wasn't good preparation!), and if I make it through the next weeks, well let's just say that when I take my bike outside and start hitting the streets, I am going to be one strong mofo, or at least that's what I hope happens!

Weekly Totals 01/22/2007-01/28/2007
Swim: 9700 yards (5.51 miles) in 3.43 hours; 27% of weekly workout time; approx. 1203 calories burned
Bike: Approx. 76.42 miles in 4.37 hours; 35% of weekly workout time; approx. 2231 calories burned
Run: Approx. 24.53 miles in 3.83 hours; 30% of weekly workout time; approx. 1744 calories burned
Strength: 1.02 hours; 8% of weekly workout time; approx. 255 calories burned
All Sports: Approx. 106.46 miles in 12.65 hours; approx. 5433 calories burned
Sleep: 8.5 hours avg./night
Stretching: 2.75 hours. Massage: 1.5 hours

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