the recovery week

monday again already huh? last week was supposed to be a "recovery" week in my training.......not that i havn't been doing good, but i definately didn't feel like a deserved a recovery yet. :) i had four days off in a row making for some good training time, yes! tuesday i went for a nice 7 mile run with becky and capi (one of my favorite puppies). i felt great and barely made it to my physical therapy appointment! when i walked in he was working with a high school volleyball player (brought back some memories). i was doing on legged squats and he commented how my left leg was shakey (tired) and i mentioned that running 7 miles prior to his therapy (code for workout!) wasn't the best idea. the volleyball player's jaw dropped! "7 miles!". my physical therapist laughed and told her, "katy does ironman triathlons and runs marathons, don't ever do that!". we all laughed...(still doing my one legged squats). i remember vividly thinking that 7 miles was basically comparable to a marathon. i do have to say i'm living how i always wanted to live. i always knew endurance racing was what i LOVED i just never knew i would actually do it and LOVE it. i was watching "without limits" the steve prefontaine movie the other day (i always stop it before he dies)......and my favorite part is when they are recruiting him to run at oregon, and he says to the guys....."how 'bout an easy ten guys". i remember thinking the first time i saw it, EASY ten!?! those words don't go together!! (at the time my long run was 5 miles!). now, i'm not happy unless i can bust out a hard 10...and enjoy every step. that's where i like my fitness to be. 10 miles? no big deal. so back on track with my week! wednesfday i did the typical spin/swim out at clovis north's new amazing pool. thursday i had PT and a nice easy run. friday i took the ol' machine out for a ride....it was so nice. i just did a quick 40 miles out to the store and back. there are soooo many dead snakes on the road though, by the way! man. i can't help but squeal as i go by either! i know they are pretty well, flattened, but i can't help myself! luckily no one else was out friday, cuz i was squealing up a storm. i saw at least 5 large dead snakes, yuck! blah! eeeaeea! moving on. by friday night i was TIRED and decided to take the weekend completely off. i worked saturday and sunday.....and here i am....ready to start all over. this week has a nice twist to it, as i just found out i'm 100% for sure going to the grand canyon for the 4th of july, yay! today i got a nice swim in, tuesday will be swim/spin, wed&thurs i'll just spend time on the bike to and from work, and friday a.m. hopefully i'll get a couple miles of running in before i sit in the car for 9 hours! agh! wish me luck as this should be a wondeful, fun, hot, horrible, hysterical, atypical, memorable weekend! don't forget to take the poll if you havn't already!! agh, who cares i'm going! done and done.

back on the wagon

here i am again, late on my post.....this won't be habitual i promise (to all my devoted fans :). last week went pretty well considering i worked three days (yuck, who does that??). i got up nice and early monday morning (4:15am) for a nice swim before work. luckily, i had my very own lane at the yucky gym pool and was able to get a solid 1,500 yds of technique work in. it actually felt pretty great to get wet again. i took tuesday off of training, as i worked again, and was really tired after getting up so early the previous morning. i had my typical wednesday including a wonderful spin class and killer physical therapy session. thursday was a nice run day...i've been really focusing on my form while running (per my physical therapists orders) and found myself feeling a bit silly attempting to lengthen my stride! hopefully, i didn't look as funny as i felt (no one pointed and laughed...??). i felt really good after my nice run, way less pain than i've had the last year or so....hopefully things are getting back into alignment and all my strenuous physical therapy is paying off?? friday was my last work day of the week and i rode my bike to get my nice easy 20 mile spin in for the week....except i almost always hammer on the way home because it's SOOO fun. saturday i knew it was going to be hot, so my plan was to leave the house around 6am for my long bike ride. i found myself FINALLY ready at 6:45 (still REALLY early for me!).....and yuck! it was alreay hot and stuffy out! **grumble** i headed out auberry rd. to humphrey's station, feeling really tired and HOT by the time i got to humphrey's i thought i'd change up my planned route and head out sample rd. to pittman hill, and make a big loop back down ashlan ave. all the way to fruit. this was a nice and fun idea until i realized how boring riding on ashlan ave. for 15 miles was....especially when it was already pushing 100 degrees. my last few miles i was trying to force my HOT TEA temperatured water down as i was getting chills from being overheated (not my favorite feeling ever!). i tried to tell myself to get used to the long boring flat riding as that will be familiar terrain come november in arizona. hopefully it will be around 30 degrees cooler...but with my luck they'll have some record high that day. i got home finished a fresh water and headed out for my transition run. i only made myself run 1.5 miles rather than the usual 20 minutes since it was SOOOOO hot. my legs felt pretty darn great, and i didn't have any of my usual pains while running. nice! sunday i headed out for my "long" run....only 8 miles at this point. :) yes. NO pain....ok so maybe about a 1 on the 1-10 scale and that was 6 miles in. typically miles 3-8 there would be pain like an icepick stabbing me. so i finished this week with only one swim under my belt........and no weight lifting (outside of physical therapy)....but other than that i stayed pretty close to on-track and felt great doing it. i'm not too sore or run down, and my running pain is HOPEFULLY sub-siding! phew! onto next week, i'm optimistic as i only work two days NICE! that's more like it. how can you go wrong with four days off in a ROW! until then...you know you can leave comments right??......and p.s. take my poll. help a girl out, i've got decisions to make here.

Mermaid Sprint Triathlon

mermaid sprint triathlon in fremont was yesterday, and quite a day it was!! it's always quite a shock to the system to go fast when my main training objective is to go slooooooow and just get to the finish. it is also fun and exciting to push myself in a different way. i was lucky enough this weekend to be able to visit an old college buddy who lived near the race. i was treated like a queen, and got to re-hash my freshman year of college with my friend cherise. her family was so welcoming, they let me eat MOST of their dinner, let me take over their bedrooms with all my tri-gear, plus provided me with endless entertainment. cherise and her husband alex have a 1, 3, and 8 year old so providing entertainment was EASY!

i got up at 5:30am and headed out the door for 40 minute drive to fremont. first stop starbucks! luckily cherise and alex strategically bought their house so the starbucks is perfectly placed between her home and the freeway. NICE! i rocked out to my new michael jackson cd on the way to the race site. OOH! **high pitched m.j. style**.

i arrived at the race with PLENTY of time.....got registered, got myself set-up, and headed to the water to watch some of the other girls head out in the first wave. there were quite a few of the Just Us Girls triathlon club represented, we were all so cute in our pink and black dragonfly outfits! The first wave went off at 7:15ish.....i didn't start until 9! ho hum. i walked around checked, double checked, triple checked my gear, went for a jog, stretched...........cheered on racers. by 8:30 i was completely bored and decided to head down to the water. i'd been debating all morning wetsuit or no wetsuit. by the time 8:30 rolled around i felt so TIRED i was too lazy to put it on :). down to the water i was checking out the competition. there were some fit looking ladies in my age group. i got in the perfect water (glad i went w/o the wetsuit!) for a warm-up. i swam for about 5 minutes feeling great, but wishing i were napping instead. i had lost all motivation to race! finally, the gun fired and i tried to jump out into the lead. these girls were fast! usually i'm VERY close to the front swimmer, especially in a small group like this. by the time we reached the first bouy i was definately in the middle of the pack instead of near the front. dang! i hopped onto my bike and put the hammer down! the bike was only 11 miles and it was 3 loops. i felt like i was in a criterium race. i just put my head down and started powering away. by about mile 2 i realized this wasn't going to work. there were SO many beginners out on the course, i was almost constantly saying "on your left" wishing they would stay over. i started to get frustrated!!! by lap two i had almost crashed twice, narrowly missed a car once. by the third lap i decided i needed to chill out and just try to enjoy the day rather than be an asshole. i chilled out still pushing hard, but being more considerate of other racers. just as i approached mile 1 of my third loop. another girl on a tri-specific bike comes from behind....just HAMMERING! who does she think she is?! so i go with her. wow. we were pushing 23-24 mph at this time. just as she sneaks arount a sharp right corner, i see a group of 4 newbies in front of me panicking at cars just as they are hitting the corner......they start slamming their brakes on......i start yelling....."don't stop, don't stop, don't stop, don't stop!!" already slamming my breaks on (with no where to go around them!) if they stopped we'd all go down (as i'm headed at them at 23 mph! ). finally we all made it around the corner safely. but "tri girl was gone" i pushed hard to catch back up with her, (without getting in peoples way and being a poor sport) and just got close enough to keep her in my view. i entered T2 just as she was taking her helmet off. ok, i thought depending how she runs i can catch her. coming out of T2 i was about 100 yds behind her, but definately making up ground. then i had to squeeze my way between people in a crowded area. and i suddenly felt like i WAS not being respectful of these tri newbies, and i realized that's not how i wanted to race! this was obviously not a competitive race for MOST people out there that day. most were just trying to get thru it, and i am being a jerk! so i flipped the switch right there. i kept my competitor in sight, but started shouting "good jobs" to all the other girls out there and saying encouraging things to everyone (even my competitor at the turn around) i got no response! :) people were smiling, i was smiling....i suddenly really started to enjoy my day a whole LOT more! i didn't end up catching this girl. but i was proud of the way that i raced, it felt really good to go hard and to be encouraging at the same time. that's definately more "me" than the competitive jerk who was out there earlier! we waited around for the awards, and i hadn't seen anyone else in my age group moving like myself or the other girl, so i thought i could have placed. sure enough i was 5th place overall, and got 3rd place in my age group! nice. i won a cute pair of socks, some luna bars, and some ALCiS cream, yeah! thanks for checking in.

i had a great week this last week. i really did better with my training consisentency, even got into the water once! yeah! i have high hopes for this week even though i work three days, yuck! i'll try and post again this week to let you know how it's going and if not next week FOR SURE! thanks again, stay tuned! ;)

Just a Thought

i decided tonight after reading some of my blogs, maybe they would be better if i were to read/edit them before i actually post them?? who woulda thought? it's probably killing my mom the 8th grade teacher to read my run-ons and poor grammer to boot. i won't capitalize regularly, but that's because i feel like it's a wasted key-stroke. :) such a rebel. brooke told me that she feels like i'm telling her the story in person...and i really do just write as i'm thinking the story in my head (obviously). but, to make it better....you never know who's reading???? i'll try to start editing. at least a bit.

i've had good week so far. yes, it's only tuesday! baby steps. i rode long monday to make up for a missed ride this weekend. i miss going to prather! it was a blast! i've been doing my p.t. exercises (kinda), i rode to work today and put the HAMMER down, as i was late on the way there and in a hurry to get home! so much fun. only not in my cycling-commuter skirt, which as flattering as it is to wear around work (rather than straight-up spandex, talk about embarrassing!) not so great when you are putting the hammer down on the road. i had skirt flying everywhere. not cute at all, rather ridiculous actually. so i'm on track for a good week, i can feel it!

ok, this was supposed to just be a mini post! betcha can't wait for the race report!!!

More to Life Than Ironman

First of all let me say that of course there is more to life than ironman and i of course know that, but if i want to train well and race well and feel good on ironman day i need to pretend it's not true. (did that make sense?). I thought going into this post that I was really behind on my posting, but now that I'm looking at the calendar i'm NOT really too behind. The last two weeks have not been the best in terms of focused training. The last month has been quite the emotional, physical, roller-coaster.......which when training for an ironman is not allowed. I have to say though at this point in my minor crisis I'm able to put a positive spin on things as the challenge of this month has really taught me a lot about myself. Most importantly that it's ok for people to take care of me (which i'm not very good at). I feel like a mirror was placed in front of me allowing to look at myself and evaluate myself (not always a good thing!) BUT it allowed me to see what i need to and WANT to change so I can get better!! I approach my whole life I think with one philosophy and that is "to get better". My training has really had a huge impact on my life. You can use a lot of tough race day strategies on tough life day issues. I'm so thankful for my "support crew" in training and my "support crew" in life (mostly the same people). If not for them i couldn't race the way I want to, and if not for them I wouldn't live the way I want to. Although this month has been tough, it's also been amazing to realize how much I am loved when my tough-guy-i'm-always-fine-walls are down. I just can't say enough about that...I'm comforted knowing now that ANY time i have a problem I can depend on my friends to rally and be there! :) So, I also really realized (and this is along the same lines) through talking with my friend Mary (who I'm constantly sending postive healthy thoughts too!!) that it is OK to just be SAD! she reminded me that although my job keeps me grounded with constant reality checks. it's still ok to be sad and feel sad when sucky things happen! oh, how i appreciate her. i had no idea how much being sad would effect my training, but it really really did. I think i'm finally on the othe side of the line.....recovering and mentally preparing to be tough Katymoe again and really train hard b/c truely it's what i LOVE and that is when my eyes are wide open to EVERYTHING. i'm finally in a place where i'm looking forward to new adventures in my life, looking forward to kicking my ass training, to being 100%. I'm making changes and I like them. I'm sure i'm not out of the sad woods yet, but i'm definately getting there. again my amazing friends i can't thank you enough. i might still be sleeping on the floor if it weren't for erica, i might be alphabetizing my fridge if it weren't for "the girls" from work. i might be laying on the couch all day if it weren't for becky/lea/rachel and all my running buddies. i might be crying alone if it weren't for my wonderful mom. and i might not remember to let people take care of me if it weren't for miss mary. really this wasn't supposed to be a bummer post, it was supposed to say I'M READY! for what's next. I'M READY to start training! thanks again for listening.....and one of these days i'll actually let you know how my training is GOING! PS i'm racing next weekend in FREMONT, just a sprint. but i'll be up there with the Just us Girls team trying to remind myself how to go FAST!!! Stay tuned for a fun race report and hopefully some serious miles/yards (yes, in the pool, i may actually get in a pool this week!).

http://www.mermaidtriathlon.com/mermaidTRI08/merTRIhome.html

YEAH!