I love Penn Cycle

I’m going to say it again…I LOVE PENN CYCLE!

I’m sorry Gear West, you don’t really care about me and I have moved on.  Ok, unless you have what I need and then I guess I need to go back to you but I try really hard not to need you.

Sounds like a bad relationship doesn’t it?  Or maybe the realationship I had with my bike that didn’t fit that I bought there.  ANYWAY…

This is Rich, he’s the manager over at Penn Cycle.  I bought my new-wonderful-amazing-fast-hot bike at Penn Cycle AND they fit me on the right size, imagine that!

Rich is holding up race wheels.  Those race wheels are now on my bike for the big race, for free.  Those wheels cost more than my bike, I better not mess them up.  The one draw back, if I flat, there really isn’t a way to fix it. I know, I can feel your worry.  Don’t, I’m trying not to.

How did I get these you ask?  Cute, fast (in a racing way), funny, chatty, hot Di was at Penn getting new bike shoes and told Rich I needed some for race day. Sure enough, he told Di to have me give him a call.  So I did.  And while I was one the phone with him, I told him that I was pretty sure that if I had just walked in and talked to him, he would have NEVER handed me a pair of very pricey racing wheels.

That kinda stuff just doesn’t happen to me.  I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m funny and I have a great personality, but I don’t get free shit from boys.  I am at least glad he found that conversation funny because it could have been very weird and awkward.

Of course, I also found out he liked Surly, so I felt that the least I could do to repay the favor was to pay him off with beer.  I’ve never seen a bigger smile on someones face than when I walked in with a bunch of Surly under my arm and handed it over, along with my bike.

Thanks Penn, may these wheels make my travels very fast.

Bumps in the road

This ironman race is NOT for the faint of heart.  Anything can seem to happen, in the blink of an eye.

The day we came home from Ironman Camp in Madison, Jackie forgot her bike was mounted on the top of her car and ran it right into the garage.  Needless to to say, it broke in two, IN TWO!  So three weeks out from the race, she was on the hunt for a new bike.  Not really the thing she wanted to be doing.

(Old)

(New)

Last weekend, when we were all on our Clover Leaf of Death ride, the LAST hard ride of training, 15 miles into it Vicki went over her handle bars.

Out cold for a good 30 seconds, just laying there in the road still as a stone.  Her wrist is broken, her body is scraped up and they are is still trying to figure out why her knee swelled like a blow fish.

She is getting run through the paces; x-rays, MRIs, pulling, prodding.  She is doing everything she can to move forward and YES, still complete the race.

These are the moments, after all the months and miles and sweat, that you sometimes hit.

You can either be torn apart by them and quit or move forward and persevere.

Let’s hope the rest of the days leading up to the race are smooth sailing.

Get’n right down to it

Here we are, the LAST hard week of training before taper starts.  Honestly, I can’t believe it.  I feel like I am on the highest point of the roller coaster ride, right before the cart engages and you hear and feel the jarring of that last loud CLICK, right before free fall.

Last weekend was spent in Madison at Ironman Camp.  It was a great learning experience and I walked away feeling confident that I will cross the finish line (yes, that is my goal for this race anything above that is just frosting on the cake).   Here are the photos from the weekend.  You will notice that there is a lot of Surly beer hanging around, thanks Omar!

It became our mascot and training aid, I mean really don’t you think Surly and ironman races go together?

Anyway, here is what this last week looks like:

Mon – Do something. Easy.

Tues – 1) 4-6 mile Clearance Run. 2) Pool interval swim (50s, 100s) and plenty of technique work.

Weds – 1) Track Workout 20 400’s at 1:36 with 1 minute rest in-between. 2) 50-60 Foundation Ride.

Thurs – Open water swim @ 5:45am. 10 beach repeats (1/2 mile swim to the beach, beach repeats are .2 miles each and back to the beach we started from).

Fri – 1) 20 mile Foundation Run at 3pm (which is the time we will be starting our run in the race)  2) Optional easy pool swim to shake the legs out.

Sat – Clover Leaf of Death bike ride, plan on 70-80 miles of hell!

Sun – OFF

Almost there.  I’m going to say it again, I can’t believe it.

Crab-tab-u-lous

I’ve hit it.  Whatever “it” is, I smacked into it two days ago and it has not let go.

The past three days have got me in a place I question if I will be able to crawl out of.  That’s bullshit actually, I’ll crawl out, it’s just not pretty and very dark in there.  It’s not like I’m dying of cancer, I have CHOSEN to train for an ironman.  What was I expecting, a picnic?

The week started fine enough with a 35 mile ride and a 3 mile run (this is where Adam says I sound like his dad replaying his golf game–let’s talk Den).

Tuesday morning’s track workout got aborted due to childcare issues, so I had to do it at 3pm, when it was BLAZING hot.  Once I was on the third of 8 800’s at the track, I decided it was not smart to continue (the temp gauge in my shoe read 104 degrees) on the black track of death.

Wednesday was a 2 mile swim, which went fine and then a 60 ride.

Many months ago, Jon rode with us and spoke of his “pain cave”.  The place where you get to when it hurts so bad you don’t want to continue, but you have to, so you find a happy place and try to live in the cave and hopefully then it passes.  Well, I am pretty sure, in that 60 mile ride, that I bought a pain cave, lived in it, remodeled it, had a family in it and then sold it for another better pain cave all by mile 54.

I seriously crushed my 100 mile ride last week and crumbled on 60 this week.

Today, due to the fact I did not finish my 8×800’s (which I will reattempt next week), I got to do an 8 mile time trial run down by the river.  So for me, the goal was to run an average pace of 7:30’s or so.  THIS IS HARD WORK FOR ME PEOPLE.  Again, I had child care issues, so had to do it later in the day, thank God it was cooler and slightly breezy BUT when I came to the half way point (this tt is timed and then posted and then you race against yourself again later) there was construction on the way back, which brought me off track and out of the way on a detour.

I decided to stop to figure out how to get back (which totally screwed my time and rendered the tt useless), then I limped along wondering if I would ever get back, then I got back on track and THEN I decided to try to haul it home (darkness, should I keep going or not, does it really matter or not, who cares it’s totally a waste because it’s not the same as last time is what was beating in my brain) only to be smacked in the face with a 20 mph head wind.  Needless to say, all that effort seemed like a waste.

So here I sit, crabby, exhausted, mean and nasty. Simply wondering what problems I will have on my 18 mile run tomorrow and how the hell I am going to finish 115 miles on my bike on Saturday.

Maybe I should just bring a little bit of the Windsor along, because THAT will help with hydration in this heat.

To pluck or not to pluck

So I have this toe nail that is ready to fall off.  In fact, after I was done teaching swimming lessons today, it would flip up like the lid on a top loading washing machine.  That said, it was still hinged to the base.

It’s like when you are a kid and you have a loose tooth, did you pluck it out when it got loose or did you just wait until it dangled there so nasty for all to see, just waiting for it to fall out on its own?

I am a waiter, which is actually funny because I have no patients.  It was more that I was scared it was going to hurt.  I never let anyone touch my teeth.  I never pulled out my own teeth.  I just waited.

I am hoping the hinges of this toe nail will just let go, so when I walk off the pool deck it stops spitting and bubbling water right out of the lid.

Whatever you do…do not tell my coach

Do you see the sweat dripping off my chin?

Today is our HARD bike ride.  I was suppose to be out for a 40 mile bike ride with 10, 2 mile intervals as hard as I could.

I spent most of my time (that time without the kids so I can workout) putting the senors on my NEW BIKE!  Yes, I bought a new bike!

I got to the point where I had 1 hour and 15 minutes left before I had to pick the kids up.  Did you know I can’t ride 40 miles in 1 hour and 15 minutes?  So, I asked my coach if we could retool the workout.  I ended up on my trainer, doing basically the same thing with less miles on the front and back end.

All I know is, if he knew I was taking pictures of myself sweating like a (insert whatever you like), he would tell me I wasn’t working hard enough.

By the way, trying to train for an ironman race with three kids home over summer break is a serious BITCH!

Ironman update

So, you know how I said I was going to track a few things during this ironman training process like cost and time?

Well, here you go.

Oh sorry, those are my legs RELAXING.  I was hoping to show you my black toe nail that is ready to fall off and the enormous blister on my big toe that now has sand in it, but whatevs.

From 3/17-6/17/10 I have logged 119 hours of biking and running (I don’t wear my watch in the pool so I am not really tracking swimming) and have traveled, under my own power, 1320.5 miles.  I am guessing there is a way to find total calories..how fun would that be?

I have spent: $3223.47 on coaching, bike fixes, fittings, clothes, shoes, races, race/training nutrition and PT.  I am sure a few grand will be added for a psychologist later.

What this information does for me is solidify my goal…I WILL FINISH THIS RACE COME HELL OR HIGH WATER!

And they wrote 40 on my calf

Yesterday was the Liberty Triathlon.  70.3 miles of swimming, biking and running.

My season has typically ended with a race of this distance.  I train all summer to be able to do this.  But this year, it’s just a training on the calendar.  A base line of how things are going.  We hardly even taper.  It’s odd to say the least.

So how did the race go you ask?  Well, I had some mighty high expectations of myself…which is almost always a bad way to start.

The 1.2 mile swim: I headed into the water when the gun went off and within about 1 minute my arms and legs felt like logs, I felt like I couldn’t breath and I was having a hard time sighting the buoys.  This always happens to me.  The big FREAK OUT in the water.  I eventually found a good rhythm just in time for the wind to kick up and start bashing waves in my face.  I came out of the water and my watch said 37 minutes…a whole 5-7 minutes slower than I was hoping.

Transition 1: I went into transition, ripped off my wet suit, slide my arm warmers on and hopped on my bike.  No problems with the exception of some disappointment with the swim.

The 56 mile bike: Well, with all the bike drama I have been having I was not really looking forward to this leg of the race but they were not going to cut it out just for little’ol me, so onward.  Biking is hard for me, biking hurts and the little voice in my head just kept saying, you better just man the f*&% up if want to do well on this race.

My body was wet as I was not so quickly speeding down the road.  My hands started to become so cold that I couldn’t shift at all with my left hand and ended up doing everything with my right. This causes a little bit of unbalence and almost took me down as my elbow came up and off the aero bars.  My legs were burning and it was getting dark in my head.

It continued to get darker as my average pace slowed and the miles clipped along.  Then my team mate passed me like I was standing still.  If I didn’t like her so much I would have spit at her.  It was around that point in time that my mind and I were discussing the possibilities…just stop and not care anymore or bearing down, sucking it up and focusing on the best last leg possible.  It was my race I was racing and I had to let go who was passing me and that I might not catch them today.

I could fold or I could fight.

Transition 2: I happily slapped my bike on the rack and decided to sit down to put my shoes on.  I could not find my Yankz last night (bungee cords for your shoes) so I had to tie my shoes instead of just slip them on.  This proved to be a serious problem, I couldn’t feel my fingers and they were not going to let me do something as nimble as tie my laces.  So my shoes were on, but not tight.  I couldn’t even unclasp my helmet because my fingers couldn’t pinch hard enough to get the clasp undone, so I wiggled it around my chin and slipped it off.  Minuets wasted!

The run 13.1 miles: I decided I would just let the laces go, even though my feet were slipping around in my shoes from not being tight enough.  A friend yelled out that my feet and hands would get their feeling back around mile four, so I was determined to run until then, and then I could fix the problem.

Back on the bike, I decided to fight.  I decided to pull myself out of the not so happy place I was in and decided to do whatever I could to make the run the best it could be.  I took it one mile at a time, watching my pace and working the down hills as much as possible.  I was feeling pretty good, which meant the nutrition plan on the bike was good.  The miles clipped by as the rain kept coming.  I never stopped to tie my shoes again, why waste more time?  I finished the run leg in 1:48:30, almost catching my own half marathon PR of 1:47:50.  Not bad.

My finishing time 5:26:34. 5th in my age group (yup, they bumped me up to 40 even though I am 39 for two more days) and 11th over all the ladies.

My lesson learned this race, I am tough enough to pull myself out of a mental tail spin.  I’m gonna call that a success.

And kudos to all my buddies, my coach and my team mates racing yesterday.  You can find Diane 5th over all, Courtney 7th and jMatt 9th on leader board.  AND huge props to Cousin Katherine who WON the Olympic Distance race.

It’s super cool to race with such a talented group of people.

6 am

This morning was the first lake swim of the season.  It is one mile to that beach in the photo and back and it couldn’t have been nicer, with the exception of the weeds we got caught up in around the middle.  But that just makes for lively swimming.

Tomorrow, the Stillwater 20 mile run!

Race #1 Down

The first race of the season was kicked off yesterday in between the slow roasting of a pork shoulder and PJ’s birthday party.

Katie, Laura and I headed out to Wayzata to run the Lake Minnetonka half marathon.  This photo was taken just before we shut the doors to the car and walked to the start line.

The race went well for all of us yesterday.  If I remember correctly, Katie is already talking about a spring marathon next year…let’s get planning!

I went into the race just wanting to run well, whatever that meant for the day.  I felt really good all they way around and ended up with a PR, coming in at 1:47.  That’s 4 minutes off my best race!  Needless to say, I’m thrilled