Uh...Do I still have this blog?

I can't even remember what color I left it.

Next month I'll be starting a marathon training program for the Rome Marathon in March and I would like to get back into the habit of writing about my runs. Trying to keep up with this summer's activities was just too much...

But the summer basically boiled down to this:

(This post is about me reconciling with universe who is watching and listening and is holding me accountable for whatever it is I say I'm going to do.)

Sundays: work, sometimes bikram, triathlons/road races
Monday: sometimes run, sometimes bike, work
Tuesday: sometimes run/bike, work, West African Dance
Wednesday: like Monday
Thursday: like Monday and Wednesday
Friday: swim in the lake with Eric, drink Vodka lemonades that beachtro after swimming....awesome
Saturday: long runs/bike


Batavia Sprint Triathlon: Awesome. Good chance I'll do it again next year

Springfield Tri, Sprint: Swimming in Lake Springfield sucks. I probably won't do it again

10K Proud to Run: Not bad. Let's face it, I"ll do it again, it's a tradition among my friends.

Muddy Buddy: It f*cking poured the night before and that morning. If Eric and I hadn't been sleeping in my tent, I'm not sure we would have made it there. I took a pretty bad fall down a hill. I had to carry the bike a good half of my biking legs. It would have been very cool had a group of our friends did it, but with just the two of us it was kind of goofy. Why was I carrying this heavy mud-caked bike?

Pleasant Prairie Triathlon, International Distance: Again, it poured until 15 minutes before the race was suppose to start. They delayed the start....and then everything was great! The water temp: awesome. Bike course: very nice. Run: Okay, so Eric had major complaints about the back and forthness of the run route, but it didn't bother me that much. I would consider doing it again, though I may just want to check out a different tri. Maybe shoot for a 70.3???? Depends on my schedule, time, and how crazy I'm feeling.

Chicago Half Marathon: IT SUCKED. I went to the Hideout Block Party the two days prior. I drank beer. I danced on asphalt. I stood on my feet, in the sun, til late at night.... My feet hurt before I even started running. It was f*cking hot. AFter 5 miles I was ready to be down. AFter 9 I didn't care. But there were 4.1 miles left. Ugh. It made me hate running. Nevernevernever go to a block party the days before a race.

Lately, I've been taking it easy with the tri-sports. Lots of WAD, increasing amounts of bikram........

And that's all I'm saying right now. I'm not editing this. I'm not looking it over. Grammar-spelling-flow-phraseology-snobs can deal with it. Matt. I just need to make peace with this silly blog so that when the weather starts to be unpleasant, I can write about running in it. That, my dears, is a good time had by all.

ha.

The New Triathlon: Run, Bike, Eat Falafel

Exercising makes me ornery. And it makes me need more sleep. But it also makes me feel good, so I keep doing it.

Today/Yesterday I was pulled from my slumber by a "party line" phone call from e&m. So Matt and I biked down to Eric's. We ran 6 miles or so in the hot hot sun. Salt rolled down my forehead into my eyeballs and it burned and stung. I need a headband for next weekend, I think. (International distance triathlon next weekend). We ate Falafel Sandwiches from Old Jeruselum. ($6.15 + tax and not worth it except I was hungry). And then biked down to 53rd and ate Falafel Sandwiches from Cedars. ($4.50 + tax which includes TWO halves of pita, 6? balls, french fries, and a little salad. Very cool). Then we biked back...stopping to watch some people at Ohio St beach...30 miles or so total bikage. Not that far, really, but we spent many many hours in the hot sun.

And so at 8:30pm or so I was ready for bed. Now here I am, it's 3:45am and I'm just waking up. It is the perfect hour for watching Perseid meteors burn up on their way through our atmosphere but it is cloudy here in Chicago and I can hear waves of rain falling outside my window, to say nothing of the light pollution. What would it take to convince a city to have a voluntary blackout (or at least brownout) to facillitate shooting star watching? Would that be possible? Such things could happen by accident in the event of a power outage. Intentionally in the case of...you know, like during WWII. But to see some shooting stars? I wonder if Mayor Daley likes shooting stars... If I were running for mayor.......

Anyhow, maybe I'll straighten up my kitchen and make a salad for tomorrow and try and get some more sleep before the sun comes up.

I've not been posting, or writing at all because...I just haven't had any time. Well, okay, really, I've been watching Seasons 1-4 of Friends. But ALSO, when you're exercising everyday and sometimes multiple times a day, you need a lot more sleep. And if you're not eating enough spinach, you get extra ornery (that's me) and you really just don't want to spread the bad vibes around.

Our last Triathlon is next weekend. Then it's just the Half Marathon in September...and then it's chill time until Marathon training (for the marathona di Roma) begins.

And I realize I still haven't posted about any Triathlons OR the Muddy Buddy so sometime I'll have to catch up. Or maybe not, and I'll just say this:

Triathlons totally kick ass. Single sport? Bah. That's for the wintertime.

a long run to clear the mind

My Favorite post-run food: A banana, peanut butter, hemp protein powder, and some kind of nut milk smoothie. I'd like to figure out exactly how much peanut butter and hemp protein to add to make it the ideal carb/protein/fat combo (you know, that's best for recovery). I'll add that to my list of things I want to do. :) The list has gotten quite long. Or, it will, once I can cross writing the list off my list.....

Matt and I went for a run. And while we decided that sprints or tempo runs are really what I/we need to be working on, spiritually/emotionally/psychically/mentally I (we?) needed a long run. Long runs are satisfying and fulfilling in a way that I was needing.

It was AWESOME. For two main reasons:

1) It was a beautiful route. See here. I tried to save it zoomed out, but I don't think that was working, so you have to zoom out. See how we went down to the Montrose hook and out on the pier!! Beautiful. The lake was like blue rippling satin in that blue-ish gray color I find so perfect.

2) I had a new idea for the book I want to write AND insight into the process of writing such a book. Of course, I have many ideas, so we'll see where this one goes. But I've been looking for a way of combining my interests and skills and this may do just that. This is exciting!

I've been reading more from The Triathlete's Training Bible. I loVE this book! It's a lot to take in when you're new to scientific training philosophy, but I love it. I related as best I could the training intensities as described in the book and basic periodization. This is the idea that while you're in your prep and base phase you have a greater volume of training than when you're in your build and peak phase when you have a higher intensity workouts but less volume. The biggest challenge Matt and I face is that we have two very different Lactic Acid Thresholds and it'll be a challenge to figure out how we can train together at our LTs. But I'm sure we'll come up with some workable solution!

I'm almost done with Chapter 4 - Intensity. Chapter 5 is about Assessing fitness, so this'll be fun and hopefully not too painful! Chapters 6 & 7 are Building Fitness and Planning the Training Year. I love this Triathlon sport! It's totally my thing! They teach you to plan a year in advance!!! How cool?!?? I love planning!

So, about our run. It was 8.2 miles plus 45 minute cool down walk. It was hot though not as hot as it'll get. Probably in the 80s? I don't know, I have no sense of heat right now. It was less than a Bikram yoga class. But it was hot enough that I ended up taking of my COTTON tank top and wringing it out. GROSS?! or COOL?!? Well, I had said something about needing sweat wicking/quick drying fabric and cotton being to HOT. Matt, as is his usual, wasn't even sweating, so he didn't understand, until, of course, I took it off and wrung out all the extra sweat. Then he understood. :)

There were lots of people out; grilling, hanging out, working out, fishing...lots of people fishing. The lakefront down by Montrose was littered with fire cracker/fire work remains and empty vessels of alcohol. It was pretty disgusting. The sky was clear and the sun was out until it set. The horizon was kind of hazy...

Training Update

Okay, so, well, I haven't been posting. And I'm starting to take some jibes about it.

I've been running 3 times a week, biking to work at least half the time, swimming about twice a week...going to bikram once a week, plus one other yoga class. West African Dance again started last week. And...I think I'm forgetting something. I also started a creative writing class AND I've been working a ton AND I've had some other stuff going on so I just haven't had the time I had before to write about running and such.

So...it's roughly one month to our second triathlon.

BIKE. My legs are definitely getting stronger on the bike. I have glimpses of what it feels like to be "one with the bike." I'm not there by any means, but I have glimpses that I can connect with this bike in a way I never did in 9 years of riding a mountain bike. It responds to me in a way that I didn't know was possible. (And I don't even have cleats yet for my clips). It's a beautiful thing. I will have to write about that sometime. Sword of no sword idea, if you know what I mean.

SWIM. Eric and I have been swimming in the lake on Friday afternoons (so far, it hasn't rained--that will be a test!) in our wetsuits. Last Friday it was super cold. Did I say cold? Yes, I mean cold. I don't know the temp, but for the first 100 yards, I had the feeling that I just couldn't bear to put my face in the water. And so I didn't. I swam backstroke at first so I wouldn't have to. But, well, you get acclimated. And the crazy part of me thrives on doing what I think is a little beyond acceptable. When we got out...Eric's feet and hands (he has sleeves, I don't) were purple. He's more dainty when it comes to the cold than I am, I wasn't all that purple.

Last Friday the lake was pretty choppy. As it was the week before that. So we swam at Ohio Street Beach. The Yellow Flag was out, which means something about E. coli. (Green being safe, Red being very dangerous and the beach is closed). But with the choppy conditions I swallowed a lot of water and so I wondered if I may come down with E. coli. So far though, I feel good. :) The first leg of the swim was easy. We were with the current. But the second leg--jeesh! "Do you feel like salmon," Eric shouted to me at one point. It took a bit for my numbed mind to understand he was talking about swimming up stream, swimming up waves and crashing down from the crest... It was wild. I felt little crazy being out there. Especially after an older experienced-looking swimmer got in, started swimming, and then got out. But, there was also the swimmer with the waterproof ipod...

RUN. Running is good. We did the Proud to Run 10K. If I have a large block of time maybe I'll write about that. Oh, and I have to finish my Tri post. Ug--so much to do. Running is awesome actually. I (usually) always start slow. But no matter how crappy I feel at the beginning, at the end of 6 (or whatever miles) I always feel good. I never feel sore. Unless we run sprints or something. I don't have any pain. One day I was feeling my IT Band, but that was just one day. I love massage! Massage, proper recovery, sleep, food, listening to your body, stretching, etc. It all works.

West African Dance. You know I love it. There's no doubt. And after one class I could tell I had seriously gotten OUT of WAD shape. Man, I was feeling it everywhere in my torso! Which is awesome. I feel more stable in my ankles while running, which I believe is attributable to WAD.

And that's all I have time for. If you want more posts, ya'll should comment or something...

My Bike-Affair!

Event: Bike
Total mileage: 18.8 miles
Ave speed: 13.2 mph
Max speed: 19.5 mph

Today I biked to work for the first time since the triathlon (which I still have to blog about). I need to/want to take my mountain bike in for a tune-up, and the road bike...well, we were having difficulties in our relationship. The problem? Well, first we were having derailer tension problems, then I was thinking it was too small for me, then the toe cage straps were on upside down... But I woke up early today. I started putting away laundry, and thought, this is stupid, do this later and bike to work! It's a beautiful day! So I rethreaded my cage straps and hit the road.

Yes, this bike isn't fitting me right, I concluded. How so? Like my center of gravity was too high, like I felt cramped behind the bars but uncomfortably thrust over them, like the angle in my knees wasn't quite right. And then a miracle happened--it is father's day!--and only my first 3 appointments were booked so I got out of work early--on a beautiful Sunday day when I had my bike--what joy! So I road down to Turin in Evanston and inquired for assistance with sizing my bicycle.

Mark helped me. I love Mark. He was patient and knowledgeable, and he smiled at my not-so-funny-Mary-style-jokes. He spent an hour and a half with me and his conclusion was that I didn't need another bike, but that I should ride this one, at least for this season. Incredible! I was so ready to be talked into buying a new bike, and said as much, so... Mark at Turin in Evanston is great.

Mark used a bunch of tools to measure my body. My inseam is shorter than the tool so we had to improvise that one. :) My arms are the same length. My torso is abnormally long for my legs, but this of course I already knew. Which means that I'm NOT a good candidate for a Women Specific Design bicycle because those are tailored to women with longer legs and shorter torsos. So it's a good thing I didn't win that Trek contest (I didn't, by the way. I finally found out).

He locked my bike into some contraption that allowed me to pedal. He adjusted that seat height, I had it set on the high end of acceptable. He measured my knee angle, and used a plumb line to figure out if my patella as over the pedal. He adjusted the angle and front-to-back of my seat. But the biggest adjustment was his suggestion of the removal of the handlebar extension that Deb, the women from whom I bought the bike, had had installed.

The problem with the handlebar extension was that it raised the handlebars above the level of the seat AND brought the handlebars back as the bar is on an angle. NOT GOOD. Because I needed them further away, and having them higher up was doing funky things to my mechanics. So for $10 the guys in the shop took them out. So much better! Then he watched me pedal and gave me advice on mechanics:

-Flatten the low back, as if I'm almost sticking my butt out.
-Support with the low back and core, not the shoulders and arms

Okay, so this bike fits me okay. It's on the small side, I'd probably perfer to stretch out a bit more, but it shouldn't cause me any injury. The main reason I want a different bike is that I'd like one with bigger wheels (so I can go faster, because fast is fun). The problem with my body is that I need 28" tube clearance or 48"/71-72cm frame, but I need 60cm in the horizontal direction and typically frames are made with the same measurements up-down and front-back. So I have a bike now with smaller wheels (which allows for the crotch clearance) and with the 10cm handlebar neck it's roughly 60cm horizontal. But...

Specialized makes bikes that have an angled horizontal bar, allowing for short leg-gers like me to straddle it, AND frames long enough to fit my long torso. After discussing with Mark my recent Triathlon, my biking history, and where I was thinking about going with this, his recommendation was to ride this bike this season (with the adjustments we made), then maybe next season consider getting a Tri or Multisport bike--with the bigger wheels! A "Multisport" bike is by Specialized that is basically a road bike with aero bars, which makes it more comfortable for long rides AND more maneuverable and easier to handle than a Tri bike. Tri bikes have a different geometry that put the rider more forward over the frame, supposedly putting more of the load on the hamstrings and less on the quads.

Mark and I walked around the shop and he told me lots of stuff about the geometry of different frames and the trends from one brand to another. It was awesome! He wasn't selling me anything! And he was super nice! (Unlike those Johnny Sprocket snotfaced-assholes). For the record, the guy who worked on my bike was super nice too. They weren't scornful in the way that so many Chicago-hipster-bicycle-shop-workers are.

So...basically, I'm ready to buy some shoes with clips and to get riding!!

First Lake Michigan Swim!

I've been meaning to sit down and write for awhile now. I started a blog about the Triathlon, but that's as far as it got... I guess I've been busy, though I thought I had simplified my life so I'm a bit confused about that. I have a way of falling into busy habits.

But I have to start somewhere!

Today was the first day Eric and I went swimming in the lake this summer. It was AWESOME. Swimming laps at a pool??? B-o-r-i-n-g! Swimming in open water??? Incredible.

I love the unpredictable-ness of water in it's natural state. Sometimes you turn your head to breathe and there is a wave there. Sometimes you ride up the crest of a wave and kind of slam down on the other side. I LOVE IT. There are cold pockets and warm pockets of water.

The lake was pretty calm today. There were waves, but they were gentle. The water temperature? CHICAGO SHORE...72CHICAGO CRIB...60 The visibility was incredible! We could see the ground the entire length of our swim. We swam 1 mile-ish from the Oak Street Beach. We saw minnows(!) which was fun. And I can see how swimming in open water would be so much more fun if there were pretty fish to look at.

I'm totally telling this story backwards...but I'm rusty. The other day I returned the wetsuit I had purchased prior to the Triathlon that had ended up being too large. Today I went to Fleet Feet and rented a Women's Medium-Small Ironman Triathlon. It felt perhaps a little snug in the crotch to neck measurement, but I think that is fine. IT IS SO MUCH FUN to swim in a wet suits (that fits). The added buoyancy is just...fun! And the coldness of the water? No big deal!

So:

Location: Oak Street Beach, Lake Michigan
Distance: 1 mile-ish
Time: No idea.
Water temp: CHICAGO SHORE...72CHICAGO CRIB...60 Not sure. I'm going to have to figure out the best sorce of information.
Visibility: We could see the bottom the whole time.
Wave action: Gentle waves. No big deal.
Buddy: Eric

Wildlife: Minnows

People: LOTS of people. LOTS of kids. At the beach. Only a couple other actually people swimming. Eric was disappointed by the lack of "hotties," I told him we could ride next time and go looking for them afterwards...maybe the "hotties" are up by the volleyball courts. There was a fire truck near the shore, some safety training going on, perhaps?

Post swim food: Take out from Garlic Chili Thai. I had the Lad Nar with tofu. FANTASTIC. They serve the fried noodles separately. Awesome. I'm ordering the same thing next time. No doubt. We ate on Eric's roof and my upper back got burned by the sun, but not too badly.

Perhaps tomorrow or Sunday I'll write a short blog about our first sprint day. It was awesome! And totally deserves a blog!!!! (it kicked Matt's ass, that's why).

My First Triathlon!

Blogging is a funny thing. I started with one purpose in mind (to hypothesize about all-weather runners, or something), which morphed into another (describing the weather and philosophizing about life on a winter running path, basically), which started morphing into something else...But I'm not sure what. Now that the weather has been pleasant I have been less inspired to write. I need to find another angle. I'm disappointed that I haven't written in the last month or so. It would be nice to have a record leading up to.......

MY FIRST TRIATHLON!!!


That's right! Eric and I did the Batavia Triathlon today!!! It was awesome. I'm in love. (Of course, I'm always in love with something.....)

The event broke down like this:



Friday night. I think I got 6 hours of sleep. 8 would have been nice, but the sun woke me up and I had some nervous energy.

Saturday. Ate a bagel with vegan cream cheese, I worked (4 massages), had an apple for lunch (not the best idea, probably), bought appropraite sunglasses (thank goodness!) and a water bottle, dinner at Dharma Garden, saw Lucy Kaplansky at the Old Town School (I love her!). I slept over at Eric's. I think we went to sleep at about 12:30am.


Sunday.

3:00-3:10am Wake up

3:30am Load up Eric's bike and head out of town

4:30am Pick up Eric's Tri Packet

5:00am Unload from car, walk over the chipping and marking station with bikes and trigear. Here we got our ankle straps with chips, had our shoulders marked with our race numbers, and the back of our calves marked with our AGES! It's rather interesting to be able to look around and see everyone's age. It reenforces in my mind the idea that age last little to do with the number. But more on that later.

5:30am-ish After "setting up our transition stations" (this is the jargon term for laying out your shit so that when you get back from the swim, you don't have to be searching through your backpack for your sunglasses), we went to the bathroom. This was fun. There's a long long long-ass line, but if you're a girl, you just skip the line and go into the women's bathroom (of course) where not only is there NO line, but there's an abundance of empty stalls! How fun! I wonder if some stars shifted in my astrological reading or something, because lately everywhere I go the men have the long line and I have no bathroom line (Shellac show, Propagandhi show...and apparently Triathlons too!). After I utilized the ladies room, I stood in line with Eric a bit...and right behind us was Mark McNeill! He is one of my favorite massage teachers and massage therapists of all time and he's an all around great laid-back guy. He's done quite a few tris and marathons and such at an elite level and it was great to see him. He really talked up this event.

I pretty much talked to everyone I was around, telling them this was my first time, and about how I was nervous, etc. And everyone was super nice, giving me words of encouragement, and asking me afterwards how everything was... Anyhow, I'm getting ahead.

So Eric's line was really really long. He said that all the urinals were open too, everyone was heading for the stalls. "Gotta get the shit out." Important stuff to think about for these sorts of events.

The big question of the hour for us was "to wetsuit or not to wetsuit." The water was definitely tolerable, but we had wetsuits, and it wasn't warm per se. So we decided to suit up.

5:55am. Back at the Transition zone. And....the Transition zone was closing. I had all these silly thoughts of not being in the right place at the right time. How silly! Of course with 500 people milling about, there's going to be someone telling them what to do!

And then everyone got in a long line roughly in numerical ordered, and every 5 seconds someone ran into the water. Two laps around (400m) the "facility" and out to the transition zone...Okay, now I'm finally trying to finish this blog in now Nov 2007...oh, dear. I was wearing a wet suit that was two big. I had bought that one at a scuba shop. It was a unisex shop (bad idea for someone with my build!). I returned it and bought an Ironman suit from Fleet Feet (a running/tri store), which proceeded to fit me very nicely for the remainder of the summer.

We changed into biking clothes. Went for a 13 mile bike ride, then ran 4 miles. What I wasn't prepared for, was how rubbery my legs would feel for the first 2 miles...

Anyhow, after finishing two more triathlons after this one, I know this one was really great. As awkward as the swim course was, the people were wonderfully friendly. The run course was very pleasant, along the river. The post-race deal was great too. There were some PT-type people there who were stretching people for free, everyone got a free beer with a tag on their bib, there was music...and it just had a joyous feeling to it! Yay!

And this is a very anti-climatic blog post. I apologize if you've read this whole thing. But perhaps that says something. For years (like, since I was a little kid watching my dad swim triathlons with binoculars) I wanted to do them. For (how many years?) I've been intimidated by them. But now? Not so much. Now I think, if I can do them, anyone can do them. How silly, right? In the end, they're not a big deal. You go out and do a little swimming, you put on some biking shoes and doing a little biking, you put on your running shoes....and, well, that's the hardest part, those first 2 miles of running. But everyone is feeling it then so it's okay. So you do a little run. You feel great, for a bit. Then you (I mean I) feel really cranky until I've had my nap...

:)