Day Five

Ryan and I drove up to Napa and had a great ride with Kim and Dave.  Felt good to get a little tiny bit of climbing in since I have been riding mostly flats.  Riding with K&D I realized how much time I lose at each decent.  It takes me minutes to catch up after.  I waste a lot of energy doing that.  I did feel more comfortable on the bike, but obviously not comfortable enough.

I made it clear that we needed to ride 2:45 and we rode 2:43 I thought that was great.  Then as I looked through the training guide in the evening I realized that we only had to ride 1:30 sorry to everyone I took out for an extra hour.  Nice to ride with friends and have lunch after.  It made it much more fun and less work.

Day Four

I had got all my confidence up to swim at aquatic park, which is a lot of confidence for me. I was ready to jump into the chilly water, but I couldn't find a parking spot. I was going to have to walk to the water in my suit so I was only willing to walk so many blocks. Change of plans, I headed to 24hr fitness and got my swim in there. 25 hard 50 easy x 8 It is a nice back up swim spot since it is always available. Then I went for a run in my vibrams with Ryan. It was nice and warm outside, run felt good for about 30 minutes then got a sore from the shoes so walked the end. It was an uplifting and promising run because my knees felt great!!!!!!!

Before I went on my swim/run I went to Slide Ranch to take some pictures and look at the kids I ran across. Who knew a goats ass could be so cute!

Day Three

mmmmm...bike ride in the sunshine. I went for an hour ride today. Great way for me to blow off steam after the principal forgot to give me lesson plans. He just expected me to teach Spanish speakers Spanish. His lack of care for the students learning is very irritating!! Anyway...the ride was great felt strong and was able to keep a good pace.

Day Two

Had to take a nap at 500. Geeze it does not seem like I have done very much, but I am exhausted. I have not been working and then all the sudden I am working full time as well as starting this new program. I am sleepy!

Day Two

Swim Run Day
I woke up at 445 this am. This allowed me enough time to swim before I had to head out to East Palo Alto to sub. The swim was only 5 x 100yds at a moderate pace with 5 seconds breaks. The guy next to me was really slow so I felt like I was flying through the water. Good ego boost, even though I know he was just swimming slow. What the book assigned took less than ten minutes to finish. Since I paid the $4 to swim I decided to swim for a total of 35 minutes so I at least felt I got my moneys worth.

Run - I did after school. 35 minutes with 8 x 30sec sprints. Ran at the gym. This allows me to have more control as I try to improve my running. I will do drills in the gym and longer runs outside...at least that is the current plan.

I just found out that the woman that I am subbing for will no longer provide me with lesson plans as she is out on disability and is no longer required to. So I will be teaching Spanish for native Spanish speakers tomorrow with no lesson. This school is a mess, so unorganized!!!

Day One

Today's workout: 'Bike Power Intervals' 20 second intervals done in a high gear @ speed intensity with 2 minute active recoveries; warm up and cool down to reach 1 hour and 10 minutes.

It is a beautiful day outside - BEAUTIFUL! But I thought that it would be best if I did my cycling in a controlled environment, so I did my workout on the trainer. Thankfully I was watching Whip It so I got through it, but I could have enjoyed the ride a lot more if I was outside soaking up the sun. I need to remember to do my best to enjoy this, so next time - Thursday - I will be outside!

Day 0

To give you some background...A bit of a tradition started for us last year. My husband decided to 'celebrate!?!' his 30th birthday he would ride a crazy bike ride called the Terrible Two. The Terrible Two is a 200 mile bicycle ride that his dad put together years ago. His dad did this to try to create the most difficult double century and by many accounts he accomplished it. This is the madness that I married into.

Our tradition came to be over dinner one night when my husband, Ryan, asked me what I planned on doing to celebrate my 30th birthday. Now celebrate is a very strange choice of words if you ask me. He is really asking me 'how would you like to suffer' and somehow in his athletic mind this translates to celebrate. I said I would do the Double Dipsea a 14 mile run with 4500 feet of climbing. Ryan's response to this was that the quad dipsea was closer to my birthday and I should try that WHAT?? His expectation was 28 miles and 9000 feet of climbing. That threw the whole dipsea idea out the window. Ryan quickly learned that his dismissal of my goal was hurtful and frustrating to me. So when I settled on the goal of a half ironman (who knows where the idea came from) he did not think to say 'maybe you should challenge yourself with a full ironman,' although I am sure that the thought did enter his mind.

To train for this event I am following a training book that I purchased. I will be swimming and running Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays cycling Tuesday, Thursday and Saturdays and blogging often. I also threw in that I would not drink alcohol or Diet Pepsi. I think the real reason we do this is to go into 30 the healthiest that we can. Maybe it takes the sting out of being done with my 20s??