Day Seventy-Four

Bike

Ryan and I had the morning to ride.  I was going to make up my swim
from yesterday, but my head needed some advil before I wanted to get
out of bed.  A swim in the bay is out for me anytime I am not feeling
100%.  I fear I could be lost at sea forever.  The day turned into a
slow morning and then a bike ride.  The ride was to be 3 hours, it
ended up being a little longer.  It was nice.  We climbed Kings
Mountain which is one of these legendary climbs to me.  Anytime Ryan
talks about a climb and I have not done it, I assume it would be
impossible for me to do it.  That was my mind set with Kings Mountain,
but I just kept my pace and finished fine.  Then we went up Old
Lahonda Road, which was another good climb, but fine.  BUT THEN we had
to come down the other side of Old Lahonda Road.  This was hell.
Narrow, curvy downhill.  My hands were killing me from having to break
for so long.  I will always prefer to climb over descend.  A normal
person makes up time from climbing on a descent.  This allows you
overall mph to look decent at the end of the ride.  This does not work
for me.  I go so slow down hill it is actually slower than I go on
flats.  Killing my mph average.

Day Seventy-Three

Run/Swim

Today I ran down to Santa Cruz to check out bikes.  I think I will be
getting a new one.  I am currently deciding between a Cervelo and a
Look.  The Cervelo was set up more comfortably for me so I of course
enjoyed that ride better, but I have my heart set on the Look...we
will see how this all ends up.

After testing the bikes I stopped by Ryan's parents house to see if
his mom wanted to join me for a run.  She was out but Rod, Ryan's dad
was around.  He literally dropped everything and joined me on my run.
When I say he dropped everything, he stopped in the middle of mowing
the lawn to go to the park for a run.  Now I have already stated that
Rod is intimidating as hell when it comes to any sort of activity.  He
is an endurance guy that can run anyone into the ground without him
even being out of breath.  But the run was great.  It was actually a
wonderful experience.  The night before I was up, unable to sleep,
  journaling about how my dad  is not really apart of my life anymore,
that he no longer cares and so he has no idea what is going on in my
life.  Same old sob story I have been trying to get over for the past
few years.  But here I am running with Rod who knows so much about
what is going on in my life, and actually seems to care.  This makes
me realize I should just be happy and enjoy the relationships I have
and not long for a relationship with my dad that really is never going
to be what I want it to be.

As we were nearing the end of our run I fell...all the way to the
ground, hand sprawled out in front of me.  I think I must have tripped
over a root because the trail is covered in them, but maybe I just
fell.  It was no big deal when I did it, especially with Rod who give
you about five seconds to take inventory that nothing is hurt too bad
and then back to running.  I figured a few cuts on my leg and I was
fine.  But on my drive home from Santa Cruz I had a terrible headache.
 So much so that I did not do my swim in the evening and I called Ryan
and asked him to walk the dog so I could just sit when I got home.
Ryan was great and made and cleaned up dinner insisting that I stay on
the couch and let my head rest.  Later that night I actually had blood
in my ears (not much, but still!!).  I think I have hit my head one to
many times so this little fall ended up giving me a headache that
lasted two days.

Day Seventy-Two

Bike

I was planning on going for a nice ride..but it rained.  Instead I watched "The Visitor" a so so movie that was 1:45- exactly how long I needed to be on the trainer.  I just did intervals of 8 minutes standing climb, 8 minutes seated climb, and then 8 minutes recovery. 

A week or so ago I got myself a new cycling tank top.  I wear mostly black this was a nice color and has a back pocket for cycling.  I have wore it twice now and each time the same problem.  This is why I always wear black!!! but I had forgotten since it has been so long since I have had another color.  I don't really understand why this happens - both with running and cycling - but it is pretty embarassing!

Day Seventy-One

Swim/Run

Not all that exciting of a day.  Swam in the morning.  Ran in the afternoon- 40 minutes with Ryan. It was nice outside and I enjoyed the jog, but that is about all I can say about it.

I think I have a crush on Scott Jurek.  What can I say...he coaches high school track, took care of his mom when she was sick, bows in respect to the Tarahumara, he is vegan and don't forget he is a crazy runner that likes yoga.

Day Seventy

Bike

Half way.  Today is my half way point, 20 weeks, 140 day and today is number 70.  Yay for me for sticking to this plan.  Today's workout was not much of a celebration.  I did not get home until 630, fixed and ate dinner and did not get to hop on the trainer until 730-745ish.  But I stuck to it and did it.  80 minutes on the trainer with six 5 minute hill climbs.

I also am committing after the clam bake (this weekend) to trying a vegan diet for 4 weeks.  I would like to say I will commit for the rest of my life, but the book I am reading says that at 4 weeks you will feel the benefits.  It should not be that big of a change for me, although I am sure it will be.  I already omit meat, so no biggie there.  I am lactose intolerant, so I should already not be eating dairy, although I do.  So that just leaves eggs.  With all the reading I am doing connecting dairy and eggs to cancers, awful animal treatment and destroying the environment, I should cut them out.  I do not think they are inherently bad, but I think the way that we produce them here in the states make them terrible for me, the animals, and the planet.  So I will have my last day to indulge and then I will embark on this new plan.  It is something I have wanted to do for a long time, but I had some questions.  As I am reading through The Kind Diet and the blog The Kind Life (both about being kind to your body) I know this is a good decision.  I also have been worried about offending people or putting people out, but in reality I have to chose if I want to offend people or hurt and kill animals and the earth.  And I do not need to put people out I can always bring a side to a party that works as a meal for me.  So here it goes.  When I told Ryan he of course knew by the stack of books I have read that this was coming, he said "I will do my best to follow along in support of my wonderful wife" I thought that was so kind.  Later in the evening he realized no cheese, then no glasses of milk, and a new cookie recipe!!  Now he is going to try and be supportive.  I will have to work hard to make tasty convincing meals for him.

Day Sixty-Nine

Rest Day

I just did a triathlon.  My legs are soar.  In the last few days I have taken a bit of a break, missing one day of training and on two days simply riding the bike for 45 minutes which is far less than I should have.  But Ryan was on vacation.  We were up in Mendocino.  But I feel SO LAZY.  My body does not feel right, I feel like I have not exercised in weeks.  But I did a triathlon yesterday.  This is hilarious to me.  Hilarious.  My body had adapted to all of this stress I have put it through.  There is no turning back now.  Lazy, four months ago I would have considered this a great week of activity.  Oh how the times have changed. 

Day Sixty-Eight

This is my fist triathlon for the season.  It was a sprint triathlon - but a long one so I will call it a sprintlympic distance (somewhere between a sprint and olympic distance)

I felt prepared and did fine overall.

The night before we had planned to camp at an auburn triathlon recommended campsite.  After I registered and got all the race information we went to look for our campsite.  It was over an hour away.  So we scrapped that and just camped out on the soccer field next to the second transition area.  They were set up for people to camp there.  Besides the railroad that woke us up it was a fine place to camp.  I slept comfortably listening to the rain throughout the night.

The worst part of the day was the beginning.  I had (as did most everyone else) to ride my bike 7 miles to the start.  They race organizers said that this was a great warm up, but it was all downhill!!  So I was freezing before the start.  It took me at least half an hour to regain feeling in my fingers.  To try to put my vibram five fingers on when I could not feel my toes was a painful challenge.

Swim.  The swim was beautiful in the canyon that holds Folsom Lake.  Steam was rising off the water, so much steam that I did not even know where I was going to have to swim because I could not see all of the buoys that mapped out my course.  The water was much warmer than the outside temp (water 64 degrees).  I was thrilled once I touched the water, the fear of freezing was now out of my head.  There were only a few spectators at the swim, only the people that wanted to walk/bike in, since cars were not allowed in the park.  This was really sad not to record the beauty of the swim.  I felt fine at the beginning of the swim, but in the middle kinda had a freak out breast stroke for about 2 minutes.  I think this was because I was so far out.  Normally I swim open water staying close to the shore, so to be all the way out there was a little unnerving..even though I felt strong and was not worried about being too tired.  Actually looking at the course I was really close to the opposite shore, but I did not know that.  Then I missed seeing the last buoy so had to swim longer to get back in line to finish properly.

Bike. The bike started with a 6 mile uphill.  I thought this was going to be hell, but once I was getting ready for the switchbacks I was told that I was done with the switchback.  Nice surprise, except I may have pushed up the last hill harder if I knew that was it.  They must have been very wide, because I never felt like there were any switchbacks.  After the climb the ride was explained as being easy, but it was really up and down and never easy.  The whole time I just wanted to get off the bike.  I was not overly tired, I think I was just bored and done with the bike.  It was through neighborhoods and although it was very well organized and controlled by officers, it was not fun. 

Run. In T2 before the run I had a big gulp of water, which turned out to be a bad decision because it gave me a cramp at the beginning of the run.  As I ran out I took Samara with me.  I thought she might be nice company, and since I was not competing to win, I figured no one would kick us out.  She was thrilled since this was the first time I had seen her in a few days (we had been away and mom was taking care of her).  The beginning of the run was on a somewhat narrow path.  I got stuck behind a number of people here, making me run at their pace, not mine.  After the trail we headed down towards the dam to a turnaround.  This was scary because going down meant we had to come up, but it was not that much of a climb back up.  The mile markers were only at mile one and four, so there was a long time in there I thought that mile two had to be the longest mile of my life.  Running felt good.  Swimming and cycling I was ready to be done with but running I felt I could have gone for much longer. 

What I learned
1) I need to get comfortable open water swimming away from the safety of shore
2) Drink more on the bike, and don't try to make up for that with a big drink before the run
3) Set my pace on the run, don't assume that I will run at the same pace as someone I kept pace with on the bike.   This really slowed me down at the beginning of my run.

Day Sixty-Five to Sixty-Seven

Not much of anything

We went up to Mendo to return Ryan's Aunt's motorcycle and to spend some time with his Aunt and Uncle.  On Thursday before heading up there I woke up early to get a spin in.  Only about 45 minutes, but something.  Friday I did absolutely nothing and Saturday I did another quick spin on the bike.  We had planned to go backpacking, but the weather did not cooperate.  Instead of of backpacking I ate a lot of yummy food, drank wine and did not exercise....perfect build up for a triathlon?!?  but I had a nice time