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| Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 |
cruisergirl
|
5:22p |
ptsd?
So I'm hanging out here in the Irie Bean pretending to be catching up on work email when all I can do is look at IMLP stuff on the web, glance up and it's f*cking POURING RAIN in sheets!
*twitch*
I also had panic flashes driving by the yellow warning signs for downhills (the icon of a semi truck on a triangle) yesterday driving on Old Military in LP, even though it was dry and I was in a car. Ha. |
shubbe
|
5:19p |
Still alive! Still no race report, but I thought I'd check in to verify that I have started making notes on it, and I will get it written.. eventually. We left Lake Placid Tuesday morning and drove to Downingtown, PA to visit the Wiseseses. We're here until Friday, then we head home to Austin and back to real life. We were sorta sore the day after, then pretty damn sore on Tuesday. Today we seem to be recovering, and stairs no longer require serious concentration. As a bonus, we have zero sunburn, because we never saw any sun. While you wait for my race report, likely not to come until we get home, please feel free to enjoy all 211 pictures I've taken so far on this vacation. More to be added as I take more! |
cruisergirl
|
2:33p |
Return from the north I'm back in Austin, after a long day on Tuesday. I spent the morning packing up my stuff and visiting the Olympic Training Center and the Ski Jumps. The ski jumps were seriously cool. My first ride in a chair lift! The training center wasn't very exciting and I didn't have time to stick around for one of the guided tours. I didn't realize it, but the training center is a dorm too. It was sort of cool to hang around the lobby and spy on the athletes passing through. ( aftermath ) |
tripam
|
10:09a |
Cursed shoulder Current Mood:  gloomy |
crabbyoldjaws
|
9:23a |
Catching up on nothing.... I don't want no stinkin' schedule - or do I? Oh, I'm pretty sure I don't but I'm damned sure I need one, left on my own I'll drink wine, eat cheese and sleep in. I really don't know how things will shake out for me with regard to training in the next few months. I, like my friend Leah, have given myself an August 1st deadline to decide. In the meanwhile I'm doing a little here and there. I did very little for about 10 days because of being sick and the antibiotics really mucked me up...blech.
I've been having a lot of fun with taking the boy child out driving. Yesterday he and I had the entire afternoon to ourselves so we set out to go to Rogue Equipment and other fun stuff. While at Rogue I had the pleasure of finding a shoe sale...oh crap. Several hundred dollars later boy child and I left with arms of goodies....my bad. We then had a bite to eat together and went to the dreaded mall to get some school clothing. He is so much easier to shop with than the teenage daughter :) Boy child shops like me...surgical strikes into stores knowing exactly what you want and out again...no lollygagging.
Then last night while boy child ran his xc workout with his team at Town Lake Trail the husband I sat in the shade and chatted. It was fun to have the time to watch the boys practice and the time to chat with hubby.
While at the YMCA yesterday Leah and I decided we better learn how to use the new machines so I signed up for a lesson in use....7AM this morning I was to have my tutorial...I showed up but the instructor did not. I was none-too-F-ing-pleased. I have been a member of the TLYMCA since 1990 and they have always lacked being user friendly, however, I live so close it is difficult to make myself join elsewhere. Ho-hum. Anyway, with no instructor this morning I stretched (this in and of itself is funny) and went for a little run, which sucked so that pissed me off even more...Home to coffee and cream of rice for breakfast and now some downtime.
|
leahruns
|
8:37a |
"Off" day I decided that today would be my off day, even though technically everyday is an off day as I have no schedule. I have a ton of miscellaneous things to get done during the day and then this evening, the boy is having friends over to spend the night and the girls and I will be watching "Project Runway." Yesterday was a lovely chat run with ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) crabbyoldjaws followed by weights at the LBL Y. They're replaced the old weight machines with new, jazzy ones and there's a bit of a learning curve for me...thank goodness for coj, who very kindly acts as my personal trainer. There were some giggles over user-error on my part on one machine while coj looked like a beast on another. On Monday, I ran approximately 10 miles in my neighborhood. I hadn't planned on running that but the opportunity was there and I hadn't run "long" over the weekend since I was garage sale-ing on Saturday (it was fun to sit out on the driveway at my sister-in-law's house and watch all the runners go by but that doesn't help me get ready for NYC). My run was interesting; I enjoyed it immensely but I felt sluggish and heavy and was sure that I was plodding along. I was doing my usual long route over here, the one that I did whenever I needed to bust out a convenient long run on my own. I was surprised to see when I got back that I'd run it some 10-13 minutes faster than when I did it during IM training. That just goes to show how tired those legs were during those IM weekends. I'm really happy to be back to the running; I didn't get my fix during IM. And I am a runner at heart, a runner who also does triathlons. I'd like to get in a swim but I have to replace my bathing suit first--the chlorine at the NW Y has literally eaten through it, and when I went to check out the T3 swim the other day it began to disintegrate before my eyes! Oh my. |
| Monday, July 21st, 2008 |
_fool
|
9:22p |
an epiphany i just saw Mark Shuttleworth speak on topics of ubuntu and space travel. it was one of the better talks i've seen, and i was thrilled that he didn't use any slides at all. he talked off the cuff about his experiences and took a lot of audience questions which drove his direction and let him frame his message in relevant, applicable surroundings. what i took away was that perhaps you should be doing something that inspires you and is driven by many of your loves, rather than being a singleminded focus, and something that makes the world a better place or is at least a hell of a lot of fun. which brought me to the thought that i could do better, and maybe that key to doing better was to be a little more thoughtful about what i do. i'm pretty happy-go-lucky as is, but i'm not feeling passionate about much lately. maybe if i engaged a little more with some of my activities, and pushed my comfort envelope a little more, i'd get exponentially more out of life. and give more back, as well. some thoughts about where i could go with this: 1) be more participatory in the bike community. i do participate reasonably much, but i rarely organize things and i don't volunteer as much as i could. i was given an opportunity to work on a website for a grassroots movement to increase community-ism and totally flaked. i could and should just pick that up and run with it. 2) bike harder. this one is for the helluvalotoffun angle 3) work on a few ideas (ie the borrowing society i posited back in december, 2007 that could foster community and improve the planet 4) write more. rewarding and potentially message-sending. that's never been my scene with the writing--i just open the spigot and let the words flow but perhaps i have a message or could implant one... in general, participation seems to be the key, somehow and somewhere. now, to get to it and make my life more interesting and world-enhancing... |
cruisergirl
|
1:13p |
IMLP 2008 So when I said "unique journey" in my last entry, when it came to the actual race yesterday, I could have done with a little less "unique" and a little more "routine." So, a few highlights: ( race bits ) |
leahruns
|
8:16a |
Training musings
It's funny--the longer I laze about in my "fun-only" workouts, the less motivated I am to get back to it. Which makes me seriously question the wisdom of getting back into a training regime.
The hard-and-fast event on my calendar is the NYC marathon, which I am very excited about doing. My goal for that event is not to PR but to get back to an acceptable starting point. In other words, to firmly say goodbye to the 5-hour road marathons that have been the norm over the last 3 years. I worked to slow down for pacing (wacky, huh?) and then the combination of no speed work and long endurance focus pretty much disabled my 1st gear. I can go forever and ever but now I want to speed along for a relatively short way. So a good starting point to begin working on a PR is going to be 4:30-4:45 (the finish times of my "bad" marathons...lol...it's all so relative).
I would like to do the Longhorn Tri again but I haven't actually signed up for it. It is so exciting for a 56-mile bike ride to be "fun" and "doable." I thoroughly enjoyed that race...oh, yeah, I forgot about the horrible run, but I believe that was due to several newbie errors on my part.
The other week, I sat down and plotted out a progression of long runs to get me ready for NYC. This is not the hard part; the difficult aspect is finding a way to get in speedwork with a group which I consider crucial for me at this time. I don't really have a lot of options, surprisingly. A kid at home with activities (morning and evening) plus a hubby who travels a good amount cut out most training groups' times.
I've been looking at T3 but do I really need to pay all that money for something that, right now, is not my primary focus? I'm going to go check out their run workout this week--I suspect this will be a deal maker/breaker for me. If the speed work group grabs me, then I will most likely consider that a two-fer win, a way to meet my marathon goal and see improvement in the half.
There is a part of me that says I should just continue to fart around and do both events for fun and train myself. I've got all winter to work on running, and my focus next triathlon season will be on a speedy half.
Hmmmmmmmm....I set myself a deadline of August 1 to piss or get off the pot on setting my plan. |
| Sunday, July 20th, 2008 |
shubbe
|
11:43p |
The overview. Yes, I finished my second Ironman. Yes, it did rain the entire time I was out there, except for the first 20 minutes of the swim, and maybe 10 random minutes near the end of my run. Mostly pouring, drenching rain. Yes, I did pee several times on the bike, aided by the previous fact. Thanks for all of the emails, LJ comments, voicemails and text messages. I'm shocked and elated by my performance. I PRed in every event except T2, I think. Now I shower and go to sleep. Race report to come when I have time. :) My resultsMatt's results |
rdad
|
11:40p |
6.61 miles, 10PM, solo, no watch, no HRM, just running.
91 fricking degrees out at 10PM.
We had a bbq/pool party today. I nailed the BBQ. Beer boiled and bbq-ed turkey and italian sausages. Raspberry chipotle glazed chicken wings. And smoked pork ribs. Also, carrot salad and home made pico de gallo.
My BBQ used to be hit or miss. Now it seems to be mostly "hit". |
rdad
|
12:58p |
Tried another 8 later in the week, in the sun, with the triple - no bueno. Stopped at 4, walked home.
Took a day off.
Ran another 8 the next day with the triple.
Ran three the next day.
Rested yesterday.
Tried to run this morning but I woke up too late and the kids conspired against me.
I signed up for the 2009 Austin Marathon. I'm in. |
| Saturday, July 19th, 2008 |
shubbe
|
6:27p |
Saturday.  ( Night before Ironman.. )You should be able to track our progress tomorrow on IronmanLive, assuming it's functioning. My number is 2118 and Matt's is 626. Thank you all for your support and well-wishes. They make such a difference, and we'll carry them with us tomorrow, for all the many hours that we're swimming, biking and running. And I'll see you all on the other side! |
cruisergirl
|
4:07p |
whew! You would think the fourth time through this would be routine...but no... Well, all of the various drop-offs went smoothly today, and I had time for the short (fifteen minute) run and swim. I swam sans-wetsuit and it was more like a paddle around the cove thing but I was moving myself in the water on my own power for the full fifteen minutes. All of the tasks collectively just were really time-consuming. I'm finally back in Saranac Lake about to head back to my room and to chill out for the rest of the day. I uploaded my pictures from yesterday. It may be Monday before I get to the ones from today...going to be sort of busy tomorrow. ;-)  We had a little bit of rain on Friday. ( more )It would seem routine by now, but each one of these four races has been a unique journey and I am most grateful for that. Thanks for all of your support and messages- it means a lot. My race number is 2306 and you can track me tomorrow on ironmanlive, and catch the live video of the race here: http://ironman.com/ |
shublog
|
2:45p |
Saturday.
Date: 07/19/2008
Time: 7:38am swim, 8:14am run
Duration: 0:15:21 swim, 0:14:49 run
Location: Mirror Lake and the area around it
Sport: Swimming and running
Workout: 15min swim, 15min run
Distance: No idea on either
Weather: Low 70s, overcast
People: Matt and Sarah!
Comments:
Two short workouts the day before the big day, with bonus Sarah! She woke up early to go with us, even after getting in around 11pm the night before. We all opted to go without wetsuits (well, Matt and I did, she didn't have one), and it felt really good. It's amazing how different these swims before Lake Placid have been compared to those before CdA. The water is so much warmer and SO much calmer.
After the swim, we went back to the car to put our running shoes on, then did a 15 minute run. First Sarah and I ran back to the lake, because she'd forgotten her towel, then did an out and back next to the lake, on part of the run course. A billion people out riding and running the course. I had to reign Sarah in at first so she wouldn't kill me so late in the game. It felt good, and it was fantastic to run with Sarah again and chat.
And that's the last workouts before the big workout. |
cam_ray
|
8:05a |
matches now in progress...
if anyone wants to get in their kitty wrestling entrant... |
| Friday, July 18th, 2008 |
shubbe
|
7:58p |
|
cruisergirl
|
1:16p |
wacky weather The weather here seriously is crazy. First it's hot, then a little cloud blows over and it's cool. It's cloudy, then sunny, then CRACKABOOM (thanks for that phrase soulofajedi) thunderstorm, like right now in Lake Placid. The storm blew in as I chilled out here in the Coffee Bean, and for awhile we couldn't see out the patio window. And it's cold. And windy. Ooops, we can see again. Enough to see the giant bolts of lightening. Whew. I was going to drive back to Sarananc Lake for lunch and to change, maybe I should stay put and eat here. I cooked last night and have enough food at my place to "feed the Third Army" as one of my suite mates noted, so it seems like a waste to spend more money on restaurant food. Of course, I've got all day on Saturday to eat for the Third Army. I managed to get my workouts done between the migrating rain clouds. There was another thunderstorm this morning so I procrastinated at my place before heading into LP. I think we were supposed to swim thirty or forty minutes, but I wanted to try an entire loop, just to have a better sense of how far it is. It's FAR. It took about 21:30 to the first red turn buoy. I paddled and floated, enjoying the scenery, over to the second turn buoy (they are pretty close), then headed back. The return trip also took about 21:30. So, I'm not expecting any radical improvements on my swim time at the race. All three of my ironman swims have clocked in between 1:28 and 1:30. I'll be pleased with a 1:27, and happy with anything really. My total time in the water today was a little over forty-seven minutes, so even with a generous break at the turns, I'll think it will be fine. Damn, it's zero visibility again. Hope this doesn't happen on Sunday... I picked up my bike from Tri-Bike Transport today. Poor baby was outside during the first thunderstorm this morning. I apologized on the way back to the my car, and cleaned up the chain. I wanted to ride the last bit of the course. When I did the race in 2006, I wasn't sure exactly where the infamous bears and cherries were, because that section of the course is generally hilly. It took nine minutes to get to 86 from my car, then I rode (down) sixteen minutes and turned around. On the way back, I saw the markings on the shoulder clearly. Little Cherry, Big Cherry, Mama Bear, Baby Bear, and Papa Bear. It took twenty-one minutes to get back to Northwood and 86, so obviously uphill, but none of those hills, with the possible exception of Papa Bear, are particularly difficult. I also was riding at a very relaxed pace on my 27 and 25. I'm not sure how aggressive to be during the race. I felt like I could power up those hills a lot faster, but I'm wary about the rest of the course. I guess that's the advantage of being able to train out here during the year and getting a sense for the entire loop. And still it's pouring. I overheard someone talking about flooding. And hail. There are a lot of vehicles with sirens passing by outside. Maybe I better scrounge up lunch somewhere nearby on Main Street. |
shublog
|
11:59a |
Friday.
Date: 07/18/2008
Time: 9:05am swim, 10:58am bike
Duration: 0:29:49 swim, 1:02:35 bike
Location: Mirror Lake (Lake Placid) (swim), Wilmington area (bike)
Sport: Swimming and biking
Workout: 30min swim, 60min bike
Distance: no idea on swim, 15.58 miles riding
Weather: Low to mid 70s, mostly overcast
People: Matt
Comments:
We set the alarm for 6am, then turned it off and laid around for a while. Just needed to lay around in bed a while, since we could. Found it had been raining, so we were glad we hadn't gotten up to ride early. Drove into town and as we got out of the car, it started pouring rain, then lightninging and thundering. We waited it out in the car, then when it looked done, went and swam. Checked our stuff in at the Gatorade swim thingy (I love that service), and did our exploratory swim.
The water was pretty warm.. low 70s, and kinda murky, but perfectly smooth, and it felt good. It wasn't until I was turning around after 15 minutes that I finally found the "cable" that people supposedly follow, and so I followed it on the way back in. Swimming felt good, except I had a little bit of vertigo, probably from being sick and my sinuses being full of stuff and my ears being full of stuff.
After the swim, we drove back to Wilmington and did our ride. I think we were supposed to do some intervals, but I just rode to ride. The way out was tough, and that'll be part of the course. Lots of uphill, very little downhill, and some sections of crappy road that won't be an issue during the event since we won't have to stick to the shoulder.
I had planned to go out a little past 30 minutes, but found a perfect place to turn around right at 30, so I did. And then the ride back was so. much. fun. Downhill with a tailwind. It took me 30min to go out, 17min to get back. Of course, then I had to go back out again, and the headwind was tougher the second time out, but it was short, and the way in was fun again. So it reminded me that, even though this section will be tough (and I didn't even get to the toughest parts), the fact that this is all uphill means that there are fun downhill parts too, and I just need to focus on those.
Then I shaved my legs while waiting for Matt to be done, which is practically an event in itself. |
| Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 |
shublog
|
11:50a |
Wednesday.
Date: 07/16/2008
Time: 7:03am
Duration: 0:40:36
Location: LaGrange, KY
Sport: Running
Workout: 40min run w/ 10min w/u, 10min at IM pace, 5 x 1min strong w/2min ez
Distance: No clue
Weather: Moderate
People: Matt
Comments:
We stayed in a hotel right off the interstate, so running from there was interesting. Ran to the road, out across the interstate (harrowing!) and into the random neighborhoods. Not too scary, and the neighborhoods were pretty dead since most people were presumably at work. Legs felt pretty okay, and my head was just a little fuzzy from sick/meds. |
| Thursday, July 17th, 2008 |
leahruns
|
8:45p |
THE BEST PRESENT EVER
Today was a long day of driving...I went back and forth from Dallas, collecting the boy child who has been at SMU for soccer camp. He had a blast.
When I got back, the hubby who has been out of town was home and he had a present for me. It is amazing--he took my LJ entries, starting from when I first began training and ending with my IM race report, combined them with pictures he took along the way, and had it all made into a book. The cover is my finisher's picture, the one I have as my user pic here and the title of the book is the same as my LJ, Enjoying the Journey.
I sat and reread every bit of it; it comes to some 90 pages. It's so very special. I'm just speechless. You just have to see it.
My hubby is a wonderful man. |
cruisergirl
|
7:11p |
LP Updates Summary of Thursday: Now I remember why I wanted to do this race again. :-) More updates on FlickrOh, and my suitcase arrived this morning and Cape Air delivered it to my room while I was in Lake Placid. It really wasn't too much of an inconvenience, more of a reminder that this place still is sort of remote and faraway in the woods. Race #2306  |
shubbe
|
6:50p |
Thursday. We have arrived! ( Stuff.. ) |
cam_ray
|
8:22a |
|
| Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 |
leahruns
|
10:21p |
Swimming Today I dropped in on the T3 noon swim practice. triphorphun has been doing it and I went with her. It was my first swim since Coeur d'Alene (well, my first swim that didn't involve dog paddling and an adult beverage). It was a really nice work out and I enjoyed it immensely. It made me remember how much I'd liked going last fall with my oldest daughter. And I honestly like to swim, especially outside in a pool. Last night, crabbyoldjaws talked me in to attending T3's information session for their Longhorn Half program. I was impressed and made to feel very welcome. It's nice to walk into a place, see people you know, and be greeted warmly. I'm such a sucker for buddies. I just like to hang out with people I like. My friends Clarence, John, and Dionne were there. They had some during-the-day training options--I could have 3 group workouts a week during the day. It's $$$ and part of me (the mid-Western German penny-pinching pratical part) feels that I should be able to do what I want on my own without having to lay out all that cash. I can certainly put together a schedule (I mean, the marathon stuff is old hat and I was pretty successful training myself for Longhorn last year) and in theory I could scrounge up friends or do workouts on my own. But the other part of me is really tempted to have everything put together for me and I just show up. I don't know...I need to chat it over with the hubby. |
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