solar squirrel

Last Sunday I did the Planet X sprint triathlon - I went into it knowing I was not in the best shape and would be happy with just finishing but I ended up feeling really good the whole time (except during the swim - thank goodness I brought my wet suit!!) I felt good on the bike and I was talking to people - I scared one person when I said hi to her!  Then on the run I was able to run w/ Daisy, until the end where she pulled ahead and beat me.  It was fun and the weather was perfect!  I ended up w/ 3rd female overall - with Mel and Daisy taking 1st and 2nd.  (And wouldn’t you know it - the 3 of us are part of the Akron Marathon relay - LOOK OUT!!)

This was just what I needed to motivate me to get my butt in gear and start a more regular workout routine.  After Sunday’s good turnout, I managed to get in a track workout on Tue, a trip to Westbranch for some mountain biking on Wed, spin class on Thurs, and a solid 12 miles running w/ SERC today in Solon.  Now, for many people I know 4 days of workouts is a joke - but compared to what I’ve been doing this is PHENOMINAL!  I plan to slowly get myself back to 7 days/week.  (Using my swim day as a rest day).  At least for the summer I should be able to handle this, but once school is back in session I’ll likely fall apart again.

Planet X results:

Swim (1/4 mile):  7:12
Bike (11 miles):  36:12 - 18.2 mph
Run (5k):  23:04 - 7:26/mile

At the finish - still feeling good!

Thanks Joey for the pictures from Planet X!  Someone told me they saw pics of me from it and I was thinking it had to be from Joey playing photographer!

My blog needs updates…but I’ll get to it on a day that I don’t have a million other things to do.  For now all you need to know is that my newest goal is to run a 3:30 at Towpath.  (and not die doing XTERRA this year…)

I cannot believe that June is almost over and I’ve basically been a sedentary blob since I started my new job.  Gone are the days of feeling like a slacker if I didn’t work out at least once per day.  I’ve managed to evolve into someone who only exercises about once or twice per week - and doing that is beginning to look like an accomplishment.  My desire to do well at my new job has caused me to eliminate focus on almost every other piece of my life…which goes against my NUMBER ONE RULE, which is that having the proper balance of family, work, social, and fitness/health are key to being HAPPY.  (Note that I didn’t say these were key to being wealthy or key to having a perfect body, etc…since I am not convinced that tipping the scale any one way is equivalent to providing life-long happiness).  In any event I have broken my rule and on my red eye flight back from San Diego Tue/Wed I decided ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.  This is getting ridiculous and I need to get back into a routine that puts me in charge of my balance.  It is not asking too much to take an average of one hour a day to exercise.  Whether it’s running or biking or swimming or whatever,  I’m going to do it because that’s what provides me with balance and happiness.  If it happens that I use 1.5 hours one day and .5 the next, whatever, but it’s going to happen because I’m beginning to feel like a spectator rather than a participant in my own life.

Which leads to tomorrow’s sprint triathlon at Monroe Falls park.  It’s the first of the season for me - I haven’t done a brick workout in probably 8 months and can’t remember the last time I swam, but it should be a fun time regardless.  It’s local and there are a few friends who will be there which will make it fun even if I’m in last place.  It will be good just to get out and do a race!  The weather is supposed to be nice too, so it will be enjoyable.  Looking ahead the XTERRA triathlon is a month away and I haven’t been on my mtn. bike once!  I’m planning on heading to West Branch this Thursday so if you are reading this and you want to go please let me know so I will have someone to ride with in case I die!  I will plan on hitting West Branch once per week until XTERRA which will be about the same training as I did last year.  Hopefully there won’t be too many runners so I don’t come in last place.  (Last year I ended up passing quite a few people on the run, but basically was the slowest mtn. biker on the course…)  I have a feeling that Daisy may just win it for the girls!

Ok - off to do Saturday stuff - going to a friend’s ‘Summer Solstice’ party and enjoying a day of REST!

Sunday was the Portage Lakes Triathlon - after ‘resting’ all week (6 days without running because of ITB issues) I decided that I could go ahead and let myself do a triathlon - after all, the run was only 6.2 miles. I haven’t biked since GCT (a month ago) and I seriously cannot remember the last time I swam - it was well over a month ago (swim was canceled at GCT). So - basically I was going into this in a fairly unprepared state. Whatever, I knew it was a fun race so I was just ready to go out and have a good time. I talked Todd into doing the Duathlon, which he wasn’t training for; so we both were just going to have fun.

Todd started the duathlon about 30 min before my swim wave start, so I got to see him take off - my dad was there too, taking video of the entire thing. Todd looked strong and I figured he would probably place in his age group even without training. After we watched all of the duathletes start, my dad and I headed down to the lake to watch the first swim waves start. My wave was one of the last ones - all of the Olympic distance women started at the same time. There were about 30 of us - not too many, but enough that it would be crowded in the water at the start. I should have started in the front, but I let a lot of people stand in front of me and when they started us I was stuck behind a ton of people kicking me. Aargh! I hate that! It is the weirdest thing because you have all these arms and legs everywhere and you are trying not to get kicked but at the same time keep track of where the next buoy is so that you don’t get off course - OH - and there was seaweed EVERYWHERE!!! It kept getting caught in-between my fingers and in my nose-plug string. It was hilarious! I almost laughed out loud because I was thinking about telling Todd that there were barnacles - I guess I don’t even know what a barnacle is, but I know that the name is funny and that’s the first word that came in my head while I was swimming. So anyway - I was dodging barnacles (seaweed) and lots of appendages and it just really got my rhythm off. Needless to say my swim time was not that great - towards the 2nd loop of the swim it finally thinned out enough that I was able to get into a better rhythm, but by that time there wasn’t enough distance for me to really make up enough time. Oh well, I didn’t drown.

Coming out of the swim I felt strong and I was able to get into transition area rather quickly. All swiftness on my part faded (as usual) in transition. My dad was there in transition video taping me - so I was able to see FIRST HAND how freakin’ slow I am in transition!!!! I will have to see if I can edit out that part of the video and post it - I am so slow - putting on my shoes and socks, and my gloves and helmet…like - I feel like I’m being sort-of fast when I’m doing it, but watching it I look like I’m going in slow motion! It’s like I don’t know what to do next - I definitely need to practice if I want to get serious. To add to the long transition was the fact that I couldn’t find my dumb bike - the rows were super crowded and they were labeled with letters rather than numbers, and I couldn’t remember if they were in alphabetical order from the entrance or exit.

The bike was pretty uneventful, except for the fact that it was raining lightly, which made the road slick and made me afraid of falling. I went back and forth with this lady for a while - she was faster on the flats and downhills and I was faster on the up-hills, so we kept passing each other. Finally she got in front of me at the end and I never did catch back up to her. I decided I would rather live and let her pass me than die from slipping on wet pavement and getting hit by a car. (The roads were pretty empty, though, which was good). My bike to run transition was no better than swim to bike - not sure what the hold up was but comparing my time to other people it was embarrassingly much slower. Again - I felt strong starting the run - it was almost like my legs were getting let out of a cage after being pent up. I was talking and cheering people on the entire time - I saw Todd at about the 3 mile mark and he told me there was a girl ahead and to pass her, which I of course did. He told me I looked strong - I felt great! Unfortunately, around mile 3 my dumb knee started to feel weird - but I still felt good - it didn’t seem to hinder my performance any - but it was still very depressing to feel a dull pain with every step. I was still running great, though, passing quite a few people - I got passed by a few guys, but that’s it. The pain wasn’t enough to slow me down or cause me to change my running (at least I don’t think it did); but just the presence of it probably messed me up psychologically. I had my eye on the lady that passed me on the bike, and I think I could have passed her had I been more mentally strong. After the knee pain I decided to maintain my pace, rather than pick it up and risk possibly hurting myself, so I didn’t catch her. I finished with a 2:33, which at the time I thought was a 2:57 because I was going on the finish clock time - duh - my wave started a half hour AFTER they started the clock! I took 3rd in my age group, and Todd took 2nd in his - so we both got cute little medals!

Here are my splits:

Swim 1500 meters - 28:08
T1 - 3:37
Bike - 40K - 1:11:31 (20.8 mph)
T2 - 2:12
Run - 10K - 48:06 (7:46 pace/mile)

Total time: 2:33:35
3rd Place in my age group.

I guess I’m happy with this - considering all of the circumstances. Now I need to figure out what the heck is going on with my knee (almost 100% sure it’s ITB). I see the Dr. tomorrow - stay tuned!

I’ve been meaning to give a more detailed recap of the greater cleveland half ironman that I did last week. First of all - the day started EARLY - I had to wake up at 4 am. in order to get there in time to get all of my stuff ready in transition (transition area closed at 6:45). Well, no sooner do I get my bike out of my car then some guy walks by and tells me that they canceled the swim. What? Ugh…darn it. That means it’s not going to be a triathlon! Oh well, can’t blame them that the lake was choppy and they didn’t want us to drown. So I find out that we’re going to do a 1.2 mile run instead, which means that I want to warm up before the start. Scheduled start for the 1/2 iron was moved up to 7:30, so Janet and I decided to do a warmup beforehand. On our way back to the start all of these people start running towards us - but it wasn’t 7:30 yet - so I thought did they just start the guys first? Nope. They started the race early. So Janet and I sprint back to the start and then turn around and run after everyone else. I would guess we were about 3 min. behind at this point. So I get to my bike stuff and there is Steve right next to my stuff - I thought I only had girls next to me, but maybe he squeezed in after I had already had my stuff setup - nope - he just went to the wrong row. Although it sure was funny seeing his giant running shoes sitting there with my stuff. So I get on my bike and Janet flies out of transition ahead of me. I’m thinking - I’ll just try to keep her in site on the bike, because there is no way I’m in as good of biking shape as she is. Then not even 500 ft. out of the transition area there she is off of her bike. I thought she had fallen or something - but no, she got a flat tire already!!! I felt SO bad for her. What a way to start the bike. So I just go off by myself, trying to get into a rhythm. It never happened. The bike was VERY tough for me for some reason. After 30 miles I was just done. I knew exactly how many miles I had to go because I had on my garmin (actually had it on run mode so I was getting an alert every mile…) so I was fully aware of how many more miles I had to go. I was SO tired and not only did my shoulders hurt which always happens on the bike, but my hamstrings were not happy AT ALL. Finally the bike was over at pretty much exactly 56 miles according to Garmin, and I headed back to transition area. I stood there for a few min trying to stretch out my neck and then I switched shoes and headed out for 13.1 miles of bliss!

Why do I look like I’m scared?!?!

Wouldn’t you know it - there was Elizabeth and Melissa out cheering us on. Those girls ROCK. I was pretty tired when I first saw Elizabeth, but I tried to look like I wasn’t. She was cheering and screaming like crazy and I was super happy that she was out there. She ran with me for about 1/2 a mile and then said she would see me later because she was afraid that she would get in trouble for running with me. I said ok, and just tried to keep a pace that didn’t feel like it would kill me. The majority of the race was me trying not to think about the fact that I had to run 13.1 miles. Going from bike to run is NOT EASY. It’s definitely a feeling that you have to get used to, and since I had done a total of 0 brick workouts in preparation for this race, I was NOT used to it. I just kept on trotting along - and then Elizabeth caught up with me and ran with me, which helped me A LOT because she was talking. I can’t really remember all of what she was talking about, but it was nice to have her running with me. It made it easier for sure. I got a side stitch and she walked with me, and was very encouraging the whole time telling me she was impressed that I wasn’t complaining. (I just learned to keep it inside - trust me I was in pain.) We saw Janet and I only had about 3 miles left, so Elizabeth went out with her and I finished up the rest on my own. I think final finish time was 5:04 - OMG - I just checked online and they have posted splits - and how completely AWFUL - because of the early start that Janet and I missed, my first 1.2 miles took me 10:43!!!!! That is absolutely hilarious!!! Janet and I had our garmins on and I think the first mile was ~6:40 for us. Oh well. So I’m going to say that my time was exactly 5 hours for this triathlon.

I look like I’m sleeping - that’s how tired I was…

Looking at my splits - I’m pretty happy with my performance, and no wonder I was in so much pain on the bike - my speed was 18.7 mph! That’s pretty fast for me. I’m also happy with my transition times, which aren’t that great in general, but for me they are good compared to what they usually are (I think at Steelhead one of my transition times was like 7 min…tee hee). So here are my splits (GCT - sorry I complained that you didn’t have splits - I guess it just took you a little longer to post them to your website):

Greater Cleveland Half Iron Triathlon 2008

Run 1.2 miles (swim replacement): 10:43 (really it was probably ~7 min)
T1: 1:39
Bike 56 miles: 2:59:37 / 18.7 mph
T2: 2:17
Run 13.1 miles: 1:50:19 / 8:25 pace

Finish Time: 5:04:35

Here’s a link to the online results.

Now onto some more fun stuff - the Twilight Trail Run! Elizabeth, Melissa, Janet and I all did this one last year and had a complete blast, so of course we decided to do it again. This year Elizabeth and I returned as team Two Trail Freaks confident we would take first.

Two Trail Freaks took FIRST PLACE again, baby!!!! (Yes - that IS sweat.)

Actually, Elizabeth was confident for 1st place, I was a little worried since, oh, you know, she’s WAY faster than me!!! So I was nervous that I would cause us to loose - but not too nervous since Elizabeth was sore from an upper-body workout so if she tried to beat me up I could easily take her. Hahahaha.

We did about 15 min. of warming up and then headed over to the start to watch all the old people go first. (This race is unique in that they do staggered start based on gender and age.) Our team started with the 18-39 women group. I could have started earlier since they had me down as 46 years old - but I decided that would be cheating and started with my real age group. They started us and immediately Elizabeth was out in front - I stayed with her for about 1/4 mile and then settled into a pace that I was able to keep relatively comfortably. The first mile has a nice big hill and Janet caught me on it and passed me (I’m just not good on hills). Once we got to the top I caught her and we stayed with each other the whole time. I was sure she was going to pass me at any moment but I just tried to keep a consistent pace so that I could have my final kick at the end. This race is so awesome because it’s all on the bridal trails at N. Chagrin Reservation. There is one really steep up-hill and several rolling hills with one steep down-hill. The big down-hill is near Squire’s Castle and my toe was killing me as I flew down it - I kept thinking of how lovely my black toe was going to look after this! Janet stayed right on my back the whole time! I was sure I would loose her on the downs because I have gotten pretty good at them, but she was right next to me the entire time pushing me to keep my pace and not slack even though I was getting tired. I knew we were close after Squire’s Castle, because it’s where we warmed up, so I picked it up a little bit - not realizing they were going to make us do a big loop in the grass at the end! I am VERY disappointed that this dumb guy flew past me at the end and I didn’t have anything left to race him. Darn it! If there is one thing that I will not stand for is some guy beating me with only a few hundred feet left in the race and I just didn’t have anything left at that point. Blah. I think my finish time was 37:00 exactly based on garmin, which is a 7:26 pace. I wish I would have been a little faster than that, but at least it’s faster than last year’s time. Janet finished right behind me, maybe one or two seconds behind. It was great that we pushed each other, because I really think I would have slowed down if she wouldn’t have been running with me. Elizabeth is screaming to us from the finish something about ‘I already chugged a beer!!’ So I finish and the guy hands me a beer and I’m like - man do I love this race! In came Melissa and Laura and Bridget and all the rest of our buds. I think Janet even cheered for peanut as Laura was finishing! (Laura is a super fast hard-core runner who is pregnant and she calls the baby ‘peanut’). Todd of course did great and finished in 33 min. probably not even trying to run hard and stopping to gather spiders and walking half of it. (I’m exaggerating here, but it sure seems like he barely tries and still runs super fast!!)

Don’t I look glamorous?! Elizabeth said to take a ‘funny’ pic. too bad I was the only one who posed like a FREAK!

So they did the awards and Two Trail Freaks took FIRST female team! Sweet! We each got a certificate for any pair of Saucony running shoes that we want! How cool is that? This race is awesome. They have a cheap entry ($20); great stuff (headlamp and do-rag); great prizes; great food and beer; great well-marked course; and a great cause. Anyone reading this MUST do this race next year!

Todd took the last brownie but was so kind as to share it with me… OINK - OINK!!

Ok - that wraps up the last two races I have done.  Now it’s time to get serious with my Towpath marathon training.  I want to qualify for Boston!

This was a big race weekend, with the Buckeye Trail 50k on Sat. and the Xterra O.N.E. off-road triathlon today (Sunday). Since I knew I couldn’t do both, I opted to do the triathlon instead of the 50k, since I’ll be getting plenty of running later on this year and I also HAD to take advantage of the opportunity to do a trail triathlon - duh! I just want to say that I have some of the most incredible running friends ever! They all did so well and I was SO IMPRESSED with EVERYONE. Elizabeth was incredible, finishing 8th overall and coming in 2nd place female overall. Everyone else did incredibly well, too. It was just an awesome time cheering everyone on. Todd barely trained (I think he only ran once in July (muddy paws race) and maybe 2 or 3 times in June!!!) But he can go out and run 31 miles without training - insane!!!! I’ll post more details for the 50k and my trail triathlon - but for now here are the photo’s!

(I took 3rd overall female at the triathlon!!! YEA!!)

XTERRA O.N.E. trail triathlon

2008 Summer BT50K