It has been awhile....

The bad news: I am a crappy blogger. I had high hopes of updating my blog daily and that didn't happen.

The good news: a half-iron man only seems like a half-crazy idea and not fully crazy.

February was dedicated to getting into shape. Or rather, I started my roughly 6 month process of getting in shape. I joined Team Mermaid, which has the awesome coach Heidi leading us on workouts to help us get to whatever goal we have individually. It is a great group of women and we meet 2-3 times a week. I learned about the famous core and did a variety of exercises to strengthen said core. I found myself doing squats, sit-ups, something called an inch-worm and a variety of other movements designed to make my abs, tushie and thighs strong. It took about a week to recover from my 1st workout and for my abs not to ache when I sneezed.

March was dedicated to running. It worked out well in terms of gaging my results because I had a race at the beginning of the month and one at the end. I raced in the Happy Hour 10k Run the first weekend of March in downtown San Jose. My time was 1:01:26 which is a 10:28 mile pace. After a month of great training (tempo runs, long runs, stair-step breathing), I finished the last weekend of March with the mermaid Half-Marathon. My time for that was: 2:02:54--roughly a 9:35 pace. It was a PR for me and I felt awesome, aside from the gigantic blister on one of my toes so gross and intimidating that my husband refused to pop it for me.

Somehow I managed to squeeze my first triathlon of the year into the month of March. It was a sprint triathlon put on my the Cal Poly tri-team. My time was so embarrassing, that I refuse to blog it. Though, if you are really curious, I am sure you can Google the results. That triathlon kicked my bootie---those Cal Poly Kids do not mess around! We started with the lake swim at Lopez Lake, which was my first time swimming in a wet suit. The water was 52 degrees---brrzziees! The bike was the toughest part for me, even though it was only 16 miles. The hill before the halfway turn-around was brutal and many people wound up walking their bikes up it. I didn't walk, but my chain fell off as I was puffing my way up the hill. My pedals were moving but the bike was not. Luckily I clipped out of my pedals and saved myself from falling over and possibly causing a pile up. By the time I reached the last transition and was ready to run, I was exhausted. Though it was a tough race for me, it definitely was a wake-up call for what I signed up for in August.

April is all about introducing the other two sports into my training: swimming and cycling. I did the Cinderella Century at the beginning of April. It was a blast. Imagine 2500 cycling through Pleasanton, Livermoore and San Ramon wearing crowns and fairy wings. I definitely will be wearing a costume next year. Tomorrow is the Tierra Bella Century in Gilroy and Morgan Hill. I signed up because I am a South County girl at heart.

The addition of the two other sports is a little challenging---I think my body is confused because I am not solely using my running muscles.

My next big event is the American River Half-Marathon on May 3rd. I am hoping to break 2 hours, but will be happy to at least be faster than the Mermaid.