Open Water: friend or foe?

I realized something this weekend: triathlons are a disgusting sport. I am familiar with the gross-out factors of running (porto potties, tummies jostling up and down, toenails that fall off) and cycling (bugs splatting on your helmet, saddle sores, other cyclists spitting--or worse--on you) . The triathlon has all of those aspects--with the addition of one more friend: the open water swim.

Swimming in lakes is perhaps the foulest part of a triathlon. I had a swim clinic at the Fremont Quarry on Saturday and tried not to think about what I was swimming in (i.e. goose poop delicacies). Ocean swimming isn't as disgusting unless you are swimming in slimy seaweed wrapping itself around your legs. Ocean swimming is more nerve racking to me because I hear the theme song to "Jaws" in my head. Lake swimming is just plain gnarly. The water is murky, suspiciously warm, and smelly. Plus, I have been to Lake Berryessa before. I witnessed what kinda of drunken, beer-bong debauchery goes on in those lakes on a holiday weekend. Blech.

But, in all honesty, I actually enjoyed my swim on Saturday. I think the thing that worked for me was thinking about other things, and not water snakes swimming under my torso. So, I swam and thought about lengthening my body and timing my breaths. I thought about finding the place I was swimming to and how to get there in a relatively straight line. I thought about how to keep my pace steady, yet fast so in a real triathlon I don't burn-out.

And, of course, I thought,: "Oh crap. My half-iron is 3 months away. Seriously?"

Tierra Bella...kinda rock and roll

Yesterday's Tierra Bella ride went very well. Dennis and decided to stay at my parents in Morgan Hill and catch the route from there rather than meet the crowd at Gavilan college. Oh my goodness was it chilly yesterday. I left my windbreaker at home and was worried that I would be cold, to which Dennis responded: "Pedal faster." Thanks hon.

The ride itself had some very nice parts. We had a fairly long climb up Gilroy Hot Springs road. I think the toughest part of a new route is that I don't know the hills. We made our way downhill, passed Monterey road to Santa Teresa in Gilroy. From there we took Day road to Watsonville Road and eventually went to Uvas Reservoir. That was probably my sixth time cycling up Uvas, which is a good thing because I am doing the Uvas triathlon next month and will be fairly familiar with the road.

Today I met my friend Cheryl for a hike at Rancho San Antonio---one of my favorite places to trail run. The parking lot was way too crowded and we couldn't find a spot So we hopped into her car and headed to Montebello Open Space preserve. As we were driving down Foothill we saw quite a few runners on the road. I realized it was part of the California Relay ( a race that goes from Calistoga to Santa Cruz where each runner does 5-7 mile legs). I immediately felt envious and made a mental note to make a concerted effort in finding a team next year.

The hike was gorgeous! You can see all the way to the bay. We parked at Picchetti winery and caught the trail from there and even managed to do a tasting after the hour and a half long hike.

Time for bed now because I have to swim at 6:30 tomorrow!

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.

darn rain!

So, I finally got off my butt and actually worked out this weekend! I did the Pacifica Trail Run on Saturday. I only did the 9k becauseit was my first trail run. Let me just say---holy cow! Trail Running is definitely a different animal then the nice paved runs I usually do. I am surprised I didn't bite it---though I came might close on tripping on rocks going down hill. It was a good time though, and I will probably do it again.

Sunday was the longest bike ride I have done since the day after Thanksgiving. I am doing the mardi Gras Meric Cenury in Ventura in a little over a month and need to train for that. The ride was nice: I went to Stevens Creek Reservoir, up Mount Eden, took highway 9 down to Los Gatos and then caught Shannon Road to Hicks.

How come the best bike rides are where all the fancy pants houses are?

My ride came in at about 38 miles. I am hoping to add 10 miles to this weeks ride, but it is apparently raining forever...

How did I get here?

I was not a born athlete. I wasn't, however, a sedentary child. I took part in such activities as soft-ball, ballet, tap dancing and the swim team. I now realize my problem back then was that I lacked the drive and competitive spirit to push myself into being better at sports. I showed up to practice, did recitals and was in the slowest heats of swim meets. I enjoyed myself, but figured I would never be the best, so why try harder? I also NEVER enjoyed running.

Then something truly horrendous and embarrassing happened when I was 15. It was the last dance of Junior High and it was a BIG DEAL. My friends and I got all gussied up in our floral print formals and suntan-colored nylons (the early 90s weren't known for its excellent fashion sense). We danced and danced in our circle of six girls. We did the Cabbage Patch to MC Hammer and slow danced with boys to Unchained Melody. And then, it happened...

I don't know what song we were dancing to---perhaps I blocked it out. I just remember that it must have been fast-paced, because we were dancing in a style that involved legs flailing. One of my friend's (I don't know which one because it was dark and happened so fast) high-heeled pumps made contact with my knee and I fell to the ground. I started laughing because I was known as a a klutz and falling down wasn't exactly a surprise event. Unfortunately, I realized I was in pain. It was a pain that I never felt before and my knee kept on seizing up. The, when I looked down, I saw that my kneecap was sticking out in a way that it had never stuck out before.

I dislocated my knee not in the usual way (i.e. soccer, skiing etc), but at a freakin' high school dance!

That is so me!

I will spare you the details of the next year. Long story short: spent a summer of physical therapy and in a cast that went from my ankle to mid thigh, dislocated it again and had knee surgery the day after my 16th birthday. I have a pretty cool scar on my knee that is about 2 inches long. The trauma of the injury, however, messed with my head big time. I didn't trust my knee at all and did no physical activities. I never wanted to feel that kind of pain again.

I didn't get into running until I was 21 and moved back to California from going to school in Oregon. The irony of the situation is that for the two years I lived in Eugene-- which is practically the top running city in the United States ---I never ran.

I started slow and short: 3 miles, 4 miles and the occasional 6 mile. A few years went by and I saw a poster for a training program for the Honolulu Marathon. It was sponsored by The National AIDS Marathon Training program. They put on group training runs (all the way up to a 26 mile training run in Golden Gate Park a month before the race) and, in return, I would fund raise for The SF AIDS Foundation. It was a long 6 month program, but perfect for anyone who wasn't an experienced runner but wanted to complete a marathon.

Though I felt immense satisfaction in my completion of the 26.2 mile race, I never wanted to do a marathon again. My body hurt, my IT Band was inflamed and my time sucked: 6.5 hours! I went back to my old way of thinking: why bother improving if I am not going to win?

Fast forward to four years later and something clicked: I started getting into half marathons. I did the Santa Cruz Half Marathon, CSU Monterey Bay half Marathon, Disneyland, San Franciso and San Jose Rock'n'Roll. Suddenly I was getting competitive---though my big competitor was myself. I didn't have grand delusions of being the winner, but I didn't want to beat my last race. I started the season with the Monterey Bay run in the Spring with a time of about 2:18 and improved down to a 2:09 in Disneyland in September.

Then, in the fall of 2006, I received an e-mail promoting the inaugural Eugene marathon. I remebered my vow of never doing a marathon again. I then called my enabler---I mean, friend, Robyn. She had done Honolulu (though much faster than my time) with me and we had also met 11 years ago in Eugene. We convinced each other to sign up, and then BAM! I was on my way to training for a marathon.

This race, I told myself, was going to be different. I was going to improve my time. I wasn't going to take walk breaks. Training was NOT going to take up half my year. I downloaded Hal Higdon's training program and enterred all my future workouts on my Outlook calendar. I was going to be ready for this beast.

There was, however, a little snag in my training plan. My work was sending me to India for three weeks about one and a half months before my race. Though I was excited to go to India, I was nervous about my training program. I had an 18 and 20 mile run scheduled for the weeks I was there. I convinced myself that I would somehow train over there and bought a nice fashionable fuel belt so I could hydrate well during my training.

India was amazing: colorful, surreal, awesome food and friendly people. It was not, I realized my second day there, the best place to train for a marathon. Not only was it hot, but it was humid and the air quality was a lot different from what my California raised lungs were used to breathing. I ran a couple times outside and discovered the (non-air conditioned) gym in my office. At first I thought I was going fast onthe treadmill because my pace was 8.5 and I was not even winded. Then I realized something: they use the metric system in India. So insteady of 8.5 miles an hour, it was 8.5 km. oops.

The Eugene run went ok. I ran the whole thing, but my body was not very happy with the grand latte I ingested before the race. It was a great feeling running past the dorms I lived in and realizing that I was in much better shape at 30 then I was at 18. I also beat my Honolulu time: 4:59!

My recovery was dreadful. My husband and I drove back to California the day after the race---about 9 hours in a car. Then a day after returning, I was back on a plane for a second trip to India. A 15 hour flight is not the best post-marathon activity. I spent about a month hating running. My legs felt like lead whenever I tried to run. My mind and body were defeated.

I decided I needed a new hobby. I think hubby was tired of my bitching about running, because we suddenly found ourselves in a bike shop getting ready to upgrade my cruiser to a road bike. We bought a beautiful aqua blue Trek. When I got home, I immediately signed up for a sprint triathlon.

I loved my first triathlon and was instantly hooked. I decided to sign up for the LA Triathlon and accidentally registered for the Olympic distance. I am an ok swimmer, but could I swim almost a mile in the Ocean?

The LA Tri was a blast. The swim was difficult, but once I found my pace and the ocean was calm, I was fine.

So, that triathlon was in September. My races for the remainder of 2007 were sporadic and unsatisfying. I signed up for a couple half marathons on a whim, didn't train well and didn't break any PRs. I started getting lazy and squishy and decided I needed a new goal.

And that is what brought me to signing up for Barb's Race, the 1/2 ironman that is in just about 7 months.

So...here I go. My training starts today by deciding from now on I will walk the 11 flights of stairs to work instead of the elevator.

It's a start, right?

Here it starts...

After only doing 3 triathlons (two sprints and one Olympic) in 2007, I bit the bullet and signed up for a half-iron man that will take place in August 2008. I am a little nervous for two reaons: 1) I am still unable to visualize myself completing the whole thing (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run); 2)what if after I complete this dang thing, it plants the seed of doing a full-ironman in my head?

That is just crazy talk.

So here begins my journey. Wish me luck.