train and train

this past week, i was back in action after being sick and ended up logging just over 17 hours of training time (about half of this was on the bike). i didn't run a ton this week, but was glad to up my bike mileage and get in 3 swims....things looked like this:

monday:
focused trainer session with spin ups, and tempo climbing (1:30), 1 hour full body strength circuit with core
tuesday:
masters swim (1:15/ 3450yds), zone 2 aerobic run (1:00)
wednesday:
focused trainer session #2 (1:30) w/ 30minute easy brick run
thursday:
masters swim (1:15/ 3250yds), 45 minute strength circuits with core
friday:
treadmill run (:45) and 2000yd swim with bethany. easy/conversational. nothing too hard as i wanted to be fresh for the weekend
saturday:
83 mile bike ride from anaheim to solana beach (5:25) (point to point- took the train up the coast with the bikes and rode back down)
sunday:
10 mile run on the coast with james for the first 5, solo second half (1:20)

all in all i feel like this was a really solid week of training. i also focused on sleeping (A LOT) to make sure i was recovering from the workouts and the lingering cough/cold. looking over the week, i'm stoked to have completed an 80 mile ride (my longest so far!) but i'd like to get outside on the road at least twice a week. unfortunately, the weather was crap so the trainer sufficed.
i also took an easy week of running (no speed) since i had been doing lots of random racing in the weeks prior. next week, i'm getting back to track practice with the san diego track club and i'm really looking forward to incorporating a gradually increasing tempo run into my weekly routine, as recommended by lucho, a guy who knows his stuff if anyone does. i'm going to start at 3 miles at tempo pace and gradually increase by 1 mile until i'm up to 7 at tempo. right now that seems like a lot, but if i focus, i know i can get there. i think i also really need to look at my weekly schedule and strategically plan my runs to ensure that i have recovery days between them. if i run 4x a week, i'd like to include one long run, one tempo run, one track workout and one easy brick run....i need to find some space to spread out the track and tempo which is tough with my current schedule...

here are some pics from the train ride...
me and bethany on the train...are we there yet? too bad my quadruple espresso didn't make the shot...
cruising...sweet (or not so) outfit, huh?
mark, who organized the ride sent out an email today that said this, "i missed out (probably fortunately) on a lot of the youthful banter at the front of the group"
this is his reference to the numerous inappropriate conversations bethany and i pursued for the majority of the ride...i think he must have ridden up behind us when i recommended that she try out a heart rate monitor during sex (i have not done this, but think this quite funny)...sorry mark! i also owe major props to bethany for allowing me to suck her wheel for what was probably like 40 miles. i think there was crack in her gluten-free pb&j.

allen, joe, and bethany in san clemente....

randomness for sure...

just updated the food blog with some weekend eats.

i'm sitting here not getting excited about going to master's alone in the morning. 5am seems much less threatening when james makes coffee and pretty much puts a leash on me and leads me in the direction of the pool. but tomorrow he is up in irvine doing some work stuff so i am going to have to buck up. i have a weird thing i do where i put my swim suit and warm clothes and uggs right next to the bed before i go to sleep and in the a.m. i get dressed under the covers and sit there all dressed for a minute or two. it makes me feel less cold to not have to touch air before i am fully clothed. james doesn't get to see how funny it looks to accomplish this all under the covers because this is usually the point at which he is "taking care of business". when i hear a flush, i know its time to start getting my ass in gear.
i DO have a cute new TYR bikini with skulls on it and just bought some new pool toys including a pretty pink pull buoy, mini fins, and some paddles i don't know how to use...so at least i have the "new gear" prospect motivating me for tomorrow. don't you love that? isn't that first trot in the new pair of running shoes always the best? or when you have a hot new outfit for a race? do only girls get excited about this or do boys feel this way about new workout clothes too?

and here is the latest DeSoto ad in Inside Triathlon (march, p.34)....look...james is there! ...and no, it was not photoshopped. that is real jumping....

not the best idea...

saturday, against all good sense, i ran the USA XC Champs. on a good day, this would have been a tough tough race for me and i still would have finished near the back. yesterday (the day that it happened to be) was not close to a good day. i mentioned that i was sick in my last post, and that i was. so sick that james made me feel like a leper all week and i could barely get out of bed (although i did get out of bed becuase i am "aggro" as they tell me and just cannot let some commitments go). so, i probably infected all the kids i work with and my grad school classmates because i couldn't have the decency to stay home.

here were some exciting substitutions made in my training log this week:
2 full boxes of tissues,
3 boxes of theraflu (2 nighttime, 1 daytime),
5 varieties of cough/throat drops (i love that there are plentiful varieties now made sugar free or organic)
1 box of oscilloccinum (which is a box of homeopathic crap if you ask me $20 later)
various scattered doeses of nyquil and dayquil to change things up a bit.

okay, back to the race. woke up saturday and headed to the race site. it was a beautiful day and i met the other 3 girls on my team to warm up. the searing throat feeling and incessant coughing during warm up should have been a clue to pack my bags....but no, i lined right on up. right there along side (well, behind) the 90 fastest cross country runners in the US.
even on the start line i knew things were not quite right. after all, all the little girls (these were not the bodies of women, although they were of age) had on their bun huggers and cross country spikes (what the hell are those?). i didn't even have racing flats. just me and my training mizunos. i told my teammate afterwards that i felt like a freaking minivan lined up to race the grand prix. sweet. anyhow, i STILL thought it would be fun. i was totally prepared to just run my best and have fun. gun goes off..
mile 1 (6:34): pain, but held on to an okay pace...why do i feel asthmatic?
mile 2 (6:58): can't breathe, throat feels closed, not to mention a sudden digestive issues. 1st time i contemplated walking off the course
mile 3 (7:18): all things mentioned in mile 2 getting worse. i keep eyeing the bathroom. times #2-40 i contemplate DNF. the bathroom looks sooooo close! then i realize- i don't even know if there is some kind of DNF protocol and i don't want to get yelled at or embarrassed in this type of serious race situation and told that i didn't DNF properly (note to anyone reading this- are you supposed to do anything if you DNF or just walk away?)...hmmmm...thought about this until...
mile 4 (7:31): ssssssllllllllloooooowwwwing. i'm actually passing 1 or 2 people so i'm glad i'm not dead last, but also hear someone yell, "you're a winner just for being out there!" OUCH! don't care much because....throat ON FIRE!!!!....need to get to the bathroom.....BAD! ugh. terrible terrible pain.
mile 5 (7:29)...finally lapped by shalane flanagan (who was the female winner clocking 25:26), actually, that must be mile 4 because my finishing time for the 8k was 35:42..yeah, 7:10 pace average

sweet. over 40 seconds slower per mile than the 4-miler i did the weekend before and 20 seconds slower than half marathon a month ago....still, i wasn't last (74 of 81, 92 started)

so let's say i learned a lot in this race:
1) racing sick=not smart for me in this case. my new rule is never race if you are less than 90%.
2) consider dropping out if it's that painful/physiologically uncomfortable. i wouldn't have considered it if i was just having a "bad day", but this was unbearable, and the potential damage i did running through it may not have been worth "not quitting".
3) smile, it will all be okay. and damn, it was kind of funny. i can laugh at myself.
4) this was my first "bad race" and i think its a good experience to realize that i will not always place, or even do remotely well, or come close to a goal i have set for the race. there may be more races where i finish in the back of the pack. and that's okay. it's good to know what the back of the pack feels like, i'll cheer people on even harder next time....

after my debaucle, i got out the camera and watched the men tear it up...

ryan hall (5th in men's race)

dathan ritzenheim (men's overall winner)nice legs

so after the race, i went home and rested.
today (sunday), i went on an easy, beautiful 50 mile ride along the coast and inland with a fun group from the san diego triathlon club. it was nice to chill and go at an easier pace and especially nice afterwards when bethany and i stopped and got some big frozen yogurts......delicious recovery...i feel much better and overall recovered from the flu nonsense. back to some real training next week and i'm excited! with two "rest" weeks behind me (one intentional, one not), i'm ready to go! I'm actually thinking of adding a third masters session this week only for a little swim kick in the butt....thinking is the key word here, we'll see.

i'm sick and so is my uniform

on saturday i am scheduled to run the USATF USA Cross Country Championships on mission bay in san diego. see, the thing is, i've never run a cross country race. in. my. life. funny that the first one is the nat'l champs for those speedies that will qualify for the world cross country team. go big or go home, right? sooooooooooooo. i'm ready to get my arse beat down..

Here is an excerpt from a press realease about the event...i'm getting excited just reading it.

"...This year's field includes six U.S. Olympians and eight former USA Cross Country Championship titlists, including Elliot Heath (Winona, Minn.) and Jordan Hasay (Arroyo Grande, Calif.), the defending champions in the junior men's and women's events.

The open men's race will see Ryan Hall (Big Bear, Calif.) and Dathan Ritzenhein (Eugene, Ore.) face each other for the first time since the U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Men's Marathon on November 3, 2007, where both men punched their ticket to Beijing, China for the 2008 Olympic Games. Though Hall dominated the Olympic Trials in New York, the 12 km distance could prove to be more favorable for Ritzenhein when considering his personal best for 10,000 meters of 27:35.65 versus Hall's 28:07.93.

With a men's field that includes seven men who have run faster than 28:00 for 10,000 meters, Hall and Ritzenhein are likely to see challenges from a variety of contenders including recent USA Half Marathon champion James Carney (Boulder, Colo.), 2004 Olympian at 10,000 and the marathon Dan Browne (Portland, Ore.), Olympic steeplechaser Anthony Famiglietti (New York, N.Y.), former NCAA Cross Country champions Jorge Torres (Boulder, Colo.) and Josh Rohatinsky (Portland, Ore.).

The women's field will feature American Record holder Shalane Flanagan (Pittsboro, N.C.), a two-time USA Cross Country 4 km titlist (2004, 2005). Flanagan will face 2006 USA 10 km champion on the roads Katie McGregor (Minneapolis, Minn.), who will look to make her sixth USA Cross Country team. Additional contenders for the title and team berths include Nicole Aish (Gunnison, Colo.), Blake Russell (Monterey, Calif.), Sara Slattery (Lafayette, Colo.) and two-time USA Cross Country Champion (2004, 2005) Colleen De Reuck (Boulder, Colo.)."

so, needless to say, this will not be like last week's "beth and james sandbag the local couples race with all the nice old people"...i'll be fininshing BOP, MOP if i'm lucky. for me, this is just an amazing opportunity to participate in a national event on my home turf and run with the big dogs. i'm also stoked the race will be televised- maybe i can get james to let me borrow some of his sweet 80's gear to get some airtime :)...
AND, this will be my first race on the San Diego Track Club Women's Open Team so i get to sport my brand new retro uni -it's rad and makes me want to go fast. i was asked on the team last year right before i broke the ole hip. then i broke the arm...so this is my first race w. the team even though i've been on the team for close to a year.


the only minor (okay more than minor) detail is that i've been sick as anything this week. full blown cold/cough/sore throat/flu/chills/fever and training was reduced to zero. today, even though i'm not better, i got the nerves and felt like i needed to do an easy run on the treadmill..all zone 1&2, snot a-flying (sorry!)...i thought this was a good idea. let's just say that coach james was not a fan of my call. i guess it was dumb because i am sick, but i thought it was a good idea because of saturday.
..anyway, i really hope i get better before saturday or my team will REALLY think i'm that flaky girl who is always sick or injured...and (watch out, girly stupidness coming up) ..i REALLY want to wear my uniform. i feel like i'm in high school in that thing...it's so fun and pretty and new and it should be worn!

lucky headband.....

yesterday james and i did the 23rd annual Guys and Gals Couples race put on by San Diego Track Club....we both woke up pretty unmotivated and it was really chilly outside. i tried to take off my grump face and put on my race face but i just wasn't sure if it was going to happen. even when we were warming up, i just wasn't sure if i could get the old energy in the legs to go my fastest....but, the plan was to actually figure out what my fastest (or close to it) is...my shortest race so far has been the 10k. anyway, no big race report, see james' blog for that (and the pictures), but we got first place (1st male, 1st female, and 1st overall team) (thankfully, since i was with the guy in that outfit)
i had just gotten a run lactate threshold test done with ken over at fitstop and i was interested to see how my actual performance compared with his numbers. he measured my run LTHR as 171 bpm. the run zones i am supposed train with are
Z1: <145
Z2: 146-156
Z3: 157-163
Z4: 164-170
Z5: 171+
i just started training w. HR, uh, yesterday i guess, so one of my goals is to get on it now that i have a Garmin 305 GPS and HRM. from what ken said, since this is my first real season of racing/training, i should be able to raise this LTHR a bit with the right training.
my actual average HR in the 4 mile run was 174 bpm and my max HR was 180. not sure what this means.....a few beats higher than my lab LTHR, but pretty close.
my time for the run was 26:06 , a 6:28/mile average...and the course was not flat- 428ft of elevation gain.

after the race, we headed to mission bay to run 6 more easy miles along the shore. later in the afternoon james decided on a recovery spin along the coast, and since recovery spin for him pretty much means tempo bike for me, i opted out and headed to moonlight beach in encinitas to do some reading....here are some hazy shots from the camera phone, i think the lens was cloudy or something...
i love the little cali surfing grommets...

that's it...check the vo2maxxed for the latest.

the big easy....

...or not so easy of a city to run in. got to new orleans on tuesday for work (and a lil bit of mardi gras play) and decided to venture out for a run with sarah on wednesday. sarah and i quickly figured out that we should do a little more research before our next run because we gave ourselves an amazing tour de ghetto. plenty of looks (and oh so tasteful comments) from people wondering why two geeky white girls (with garmins and visors-cringe!) were jogging through their hood.. you know those runs when you don't see any other joggers? rough one....

so i did a little gym rat sesh complete with the indoor trifecta-mill running, stationary bike & elliptical to get the ole confidence back on thursday, and bucked up for another outdoor run with sarah today (friday). this time, i did my research! we hopped the classic new orleans st. charles ave streetcar near our hotel and rode it out through the garden district and near tulane university.
on the car...
we went to the end of the line, hopped off and ran back (8 miles). a RAD point-to-point run, especially since we ran right in the streetcar tracks which is a packed dirt path....i heart soft surfaces...here are some butt shots i took of sarah on the move...

fun times, but i'm so ready to head home tomorrow and sleep in my own bed, and get back to those other two sports i am supposed to be training for.

ok dinner time, off to one more round of gumbo and oysters.....

results are in

the xterra mission gorge 15 k results are up.... I like seeing this
1. Heather fuhr
2. Sam mcglone
3. Amber monforte (xterra pro/Conrad stoltz gf)
4. Beth gerdes

So I ended up as first amateur....yippee! Now, its fun to have the big names show up and all, but since there is no pro division, I was still 3rd in my age group even though 4th overall (f).. No complaints except for little old beth is trying to qualify for xterra trail running nat'l championships and I need points in the point series.... D'oh!

James ended up 8th overall even with running a full mile off course....pretty decent....

a long week

this past week i had a recovery week planned, but since i'm heading to new orleans next week to present at a national psychology conference (and it's mardi gras!), i postponed the recovery week and hit another big-ish training week, just around 15 hours. i managed to get in 3 swims, 2 trainer sessions, 2 outdoor rides, 4 runs, 1 strength session and one killer 15k xterra trail race...and i'm beat...sitting here with james in our recovery tights, about to dig into some healthy spinach artichoke dip i just cooked up and watch the bowl.

aside from training, grad school, and working, i also had a fun little birthday party on friday at tower 23 in pacific beach....hmmm.. some good sushi and definitely a little too much wine which made for a rough saturday recovery ..here i am doing the damage on friday night...
saturday, i finally made it out of bed and joined james for 2 hours on the road bike (after he had done 3:30 on the mountain bike)....i voted for a mid-ride cup o coffee at pannikin in leucadia...i won! james always makes fun of my less than desirable self-portrait skeeelz...wonder why....


today's race was the gnar. it was cold, rainy, windy, and over 2500 feet of climbing in 15k. the endurance sports awards were in san diego last night, so the lineup for our local 15k trail race ended up being a pro show. racers included heather fuhr, sam mccglone, mac brown , conrad stoltz, and lots of other geared out pros i didn't know who trashed their newtons and new zoot shoes in the mud run...unfortunately, the rain was so bad that we got out of there right after the finish and didn't take our usual photo show...

i think i did really well, but didn't stay until the results were posted. the race was 400 people. and i'm pretty sure i was in the top 10 women (i'll post the results once they're out)..even better, james absolutely KILLED it in his first race of the year and went out strong, dropped everyone (including conrad and the pro runners) by mile 3 or so and had first with a huge lead. unfortunately, less than a mile to the finish, a volunteer sent him the wrong way- off with the 5k-ers! damn. sucks to not win when you actually won, but this definitely stoked the fire. he hasn't stopped talking about how much he can't wait to race again all day long....i'm glad he did so great, must have been the sweet neon pink headband i bought for him...

yeah....when james was leading the race, a dude w/ a walkie talkie at a checkpoin goes..."here comes the first runner...he's in all black, with a PINK headband"...ha.
ok, that's it, but check out our new food blog, Vo2Maxxed . word.