Aggravating

I hate being unprepared. I mean really hate it.

I had a meeting last night, the second Breast Cancer meetup and got home about 9:30. I hadn't slept well the night before so went to bed early. A big mistake.

I woke up and started to get dressed to run, but couldn't find a long sleeve shirt so grabbed a way, way to hot sweatshirt, didn't have my hair in a pony tail, forgot to set my watch to track the time and was late getting out the door. It was just starting out to be a crappy, crappy run.

I did it backwards starting with loops down Grant and Pelican and then around the cemetery for a total of 2.16 miles with a 13.43 pace.

I like running early, early. No one is up and moving, the air is mine, the roads are mine, only the occasional kitty is out to say hello. I prefer to be out the door by 4:30 and home by 6. That gives me about 6 miles. This morning was a chore and not much fun. Tonight I'll make sure my iPod is loaded and charged, I have a long-sleeve shirt, my watch is set, ponytail holders at the ready and then the run tomorrow will be a good one.

OUC Half Marathon

That was today. It was a good race, but I wasn't aware you had to run on cobblestones for 3 to 4 miles. My knees started hurting within the first 500 yards. I'm glad I did it, but if they always hold it on the cobbles, I'll pass on this race. I'd like to keep running for another 35 years and desrroying my knees with a poor choice of substrate isn't going to allow that to happen.

I didn't run as fast as I wanted to, but I did finish it. I need to come up with a better plan for organization. Runnign with my keys, my iPod and the timer makes for full hands. I think I just need a way to stash the keys. I need to keep resetting the timer and listening to podcasts makes carrying the iPod a requirement.

I won't run tomorrow, but will make it a point to go for a bike ride. I also have to mow the lawn before it overtakes the house.

Tomorrow I also have to firm up the running/training schedule for the marathon. According to the countdown it's 78 days away. I just need to come up with a training schedule for the whole year. The olympic tri in Clermont is sometime in April and the half iron at Disney is the 18th of May.

I'm Back

I am back to running. I took a week off just because I didn't feel like running and then got in the habit not to run. I'm always amazed how much better I feel after running and why sometimes I seem to forget that even though sometimes running is boring, the after running feeling isn't.

I had to run tonight because Zepheriah gets her final heartworm checkup tonight. I'm also going to get Lantana's nails trimmed. I love that the vet is open at midnight. It clearly fits my schedule much better.

I also got good news yesterday. I had applied at Lowes and heard back this week I am hired for the plumbing department. I am just happy I got a second job. Need to save some money to get back to school full-time.

As for running, I have the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning, the OUC Half Marathon on December 1, the Breast Cancer Marathon in Jacksonville on February 17. I was scheduled to do a 10 miler last week, but never did. I ran 2.5 miles on Tuesday night, 5.25 miles tonight, will run again Friday night and then do a 12 miler on Saturday morning. I haven't been keeping a running schedule, but the goal is to run 5 days a week.

It's late and I'm tired. Off to bed

It's been a while, but I did it

I ran five miles this morning. Well, not quite five miles, but according to mapmyrun,com, it was 4.97 miles. It was the modified week 4 of the Couch to 5K program. I do the first warm-up, then do the runs 2.5 times and then walked home. I felt OK at the end. I had a slight twinge in my hip, but nothing major.



I'll run again Wednesday morning. I'd like to take Wednesday off, but because Zepheriah has a vet appointment at 10:20 Wednesday night, I know it's going to be a late night and I won't get enough sleep if I want to run Thursday morning. Tomorrow is just the four miler though.

I had my first update with Linda from the Orlando Sentinel today. I hope she gets the part in there about the cancer. It so so important that people know inflammatory breast cancer exists. Shoot, that's half the battle.

I have the calendars for several running programs, but now I need to make my own calendar of training both for the marathon and the tri winter training. I need to make that a priority for this weekend.

Start Again

I finally got around to making my event list for next year. My A races for 2008 are the breast cancer marathon in February in Jacksonville, the half-iron at Disney on May 18 (happy almost 42nd to me !!) and the Florida Challenge 70.3 in Clermont in October. I have one B race picked out so far, an olympic in April out in Clermont called the 25th Annual Great Clermont Triathlon. I'd like at least one more olympic distance in August or so just to get ready for the final half iron in October. The event calendars aren't updated for 2008 yet, but I'm sure I'll find something.

I ordered the Non-Runners Marathon Trainer again. It hasn't arrived yet, but I looked at the index. Week one is running four days, 3,4,3 and the long one this week is five. I am bumping that slightly by running 4, 5, 4, and 6 this week because I was already doing the four miles and don't care to go backwards to move forward.

I'm heading out. I weighed this weekend and was up to 192 and change. I am now at 189. This should be a heck of a lot easier when I'm 80 pounds lighter.

Clearly that wasn't good.

Well the tri I was training for, the Urban Epic, was a disaster.

I was not anywhere near trained enough for it. I don't think the actually swimming was the problem, but the wetsuit. I had only put on the wetsuit for the first time the night before. Actually the first time I'd ever put on a wetsuit was about 9 hours before the race. Then I put it on backwards. Then I realized how chafed I was going to be after swimming, despite the bodyglide, then I had to walk 100 feet on the gravel (sharp shards of black shale-like rocks), then another 100 feet on broken clam and mussels shells and then into 59.5 degree water in the Casco Bay of Maine where you had to wade for 700 yards over the clam beds because the water was so shallow (like mid-thigh), that you couldn't swim. A week later I still have a serious gash on the ball of my left foot.

I take responsibility for not being trained enough for ocean current swimming, but as someone said to me, were you supposed to walk on crushed glass to prepare for the clam beds?

This race was a disaster. I haven't posted a post-race report on Beginner Triathlete because I am still so angry about the race. You know that old saying, If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. Actually the starting island. Mackworth Island, was very pretty, but that's about all I have nice to say. I have done a dozen triathlons put on by at least four different race directors. Nothing, and I mean nothing, has even approached how bad this race was. Not even the dozens of road races I have been to put on by dozens of race directors.

The links for directions on the website came up with a 404 error. They had multiple errors for the enry list, they were still making course changes three days before the race, they made transition equipment changes two days before the race, they threatened disqualification if you wore shoes to the walk over the crushed clam shells, the meeting the evening before the race had no handouts, but the race director referred to course hazards like we had all grown up in Portland, the water current was advertised as existing, but a 2 knot current was what was mentioned, not the 5 knot current we found race morning. Hills with a 12% grade with an S curve switchback and a pothole in the middle is unacceptable (why warn us before the race, just send a crew to fix it) and the race director was just too proud of himself.

There were so many other problems. The Portland Convention and Visitors Bureau forgot the maps to get to town and show the course, there is no quick way to Portland from Melvin Village so it was two hours muddling through unmarked towns, there was no signage for the race anywhere in town, there were no where near enough volunteers, there was no water at the swim start, at the transition area, in fact as near as I could tell, the first water was at the half-way point of the bike with a bottle exchange.

I am disappointed in myself that I didn't finish, but more angry that this was the quality of race I spent my money on.

Training progress

I haven't been posting about the training, just updating the breakingthetape stuff, which does show up on the right. I did a run/walk this morning. It is just so hot. I need to make a training schedule today and plan these things better. I can't just get up and come up with a plan as I'm walking out the door. I think I would do better that way.

I would also have my water set, my HRM together and neck cooler wet and ready.

Today is just another day to start over.

I retrieved my "Slow, Fat Triathlete" book from Jan and glanced through that. I also looked up the swim training stuff. I'll see if the swim store up the street has that. I know I just need to run more. The swim is a definitely problem. I need to get the total immersion dvd today and start implementing that. I can do the distance, but not when it takes me a minute a lap. I will be outside the time limit.

On the good side, I saw the Galloway website said doing three ten minues runs to make up for the heat is just as good as one thirty minute run unless you are supposed to do the long run. I will run again tonight to get in six miles. I just can't do the 85 degree heat.

Off to get a drink, make up the deposit slips and get in a bike ride.

More later.

And I thought I was doing so well

I went out to the West Orange Trail today. I love that place. It is 19 miles from the Buddhist Temple to Killarney Station. I saw when I went out there today, the flyover over 436 is finished. I'll have to ride back that way. The problem is you have to ride through a REALLY bad section of Apopka to get to the very start of the trail. I mean so bad there used to be the outline of a body from a murder victim on the trail kind of bad. I don't need to go to the trailhead that much.

I did my first brick of the season. I didn't run the whole way. I was tired after about 15 minutes, it was 85 degrees, winds gusting to 20 pmh and I didn't have any fluids. I really need to get a new bladder for my camelback. I did run/walk for 57 minutes though which is the longest I've done that in that kind of heat. I am definitely going to have to train for that if I want to do the half-iron.

I did run/walk a little more than five miles and then immediately did an out and back for a 38 mile ride. When I started the ride, I measured how far the run was and it came back as 6.12 miles. I knew that wasn't right, so I started looking for markings from trailhead to trailhead. At the end of the ride my mileage read 44.44 miles and I knew the ride was about 38. I figured when the battery died back in April on my computer, the thing wasn't set for my wheel size. I was bummed. I thought I had done a 60 mile ride a couple of weeks ago and it turned out to be only 51 miles. As soon as I was done I went straight to Locomotion and got that adjusted.

I felt fine today, no soreness or anything. I really need to make up my training calendar this week to get ready for Maine and see if Clermont is even remotely possible in October. I just keep telling myself you aren't going to win it, just finish it.

Well That Was Different

I've run in the rain before. I don't run in thunderstorms with lightning because that will get you killed, but I'll run in a gentle drizzle. All night it rained. I don't know how much, but I'm thinking about two inches. It gave us a gentle soaking which we needed. There shouldn't be a huge amount of runoff like we get with the torrential downpours.

After I got out there though, the rain increased. It was really pouring. I felt like a hardcore athlete. At one point it was raining so hard I was having a hard time seeing. I need to get a baseball cap to keep the rain out of my eyes. I had my iPod wrapped in a shopping bag. I ran in a t-shirt and shorts which when I got home were dripping like I had jumped in the shower.

I did a different route as well. I mapped it on mapmyrun and it was 3.15 miles. I didn't run all of that, but I'm getting closer to running the whole thing. Tomorrow early am I'm going to head out to the West Orange Trail and do a brick. I'll just shoot for the 25 minutes without stopping and then ride out to the Killarney Station. I think it's about a 40 mile round trip. I'll shoot for 18 mile per hour average.

I'm still riding my Marin hybrid. Since I shattered my wrist last Thanksgiving, it has healed, but I'm still not ready to use my Felt with the aero bars. It hurts to rest my weight on my forearm for longer than a couple of minutes. And after that fall, I'm not eager to take a spill with the clip-on pedals. My surgeon considers my wrist his work of art and would not be happy if I screwed it up.

June 1, and already Tropical Storm Barry

I work in construction and the weather plays a major role in our schedule. I am generally pretty up on what is supposed to happen. I knew we had the potential for a storm, but it was downplayed by my local station on the early morning broadcast. So when I finally got home tonight after work, I was surprised to see the storm had intensified and was now named.

Tropical Storm Barry is supposed to be fairly mild through Orlando with some nice rain and some minor winds, but nothing worse that our standard summer thunderstorms, maybe just last a little longer. Gosh I hope so. We so need the rain.

I'm In

This summer I am heading to New Hampshire for a partial family reunion. I only made the decision to go last week and started looking at races up there. Initially I wanted to do the sprint tri called the Timberman which is apparently a local favorite. Unfortunately it was already full. I continued to search and found the Tri-Maine triathlon called the Urban-Epic.

This will be a HUGE step for me in my triathlon history. There are a number of firsts. It is an international or Olympic distance which is a 1.5K swim, a 40K bike ride and a 10K run. I have no problem with the bike. I've ridden that distance countless times, though I'll be doing this on a borrowed bike. I am in week seven of the couch to 5K running program currently and have been on week seven for two weeks now. This is just me getting back into running. I've run many 10K, but not in the last few years. I haven't even begun training for the swim. The other thing which is HUGE. I mean breathtakingly huge, is swimming in the ocean.

I can't tell you how scary that is for me. I've been in the US Army, I've been through combat training, I'll jump out of airplanes, I'll repel off mountains, I've owned several snakes, will save spiders (from my Mother and my cats) and move them to safer quarters outside, l love rodents of all types, have owned and loved many a rat and I truly can't think of anything that I am physically afraid of. Except the water. I have no problem swimming in pools. I am a good swimmer. I don't look like I'm drowning while I swim. My technique is good, my strokes well-placed, but that is in in the safety of a pool. Where nothing is out to eat me.

I live in Central Florida. Just north of Orlando. We have alligators (which is also our state reptile), cottonmouth water moccasins, lots of other water snakes which aren't venomous, but still very scary to see swimming along, turtles of all sorts including the snapping turtle and chicken turtle, both of which have a nasty bite capable of removing a finger and rogue monitor 4-foot lizards. And we have these little ameobas that swim up your nose into your brain and can kill you within a week. And that's only the freshwater hazards.

The closest beach to me is Cocoa Beach, about an hour away. That is the shark attack capital of the world. No, I mean it. More people have been bitten at Cocoa Beach than anywhere else in the whole world. Now, no one's been killed, but I don't want to be bitten or eaten. I also saw Jaws when I was nine. It was 1975 and we were at the New Jersey shore. I can say I have been back in the ocean over my knees exactly never since then.

These fears may be irrational and illogical, but they sure as heck are real. Now I have done races in fresh water and as long as I was with a bunch of other swimmers, the fear was manageable. I figured I just had to not be the last person in the water. The critters in the fresh water would have been scared off by the mass of swimmers, but this Maine tri is different. From the Epic-Tri website:

"The Urban/EPIC will start from the decks of a Cianbro barge anchored in the middle of Casco Bay. Athletes will be brought to the barge on two Casco Bay Lines Ferries. They will then jump from the barge and finish 1 mile away at East End Beach, completing one of the most spectacular swims in the world."

And all this fun in water that averages a warm 60 degrees. OK, so the final first in all this is the thing that is going to make me look like a tasty seal. In 60 degree water you need a wetsuit. Now, I don't own a wetsuit. In Florida you may have one race a year that even allows a wetsuit, but generally the water just isn't cold enough to allow a wetsuit under USTA rules. But in Maine, a wetsuit is required so I don't develop hypothermia. The really big downside of wearing a wetsuit is that you look like a seal to any passing wildlife like sharks or whales. A big tasty seal snack. I feel sick just thinking about it. Onward!

Why tri?

I did my first triathlon three years ago on a spur of the moment decision. I was not in shape, hadn't run in several years, didn't even own a bike and while I could swim, hadn't done so since I was a child.

I went to my local bike shop, plunked down $400 for a Marin hybrid, bought a helmet at Walmart, dug out my swim suit and worn-out running shoes and showed up the morning of the race with exactly no training. It was the Danskin triathlon at Disney in May of 2004.

I had entered under the Team Survivor banner. This is a triathlon only for women, that has a special program for cancer survivors. I am a 10 year survivor of a rare breast cancer called Inflammatory Breast Cancer. I'll tell you more about that later.

I showed up for the triathlon with no training, no experience, terrified of gators, and found my new love.