Open water swims, German Shepherds, and heat!

So yesterday was the first real brick workout of the season that included an open water swim.  I am not a huge fan of open water swims, I suck at sighting, and I don't like not being able to see in the water.  I need to get a lot better at open water swims though because I go from swimming 1:20 100's to 2-3 min 100's.  No me guesta.  I would probably be a lot faster if I could swim in a straight line though.  Red and I went swimming at Caesar's Creek, it's a lake, I didn't name it, and he says "just sight off of me".  Sure!  That sounds like a great idea!  Ok, well I put him and the bouys on my left because I breath on my left.  This worked for about 20 yards when I was like "hmm...I can still see them but they seem to be getting smaller." Yep, that's because I was swimming off at an angle to the right.  Ok, I'll correct a little bit, well then Red is laughing because I apparently swam in front of him, remember he was on my far left, and nearly ran into a bouy which was even farther left.  Red was cracking up watching me swim zig zags all over the swimming area.  We finally turn around and I start heading out and attempt to sight off of Red again.  Yet another fail.  I almost swam onto the beach! So, a long story short I suck at sighting and need A LOT of work!  On a positive note I was able to successfully get my new wet suit on and not feel like I was going to die or feel weird!

After the swim we changed out of the wet suits, humerous, then grabbed our bike stuff and headed out. The route was really really nice and I thoroughly enjoyed it!  Lots of country roads, pretty houses, and rolling hills.  We found a nice ridiculous hill that as soon as I looked at it I had a roll of expletives coming out of my mouth and even more foul thoughts in my head.  Once we were to the top though it wasn't too bad.  The most exciting parts about our ride were when Red threw a water bottle at me and an impromptu sprint from a giant german shepherd.  Ok, Red didn't really throw a water bottle at me, but his bike and water bottle cage did!  We hit a bump and his rear water bottle decided that it wanted to land in my lap/the grass next to me.  We eneded up stopping and getting the water bottle, but I still found it humerous that he thought my cages were too loose and he's the one that lost the bottle.  Later we ran into a group riding for diabetes, at least that's what their jerseys said, and they were pretty cool.  We rounded a corner though and Red was in the lead, therefore he became the prime target of a giant black german shepherd.  The dog's owner was mowing the lawn when Fido decided that he wanted to come bounding after us, maybe charging is a better word.  Bounding sounds like he wanted to play and I'm positive that was the last thing on this dog's mind. 

Yes the dog chasing Red had a muzzle, but the dog was all black and very ticked off!



After that excitement we finished our bike ride and decided to go on our run.  It was about 93 degrees and the route we went had very little in the way of shade.  Initially things weren't too bad but then it was very very hot!  Once I built up my momentum and my legs decided to agree with me then running wasn't too bad.  I was actually enjoying it but then we got to a shaded section and decided to stop for a minute.  Once we stopped there was very little in the way of getting started back up for a while.  It took us 35 minutes to do 3.1 miles. I completely forgot to stop my watch when we were in the shade for a couple of minutes but I'm pretty positive that in the best situation we still averaged 10min/mile.  Meh.  Not great but considering the heat and the fact that we swam and biked beforehand I'll accept it.  I'm hoping that next time we can improve on that though!

Swim: 1/2 mile

Bike: 28.5 miles

Run: 3.1 miles

Happy Training!

I need to learn to schedule better

So....I suck at scheduling my life.  Two weeks ago I only had to work 2 days during the week and I cleaned the house and was fairly productive on that front.  I also did a lot of training and felt like I got a decent amount of stuff accomplished, except none of it was really "top priority".  Yep, I didn't do a whole lot in the realm of wedding planning, training planning, Master's program application, GRE studying, or any quilt projects.  Last week I did a few more things that were slightly more important than cleaning and such, but not a whole lot.  I worked 32 hours as opposed to 24 which was nice, but I just trained a lot and worked.  When did I choose to make wedding appointments, take the GRE, add more training, and study?  The week I work 41 sporadic hours. Yep. Not my best move.

Working 41 hours isn't that bad, it's the timing that kills everything else during the week.  I work third which means that during the day I'm sleeping and I'm awake most the time at night.  On days I don't work I'm usually napping for the next time I work, or frantically trying to get stuff done around the house.  This week my schedule was a little on the retarded side, I made it so I shouldn't complain.  I worked  Thursday, Friday, Saturday, slept most of Sunday, ran errands, slept in Monday, work Monday night (now), then will sleep on Tuesday, go for a bike ride and go to bed early.  I then work on Wednesday where I will have to nap part way through the day, I'm off all of Thursday but I will be sleeping most of it because I worked Wednesday night.  Oh, and I won't sleep all of it because I am taking my flower girl to get her dress in Dayton Thursday at 11am, I get off work at 7:30am, she better behave or else this could be disasterous.  After that I get to go home and sleep until Red gets home and then we're heading to the jeweler to pick out our wedding rings.  Friday I take the GRE at noon then I picked up 7-11 that night where I need to go to bed early because Red and I are getting up at 7am the next day to go to Caesar's Creek for a long S-B-R brick.  I have to make it a fast brick though because I then work all weekend, Sat, Sun, Mon again.  This was definitely not thought through. 

Ok, well that was my little rant.  On a more positive note I am getting much faster on my bike! I went for a ride with Red and his friend from work Super Steve and I took a turn pulling and kept the pace at 22mph for the whole 2.5 miles!  I know it may not sound like a lot, but I'm proud to be able to pull at all let alone be able to do it at 22mph on my own!  Yesterday Red and I went to the trail with the intention of doing a 50 mile ride.  Well I was grumpy because I was hot and wanted to play at the water park at Kings Island, I'm 4'11" I'm allowed to act like a small child and never grow up, and Red had already done a long work out earlier that morning, so when it came time for my work out I was no longer interested.  Top it off with working the past 3 nights and I was done.  I ended up getting cranky and turning my 50 mile ride into a 10 mile time trial, and actually it wasn't that bad!  I ended up averaging 18.3 all on my little lonesome and that includes the stops at the roads which were every 2 miles, literally, so I'm not upset at that time at all. I know I can do better than that though because I was fighting my Qdoba the whole way because I was silly and thought that it would digest in the 30 minutes from Qdoba to starting the ride at the trail.  Silly midget.  Meh, I was still happy for my average and am ready to attempt to beat it the next time I'm grumpy.  Tomorrow is supposed to be a 40 mile bike whenever I wake up and Red gets off work.  At this moment I'm considering turning it into a mini brick with a 2 mile run after the bike just to shake things up a bit.  We'll see what tomorrow brings!

Happy training!

Holy Keurig Batman!

Ok, well now you know I have a Keurig!  I am 100% positive that my productivity is going up about 100-fold throughout the house BUT my ADD has gone through the roof...SHINY!! Meanwhile.  So this past weekend was more training, as usual, but I was at my mom's house and it was also my Bridal Shower this weekend!  My sister is 5 years younger than me, not too many of her friends are getting married right now so she hasn't been to many (read as any) bridal showers.  She put together a very nice shower with awesome food, fun games, and as always, lots of entertainment.  My sister is HILARIOUS!  She's also incredibly crafty and driven.  When Red finally proposed Sam (sister) didn't give me an option and claimed Maid of Honor right then and there, that was fine I just found it funny how aggressively she took hold of the title and how awesome she has been with it.  I hate planning, Sam is a planning fiend, when I get frustrated with all of this wedding nonsense she is the first one to step up and start looking, reassuring, helping, anything I need.  Well she coordinated a Bridal Shower that involved some rather opposing groups and people who never knew each other.  Everyone got a long peachy, every one was laughing the whole time, and we had some awesome cupcakes and cake that Sam made and decorated.  

Sample of her decorating skills :D

Meanwhile, while my family was organizing the gathering of two families, some ex wives and current girlfriends, friends from out of town, and general shower nonsense, I wasn't supposed to help, or at least that's what I was told.  So the morning of my shower instead of rushing around like they were trying to get everything done, I went for a nice long run around my mom's house.  Her road is open hilly country road, it's quite nice because it's so different from Cincinnati.  I really do not like Cincy, it's far too busy for me and way too crowded.  But either way, going back to my mom's in the middle of no where is a very nice change in scenery!

Part of my stretch of road :D

It makes me happy to run up and down mom's road, around the country blocks, and such.  When most people think of "around the block" they think of sidewalks, lots of houses, and what not. Around here "around the block" is at least 5 miles and 99.9% is farmland scattered with a few houses.  It's glorious!  

The coolest part about running at my mom's is coming home to my Zo pup and playing fetch with her on 5 acres.  She loves all of the extra room to run and just hang out!

The single coolest dog on the planet!  I don't care how cool you think your dog is because you're wrong, mine is the absolute best.  Totally biased but totally right. She had been looking at the camera right before I took the pic but of course moved.

Well after all of this tomfoolery was over I finally showered and was allowed to help set up some of my shower.  Mom, grandma, and Sam had most of it done, but they finally let me help!  Everyone showed up to my shower and the laughs and fun times began!  I received a lot of cool gifts, far more than I ever anticipated getting for a shower, and loved everything and everyone!  I'm getting stuff put away slowly yet surely and my new Keurig and I are becoming the best of friends.  I now have roughly 100 K-cup things of a variety of flavors and I fully intend to try every single one as soon as possible.  I am positive this is why my new resting heart rate is over 100bpm but that's ok, just means I get stuff done faster!  :D  Ok, back to being productive and getting ready to work out today!  I ran yesterday and plan on biking this evening.  I would like to get in the pool sometime but for some reason going to the pool seems to take so much more effort than getting ready to bike or run.  Later!

Happy training!