What NOT to do with an 8lb medicine ball

Well this sounds promising now doesn't it? So We have all kinds of stuff laying around the PT desk area and being the small child that i am, i want to mess with it all.  One of these things was an 8lb medicine ball.  Well, I Play soccer so I'm constantly messing with this with my feet, so what do i do? I try to balance this 8lb medicine ball on my foot. That's not too bad, except for the fat that i messed with it for about 15 minutes nearly non stop.  The next day my lower shin and ankle were really sore but i couldn't figure out what the problem was until i was about 8 miles into a 14 mile run.  If i had been alone i would have bailed on the next 6 miles in favor of saving me some pain, but i had my running buddy Ali along for the run plus Red drove all the way to Mason to bring us running goodies and water. So quitting was no longer an option.

So I ran my 14 miles and thought my foot was trying to disconnect itself from my leg, but I had an awesome cheering section every 4-5 miles with Red and Zoey, plus I had Ali keeping a constant chatter going and keeping me entertained.  I only really noticed it when we were on super flat parts, or when we weren't holding a conversation.  We finally got back to the club and headed home.  As soon as I got home I realized that pulling my toes back to just walk wasn't a thing and that I needed to drag my foot on the ground to keep it from hurting.  I was getting kind of concerned until I realized that if I sat still, used my crutches to navigate (yes I still have my crutches from my freshman year in high school), and iced my leg that there wasn't any pain.  I figured if I still couldn't walk properly Sunday morning then I would go to the doctor.  Well, come morning, not only could I walk just fine but the pain was WAY down.  That's what icing off and on for 6 hours will do for you, plus having Red there to get up and down to take care of anything that would require me to get up.  I've been told I'm spoiled, I prefer the term "Well Loved".  That's what my Grandma calls all of her grandchildren.  We're not spoiled, we're all just very well loved.  I have now carried that over to my married life :D

Now that I can walk properly again I'm looking at my training for the week and trying to figure out how on God's green earth this will all get done.  I have 16 hours of tri/marathon training, plus 23 hours of client training, plus an hour of regular training, plus random hours of consults and meetings at the gym, plus another 24 hours working at the hospital.  My organizational skills have increased exponentially, mostly out of necessity, not out of a desire to become more organized.  It's all going to get done one way or the other, so there isn't much sense stressing about it.  Now to get ready to start my day with sleep because I'm getting off night shift here soon, then train, grocery shop, and clean while Red deals with the furnace people. 

*Update on Grandma-ma*  She is still infuriating doctors, but in a good way.  It seems that her first bouts of chemo are already showing some promising results, but it's still too early to tell how well everything is working.  She picked up her wig and even though the color is a bit off, the style isn't too terribly off so it's not as shocking.  The initial sight is a bit interesting, but since things are still kind of similar then it is easy to get used to.  Grandma is still a happy grandma and still working like crazy! 

Hope everyone gets to enjoy the good weather today!  I can't wait to ride outside here soon! :D

If you're happy and you know it..

Gah!  So much training!  Last I checked my first triathlon doesn't happen until May 19th but for as much training as I'm doing you would think I was closing in on peak week.  Yeesh!  Everything hurts and is tired, it's impressive!  The funny thing is that I haven't even added in strength training yet.  I started to, but when I tried to coordinate schedules with my friends it turns out that we RARELY have time off together.  I do have one friend though who is phenomenal when it comes to running and she has already said, and proven, that she is willing to run no matter what!  I ran 10 miles with her Sunday while she busted out 13 by running a bit before I found her, then yesterday I had a killer speed work out and she gladly hopped up on the treadmill next to me and destroyed the run.  It's quite nice to have a suffer buddy lol.  

I have another suffer buddy who is doing some of the tri's this year with me, but our schedules never really line up, but when they do we try to make things work.  We were able to squeeze in a swim today between meetings and clients, and it was quite enjoyable.  She keeps me accountable by not letting me skip sets, and gives me someone to try and stay in front of the entire swim.  Cathy, the triathlete, is awesome.  She's 57 but kills me in the bike and run, my only prayer is the swim.  We found out that we both did Ironman Florida, but we didn't know it until about a month ago when we both showed up with our tri bags from Ironman.  I found out that I started out with a 26 minute lead on her coming out of the swim, and she decimated that lead on the bike and expanded on it during the run.  She beat me by an hour.  Hmph.

This year I am attempting to be coached by a friend and it works, but it doesn't work.  I'm a very independent and stubborn purpose, emphasis on the stubborn.  So when he says do exercises 1, 2, and 3 I go ok, but how's about I also do exercises A, B, and C in addition to your plan, or instead of your plan.  Yep.  I'm not sure if I'm helping myself or if I'm hurting what he's trying to build.  Only time will tell.  I have decided though that I am STARVING all of the time!  I need to eat a lot more, and find a way to eat cleaner when I'm eating more.  I'm going to have to ask him about that.  Supposedly I've lost 6% body fat in a month, which is just silly, I'm down with losing the fat, but I am so stinking hungry from working out so much already.  So far I've trained about 8 hours this week and I still have a 75 minute ride tonight, another swim tomorrow, 75 minute run, and a 2 hour ride to round things out for the week.  I need to work on my schedule organization and life organization.  Thus far I can either do a great job on cleaning and organizing the house, but lack in tri training, or I do great in tri training and lack in housework.  Since I'm starting my season out with a marathon and half ironman within two weeks of each other, I need to stay on top of my training.  But I don't want to leave the housework to stop or make Red do all of it.  

Hmmmm...we'll see what my suffer buddies have to say about more training and organizing! :D

Inspiration

According to Merriam-Webster the definition of crazy is: "mad or insane".  The definition of inspirational is: "the action or power of moving the intellect or emotions".  My Grandmother is both of these definitions wrapped into one person.  She is amazing, INSPIRING, CRAZY, loving, awesome, and so much more.  She is 83 years young and was recently diagnosed with "advanced staged" breast cancer.  I say "advanced stage" because no one has really given it a stage yet to give us any more accuracy.  Did this news rattle me?  Decidedly.  Did this news depress me?  Just a bit.  Did this news make me happy?  Ridiculous, couldn't be farther from the truth.  You know what this new did do?  It showed me how strong my Grandma is because this news hasn't phased her in the slightest.  While the rest of the family was sad, or worried, or upset, or any number of emotions far from elated, she was telling us she was fine and not to worry.  She has infuriated doctors by saying that there isn't anything wrong with her because she doesn't hurt, can keep moving just fine, and is the same person now as she was a month ago before we found out anything.  She's crazy.  Her legitimate biggest worry was not being able to go to work and keep doing what she had always been doing.  She's been through a myriad of tests to assess how well she will withstand treatment, and most of these things wear people out just from testing.  You would never know that anything was up just by talking to her.  I've talked to her a number of times since finding out the news that there's something evil attempting to take over my Grandma and today she was the happiest that I have heard in a long time.  She called to tell me "the best news!" , she went to one of her doctors today to talk about port placement and he told her that she is definitely still allowed to work.  Are you kidding me? The best news that you have received is that you're still allowed to work while going through chemo?  Yep, that's my Grandma.  She talks about how she's so proud of her grandchildren because we're all such hard workers and aren't lazy.  You could combine ALL of us, and we wouldn't be able to touch the hard work, incredible work ethic, motivation, and strength that this one woman possesses.  She's ridiculous.  If you had been able to hear her voice you would have thought that she had just won the lottery, not that she was told that she gets to keep working.  She's 83 years old, that should be reason enough to not work, let alone the fact that she is facing breast cancer and about to have a crazy fight against her own body.  When people say that my Grandma is the center of our family, they have no idea how true they are.  She had a huge hand in raising every single one of her grandchildren, and we are 100% better off for it.  She taught us how to work hard, deal with idiots, and not only told us what to do in life, but lead by a strong example.  I couldn't be more proud of my Grandma or to tell people that yes, she helped raise me.  She's badass and I dare anyone to tell me otherwise.  

So when I'm on a treadmill FOREVER because I'm training for a marathon, just because I'm tired is not a good enough excuse to stop.  When I don't want to go to work because people are retarded, my excuse doesn't hold a candle to what she's going through.  Headache?  Flu?  Just don't feel like working?  No matter what your excuse to not work may be, it is 100% completely invalid.  Don't let an 83 year old woman out work you no matter what your "excuse" or "reason" may be.  She's a badass and an inspiration for us all.  

New things

 I know, super vague title, oh well! Just a quick update, training is going well. I've been messing around with some faster speeds and i can already tell a difference! With those new speeds came a new idea. One of my friends thinks it will be fun to coach me. This could either be incredibly fun or incredibly painful lol. He's really fast and entertaining so this should be good. Im interested to see what he has in store for me.

OK well i really just wanted to see how posting this with my new tablet would work so yeah! Back to work i go!

Changes

Ok, well a few things are changing around here.  First off I think I have finally found a job that I can enjoy that benefits me, other people, and Red.  I am officially a Personal Trainer at Life Time Fitness and I'm actually really excited!  LT just sent its new hires to Dublin for a training week and I got to know the other new trainers that I will be working with, it was all expenses paid and a lot of fun!

One of the new trainers, Allie, is really cool and does marathons!  She's almost a foot taller than me, which is funny, but she has agreed to help keep me honest in my training this year.  We're both doing a marathon in May and she said she will keep me company on my long days since she needs to get long runs in too.  Well during all of this nonsense we were talking about jobs we have had in the past and how personal training is COMPLETELY different than either of our previous career paths.  We both agreed though that this is different in a good way.  I've wanted to be a doctor forever, and that didn't pan out.  Yeah I'm unhappy about that, but it's interesting because the entire week we were in training, and every time I talk to my training "mentor" of sorts, I'm super excited about what all I can learn and do with training.  I'm taking it as an awesome sign that I'm excited to start a new job that involves me pushing people and making them do things they didn't think they could do before.  I wanted to be a doctor to help people overcome illnesses and, incoming hero sounding, to actually save lives because I wanted to work in the Emergency Room.  If the opportunity comes up I will jump on being a doctor in a heart beat, but for now I'm embracing the idea of helping other people in a different aspect of life.  The one thing that I will enjoy the most is the fact that the people who would be coming to me would WANT help, they will be WANTING to get in better shape and prolong their health.  There were so many times that I would see 400+ pound people come into the hospital for health issues that could be nearly completely resolved if they lost 250 pounds or more.  These are the same people that don't want help, and their families enable them to the point where they are on track to become a freak show special on a tv show of "I'm trapped in my 800lb body and can't get out" or something.  With Personal Training nearly everyone is on board with the "I may be 300lbs over weight, but I don't want to stay this way and my family is helping me make changes as well" instead of buying 8 McDonalds cheeseburgers, they are helping them cook better or have better grocery shopping habits.  That is the part that excites me.  Plus, there are other certifications that I can get which would allow me to help people from more of a physical therapy stand point.  A lot of health insurance companies only pay for physical therapy for so long and the person may not be completely ready to go back to whatever it was they did before their injury.  I have been told that I could get a certification, like my mentor, that is all about corrective exercises which would help me train people to allow their physical therapy to be carried over instead of coming to an abrupt stop.  I wouldn't be training them to do olympic lifts or train for a marathon, I may not even be helping them lose real weight, but I could have the opportunity to help them do normal mundane day to day tasks and increase their rang of motion.

When I was in training this week our instructor brought in a client of his who should be the poster child of personal training and its health/medical benefits.  He was a 66 year old man who was battling/beating/dealing with prostate cancer.  He has been working with Noah for over 5 years, and statistically speaking he should be dead.  Most people diagnosed with his form of prostate cancer have a life expectancy of 39 months after diagnosis, he's well passed that and doesn't show any signs of slowing down.  In order to help him keep his cancer under control, which had metastasized to his bones, more specifically his right shoulder, he has to have hormone ablation therapy which obliterates his testosterone levels.  Without testosterone he cannot make lean muscle mass, another side effect is his therapy causes most people to balloon up and can gain upwards of 100lbs if they don't take care of it.  We were able to question him like crazy and he attributed much of his extended life expectancy and high quality of life to his ability to stay active through personal training.  He did physical therapy but they didn't push him enough and essentially were just waiting for things to get really bad before trying anything different.  He came to Noah and voila! He has become a medical anomaly, which he is WAY ok with, he says he's not the only one either though.  If I could get to where I was doing personal training for someone with cancer and you could see how you're extending their life, instead of helping them fit into a tiny bikini, that would be one of the coolest opportunities on the planet.

Well this is quite lengthy, but as you can tell I'm super excited :D  My training for running is going well and I've discovered that my sprinting abilities are decidedly down.  I played soccer last night and I don't know if it was the wine with dinner or the fact that I haven't played soccer in two years, maybe a combo of the two, but sprinting was something I was dragging out of my legs.  I am going to add a lot more speed work to my training now.  Happy days!

Not a fan of "Pigeon Pose"

So I'm supposed to be starting my marathon training but I live in Ohio..that means it's really freaking cold, snowy, rainy, icy, and overall nasty.  I'm not a huge fan of running in this nonsense, but I have to if I want to not suck at the Flying Pig Marathon again this year.  I should really move :D Last I checked Red wasn't a huge fan of that idea.  I'll get over it, eventually, or I'll just continue to complain about it like I have for the past 27 years.

Meanwhile, I've been interested in taking a yoga class for quite a while, pretty much since I joined my gym nearly 3 years ago, but until today I never took a yoga class.  I don't really like taking classes on my own because I get bored, and no matter how much I asked, bribed, or begged Red, he refused to join me.  A couple of my friends recently joined my gym so I took advantage of their interest in trying different classes and general interest in working out, and asked them to join me in a Hot Vinyasa Yoga.  I knew the class would fill up fast, because I once tried to go to the same class a while ago and it was full 10 minutes before it was to start.  Brad and Lauren showed up nearly 30 minutes before the class started to save me a spot.  I was special and set my alarm to go off in the pm instead of am so I was very glad that they showed up early and that I woke up on my own, albeit an hour later than planned, but still on time.  I made it to the class 10 minutes before it started and only had a mat because they saved me one.  So we knew that this was supposed to be "hot yoga" and I had read other reviews of different "hot yoga" and was prepared for a complete sweat fest.  Well either I don't sweat that much, or the room simply was not that warm, because it was not the sweatfest I was imagining.  It was still fun though!  I bent and stretched in ways that I decidedly needed to, and I wasn't the only one feeling like I was made of cement and needed some serious work on my flexibility.  The only thing that I didn't like was towards the end the instructor told us to get into "pigeon pose", I am officially not a fan of "pigeon pose".  I was super uncomfortable and we sat there for about 2-3 minutes for each leg.  I understand that she was slowing the class down for the time to relax, but seriously, sitting in pigeon pose is not a fun time.  The rest of the class was very enjoyable, and hopefully next time I will have time to eat beforehand so I'm not driving over specifically for a 1 hour class.  If my friends are willing, I think that I'm going to try to make Sunday morning Hot Yoga a regular event!  The rest of my body was grateful for a new work out, though I may have over stretched because parts of my legs were feeling very jello-like.

I'm out of town this week, so we'll see how much working out I actually get done.  I'm really hoping that I can amp up my workouts, but I've been feeling fairly unmotivated and my typical work out partner has decided to go on a serious hiatus and become a permanent fixture on the couch.  Hopefully I can get a new start and a good start on training.  If Ohio would stop being so cold that would definitely help.  But if I wait for good weather then I'm going to be barely a month out from the marathon, decidedly not enough training time. That would be a terrible idea!

Let's try this again, shall we?

So...I left off with me heading into my first Ironman at Ironman Florida in Panama City.  I have obviously survived since I'm writing again, but nonetheless someone may be interested in a quick snippet of how things went.

The Expo/Check in:  We showed up a day early to beat the crazy crowds that would be coming the next day and it was well worth it.  We could check out the booths, not feel rushed, and not feel like I was about to be trampled or carried away.  I am probably going to say this a million times, but the volunteers were AMAZING.  I loved every single one of them, they were super sweet, patient, and on top of anything you needed.  Check-in worked smoothly, and since we weren't stuck in a line with 2,000 of our closest friends, it went quickly too.

Highlight of my trip, pic with my favorite triathlete Mirinda Carfrae

We went to the welcome dinner, and I highly recommend going.  The speeches were nice, presentations were useful, and the food was nice.  If you want a lot of food then you may want to bring your own, or plan on eating sometime other than the welcome dinner.

Red and I decided to do a practice swim since we had never actually swam in the ocean before, playing around yes, actually swimming, no.  We were treated with a sight of a stingray "flying".  I had no idea that stingrays could jump out of the water.  We watched it jump in and out of the water for about 5 minutes, I was thoroughly amused but then immediately went all Shark Week and thought it was running from a predator.  Yep.  Smart.  We also went for a practice ride just to loosen up, and I flatted.  I had not had a flat on my new bike the entire year, but at least it was not during the race, it was the day before the race, that my tire decided to test my tire changing skills.  I fixed it and we went back to relaxing.

Meanwhile, we stayed in a fantastic hotel/condo/whatever-amazing-view-room-awesomeness-you-call-it.  I could seriously move there in a heart beat.

Gear the night before for 2 Ironman participants, LOTS of planning and organizing!

Race Day:
Swim:

The swim was...interesting...the waves were super tall which is not good when you're super small.  Red and I waited on the beach together during the explanation of the course, again, and the National Anthem.  We started walking into the waves together and then we split up.  Red was managing the waves MUCH better than I was so we agreed to not slow each other down and off he went.  Once I was through the waves though I passed him and subsequently passed him.  I felt fine the whole swim and just went to la-la land and tried to swim straight.  Swim: 1:23:33 (I need to improve A LOT), next year

My neck the next day, my wet suit was very hungry during the swim, didn't bother me during the race though.

T1
Nothing super remarkable happened in T1 except I learned what to wear under my wetsuit to make changing happen faster.  T1 took forever.

Bike:
This took FOREVER.  I have yet again learned the hard way that I need to drink A LOT more during my biking.  I felt fine during it, I was just tired at the end and well over being on my bike.  I thought things were going well the first half because I had to pee and was feeling good. Then I thought I had waited too long to pee because I wasn't feel that great, when in all reality I did not realize it was now 83 degrees and I had not consumed NEARLY enough fluids.  I was fairly on track with my eating, but then that tanked because I wasn't drinking, I was overheating, but still having fun, go figure.  I realized I was too warm and started taking 2 water bottles from each aid station, one to wear and one to drink.  I did great wearing a water bottle, but I would drink the second one about 1/4 of the way then forget about it until the next aid station where I chucked nearly a full water bottle.  The volunteers were, again, AWESOME.  I called out for water coming into an aid station and I missed a guy who was waiting for me.  I knew I needed the water so I started to slow down, I didn't need to slow too much because I looked over and the guy was in a dead sprint trying to get to me so I didn't have to stop/wait/slowdown, ridiculous!  I was fully capable of getting off my bike to get water, but he was SPRINTING trying to get my water, fantastic!  After that I wondered where Red was because I had expected him to catch me at the half way point and he never did, we saw each other for a hot second, but that was it.  It turned out that he didn't catch me because his foot was cramping so he was doing a lot of pedal-stop-unclip-rub foot-repeat.  I finally came into T2 super happy to be off the bike.  Bike time: 6:41:09, ugh.

T2:
Nothing super exciting except for the volunteers all telling me I looked super strong and ready to run.  They were either talking to an imaginary person next to me, trying to give me false confidence, or are blind, because I was far from "ready to kill the run".  I didn't feel terrible anymore, but "killing a run" was not on my agenda anymore.  Oh well.  Still super awesome and efficient volunteers!

Run: (There's a reason it's called a Death March)

Yep, considering it took me longer to "run" 26.2 miles than it did for me to bike 112 miles, that should tell you something.  I felt fairly decent the first 6ish miles, but then it all went down hill fast.  My quads felt like cement and beaten to a pulp, I didn't realize how grumpy my back felt until I went to bend over, and I was SEVERELY dehydrated.  I started trying to drink some coke and water on the course, but that made me feel worse, or so I thought at the time.  Basically I thought I was in survival mode and I was really in idiot mode, ugh.  I tried to enjoy the people along the course, and they really put a ton of energy into the race, but once you get to a certain point you just either want to curl up in a ball and die, or just cry, or just move on and get to the next mile.  The first option sounded the most appealing, the second option almost happened, but the third option is what I stuck with in the end.  I was able to see Mirinda Carfrae finish her race as I was beginning my marathon portion, which that was really cool to me, then I saw a couple people who's blogs I follow, also cool, then it was less cool and more "just finish".  I was hugged by a pleather suited cat woman carrying a riding crop, a far too tall man on roller skates wearing only a speedo, and a weird old man wearing a speedo, shirt collar and shirt cuffs, all cheering me on.  I had people whom I had never met nor had any idea who there were all telling me how proud they were and how all of the athletes were inspirational.  I felt far from inspirational, I felt like death, but I am also positive it was all of the spectators on the course cheering for the ENTIRE DAY that helped get everyone through.  One guy almost knocked me down he patted me on the back so hard, but they all made us laugh and smile which was exactly what I needed.  I ran into Red's family and his mom walked a mile or so with me during the marathon to keep me company, then she went back to wait on Red and keep him company since he was still behind me.  The cool part about the run course was that I could see Red a few times and find out how he was doing.  We were both hurting but he can walk SUPER FAST.  I have short midget legs that only move so fast, and he was attempting to catch me with his super long strides.  I made it to the finish, before Red, got my stuff and hung out with his mom until Red crossed the finish line a half hour after me :D  We were super happy to be done, healthy, and uninjured.  I had a ton of fun, then we got in line for our pictures and I become much less fine very quickly.  Remember how dehydrated I was earlier?  Yeah, I didn't magically get re-hydrated and ended up dry heaving, nearly passing out, and being threatened with an IV from the local doc.  Oops.  No IV though!  Yeah!

We headed back to our condo place for the night and showered, and showered, and showered, then sat down and refused to move for the next foreseeable future.  

My favorite recovery spot!

So that's my race report!  My goal is to not take so long to post the next time, and maybe use this blog as a better way to keep me accountable in my training for 2013.

For 2013 I have a slew of races that I want to do and after yesterday's 5k I would say that there is A LOT of room for improvement!  If I stick with my training plan though I may actually improve, who would have thunk it! :P

Happy 2013!  Stay safe!