105 degree days

Well, this has been fun, actually it seriously has been fun!  Today I went to Caesar's Creek with Scuba Steve and Red for a little swim-bike-run nonsense.  We showed up around 6:45 and figured that we would be some of the very few people hanging out at that early hour.  Low and behold, when we pulled into the parking lot that we were not the only ones by a long shot.  When we started to get ready for our swim there were about 30 other triathletes all with the same idea of trying to get their work outs done early to beat the afternoon heat.  By the time that we finished our swim there were about 60 athletes in the water, all doing open water swims, not just hanging out, and some more athletes up in the parking lot!  We were shocked that there were so many people out there, but it was really cool!  To me it seemed to help having all of those people out there because our swim seemed to be more focused, and it forced us to sight more instead of just letting ourselves zig zag everywhere.

Now about this beating the heat shenanigans...yep..that wasn't a thing.  First off the water was rather warm.  Red and I swam at Caesar's on Wednesday and the water was not exactly chilly, but it didn't feel like bath water.  Today, after another 3 days of 100+ degree weather, the water was decidedly bath water temperature.  I didn't completely mind because I really don't like cold water, but at the same time, it's kind of hard to cool off and enjoy the swim portion of your work out when the water is nearly the same temperature as the air.  I really did enjoy the swim though because it was a lot of fun trying to keep other swimmers in my sights and attempt to pick them off on our laps up and down the beach!  We swam a mile which means that we swam up and down the beach swim area twice.  I think the best part though was making fun of Scuba Steve because he left for our workout this morning well before Red and I did, and he got there after we did. He lives the same distance from the park as we do.  He had to stop at Walmart and pick up a new nose plug because he couldn't find his.  I thought this was hilarious because lately he's been taking his 3 year old son to swimming lessons where they are teaching them to blow bubbles out their nose and not need nose plugs.

funny and almost accurate :D

Meanwhile, after we finished our mile swim we decided to head out for a 38 mile bike ride.  I actually enjoyed the ride despite the heat and the two ridiculous-I-think-my-heart-is-exploding climbs.  On the way up the second climb my Garmin beeped and Steve asked if that was my heart rate saying I was dead or if it was time to drink water.  I set my Garmin to beep every ten minutes so I would get an adequate amount of water in my system during the bike because I am terrible at drinking on the bike.  It's not a balance thing or anything, it's the fact that I simply forget because I'm usually too busy trying to hang onto Red's wheel.  Well this time I figured with temperatures climbing well above 90 by 10am I thought setting a little reminder was a good idea, and it turned out that it was a great idea for all three of us!  The only set back was Scuba Steve getting a flat and figuring out that his replacement tube was also busted.  He went through 1 CO2 trying to inflate said replacement tube, thought the cartridge or something was faulty so he wasted his second CO2 on the same tube, finally felt the air coming out of the tube with his other hand.  Red had a spare tube and I had a CO2 so we finally got him fixed up to finish our ride.  The tire wasn't perfectly aired to the 120psi that he probably wanted but it definitely got him back and able to ride with us the rest of the way.  

Finally, we got back to the parking lot after cruising for the last 6 miles or so and decided "Yeah going for the run is a good idea".  Hmm...our original plan was to only run 3 miles, well about 0.4 miles into the run that plan quickly dropped to 2 miles simply because we didn't want to back out that much farther.  Red and Scuba Steve had put a ton of ice in their shirts and shorts while I was in the bathroom so I had no ice.  Scuba Steve gave me a handful of ice from his shirt pocket which felt wonderful!  All of Red's ice had melted by that point so it wasn't going to be any use.  We finally made our world class slow run back to the car and were ecstatic to be done for the day!  We had logged over 40 miles for the day, didn't die, and enjoyed each others company!  Our workout for the day was longer than the poor souls stuck doing "Ironman Muncie" today since their Half Ironman distance was dropped to an Olympic distance due to heat.  Tons of people were ticked because of the distance change, but meh, I'm glad I didn't pay $300 to run an olympic distance race!  I didn't pay anything and was able to stay close to home and still go farther than they did.  From what I've read it sounds like everyone was safe at Muncie, which was the point, but I still think a half would have been doable, incredibly slow, but doable.  

Now as for tonight, I work all night.  I just checked the weather and it is nearly 10:30 at night and still 85 degrees or so.

Yep, that says 102 for tomorrow.  

Everyone hydrate, fuel, and stay healthy!  Happy training!

Oh, and the title of this post says 105 degree days.  When we were done our cars thermometer said 101, when I listened to the radio and checked "what it feels like" it says 105+.  Woot!  Tomorrow is supposed to "feel like" 110, at least I'll sleep all day in AC and work all night in AC :D

Heat Wave!

Wow!  So it has been over 90 degrees almost every day for weeks, I think it has been 90+ since the beginning of June.  This heat has made training interesting, but it is getting better.  When I first attempted to run in the heat a 10 minute mile for 1 mile had me thinking about turning around, now I'll run 4-6 miles, and so long as I pace myself, I'm fine.  Today I was retarded and felt really good and ended up running about 8:03 for a bit and then paid for it in the end.  I was keeping 9 minute miles for the first mile then was like, hey I feel good just keep running, and dropped to 8 minute miles.  After that I slowed up for a second and getting started was not going to be a thing.  The next two miles hurt like crazy, namely the last mile.  It was rather rough.  I still ended up averaging about a 10 minute mile over all but it was still crazy hot and I felt like shizen.  I'm getting better though so it's ok.

On the plan for tonight is a 30-40 mile bike ride and a potential 2 mile run depending on what time it is.  Red and I are wanting to go to Lebanon for fireworks this evening :D  I love fireworks!

Since tomorrow is officially Independence Day Red has the entire day off!  I, unfortunately do not, but that's because sick people still need hospitals no matter what day or time it is.  I don't have to work until 7pm though so we're thinking about taking a bit in the morning and doing a baby tri essentially in training.  We're going to swim about a mile, then bike maybe 40, and depending on time and heat, we'll run probably 3-6 miles, again, that depends on how hot it is and the temperature.

I hope that everyone has a great July 4th!  Stay safe!  I hope everyone gets to watch some fireworks this year even though a lot of them have been canceled due to the lack of rain lately so everything is REALLY dry!

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!

Yeah sweet training!

So I'm glad my body got over its "it's too hot" nonsense.  I was able to eek out 86.03 miles this week!  Granted only 14.6 miles of that nonsense were running, but that's not too bad considering the fact that I'm not in marathon training anymore.  The weather has been intensely hot lately which I'm thinking does a number on me, but I discovered that if I hydrate more than your average midget that it's not too bad.  This week I think I honestly drank about 5L of fluid each day because I was going to be sweating so much.

Monday my body was rebelling and doing a good job of convincing me that it was too hot to run, but Tuesday onward my body decided to get with the program.  Tuesday I ran with Red on lunch and felt great!  We have a 4.25 mile loop that we run on his lunch break randomly.  It's kind of nice to be able to have a set mileage and have a running buddy for quick jogs.  Later that night we went for a ride and I road tested the new bike which I have now named Felix.  I've been trying to think of a name for my bike since I was finally able to ride it, and for some reason Felix just sounded cool.  Allegra, my old Felt, is now officially my commuter bike, and Felix is now my road racing bike.  That was the entire purpose of buying Felix, but at first I thought I was going to rotate Felix and Allegra based on what the training ride would be, now Felix is training and Allegra is commute.  Felix is a GREAT hill bike too!  Oregonia hill is about a 1.5 mile climb and though I've been getting a lot better at my climbing I was only able to keep Red in my sights while riding Allegra. My first climb out on Felix and I was able to not only catch Red, but also pass him all three times that we did that hill this week!!  Woot!!  He still has me on flats....for now :D

FELIX!!!

Wednesday I did a tempo run before work, my first time ever trying to honestly make myself run a certain pace all on my own.  I suck at pacing, I've said it once and I will say it again, I suck at pacing.  Red is the human metronome, I am the human spaz.  He'll say "let's run at 9:30, or 10:00, or insert time here, and he can do it.  Me I go "let's run at 10:00 min pace today", and I'll take off at an 8:30 for the first mile and Red normally has to rein me in.  Yep, pacing is not my thing.  Well I'm going to make it my thing this year!  Wednesday I ran 5 miles at what was supposed to be 5 different paces.  Mile 1) 10:00, 2) 9:30, 3) 9:00, 4) 8:30, 5) 8:00.  I was a little too fast on the first mile and ended up at 9:41, meh.  I hit all of the other miles except the 8:00 but that was because my legs were flipping me the patella and telling me to bugger off.  I'm loving my new shoes, Asics Gel Blur 33's.  They're light, comfy, move great with me, not a huge heel, and AWESOME colors!  Mine are neon orange!

New shoes!

I'm hoping that next week I can up my mileage some and be super productive training wise, but I don't see that happening.  I work Sat, Sun, Mon night which means that Tuesday I will be sleeping all day.  That leaves Wed-Saturday to get stuff done.  I'll be super busy this week though with wedding stuff so yeah!!!  Hoping to get my dress fitted, more stuff for the wedding, the an amazing weekend filled with family and friends for my bridal shower!  We'll see how much actual training gets accomplished.  

Happy training!

Heat, and bikes, and running OH MY!

Wow!  Ok, so Ohio jumped all over the summer bandwagon and has decided that 80's is its new comfortable. This isn't too bad if you're biking, and definitely not bad if you're swimming, but if you're running....not so much.  I love the heat so I'll definitely get over it and embrace the heat!  I apparently suck at running in the heat so part of the plan this week is to suck it up and guess what?  Run in the heat!  I need to get over it and just do it because it's not going to get any cooler and I have miles to run!

 In other news I HAVE A NEW BIKE!!  Yeah!  My Felt B16W came in last week and by Thursday afternoon I was able to have it fitted, cut down, and ready to ride!  So guess what?  I went for a ride!

Red and I only went 20 miles because I'm a wimp and didn't realize how different a tri bike would be from my road bike.  Wow, I was in for a rude awakening of how much more narrow my new bike felt compared to my old bike.  My old bike is a Felt FW40, if you can't tell I really like Felt, and it felt awesome!  My FW40, aka Allegra, has been my road bike, tri bike, and commuter bike for the past 3 years and has served me well.  She will continue to serve me well but it was time to upgrade to a new bike.  That's where my B16W comes in!

This is me pausing on Allegra towards the middle of our 40 mile ride.  Red and I found a nice shaded spot and decided that it would be a fun photo opportunity.

Me riding my new bike!  

As you can see I am definitely not in aero!  I did end up getting in aero later, that's what those white bars and those little squares are for.  I rest my elbows on the squares and my arms/hands just hang out on the bars, which coincidentally is where my shifters are now.  I looked like a weeble-wobble when we first started out because the steering is so much touchier and it just feels so much more narrow overall.  I have to give it to Felt and West Chester Cyclery though because even on my first ride out I wasn't uncomfortable or feel like I was off on my fit.  I just needed to get used to the tri-bike geometry which is slightly different than my road bike.  

Our 10 mile turn around point = photo op!

I love how much smoother my new bike is compared to my road bike and how much more efficient she seems to be!  I can easily sit at 20mph and not feel like I'm dying pushing after a couple of miles.  I can sit on Allegra and do 20mph as well, but I feel like I have to work more to get there, I can have a happy pace of 17-18mph on Allegra for miles though so she's not slow by any means.  I just think that this new bike is more efficient and the geometry change is to help get the most power out of your legs without roasting them so they can stay fresh for th erun of a triathlon, that's why it's a triathlon specific bike.  I can also easily get up to 25mph on my own, I can't maintain it super long right now, but I can at least get to it on flat ground!  Red and I rode 40 miles on Wednesday and I was on Allegra.  I can stick with Red for a good long way going 25 but I had to be drafting to hit those speeds.  We were going almost 27mph at one point when I was on Allegra, again I was drafting so being sucked along, but I still at least hit it!  This time I was all on my lonesome and hit 25mph at mile 19 of a 20 mile ride!  Woot!  Now I just have to become more confident in my handling abilities so I can come off the trail, which is a straight line, and start turning and doing hills.  Hopefully all of this will happen this week!  If I follow the plan for this week there will be 4 runs, 4 swims, and 2 bike rides between now and Saturday.  Then Saturday is ZOO BABIES! At the Cincinnati Zoo! :D

Happy training!!!