Lessons In Confidence, Triathlon Style!

The Struggle Continues . . . But I’m Making It

Today I had one of those workouts that you just don't "win."

It was a swim. Long, hot, sluggish . . . my kick had no power and I rested a couple of times during a 1000 straight set. Oh well. At least I made it. I think I HAVE to start going to the pool in the morning instead of late afternoon. Here are the reasons why:

1. No kids there in the early morning – normally I don't mind kids at the pool but when I'm struggling, every single voice, screech, and scream reverberates inside my brain and distracts me.
2. It's cooler in the morning. Relative term. It was 111 today. And going to the pool at 4:15 only ensures that I'm swimming during the hottest part of the day. The water felt WARM and I normally like "warm" water. They need to seriously think about cooling it.
3. Start the day with a success – a completed workout.

Don't get me wrong I count any completed workout as a success. After all I could have skipped it.

Struggling

This weekend has been long and HOT. Our 4^th of July party went really well! People came and had a blast!

It was also exhausting, and I had to deal with some family drama the next day (yesterday) that seemed to come out of nowhere. Anyone familiar with family drama would likely agree that it is absolutely soul sucking.

Yesterday was a bad day. Which is why I was on the trainer at 9:00 last night doing my 1:45 bike ride for the week. I figure a trainer ride late at night is better than no long ride for the week -- what do you think? I did not allow myself to feel like a failure for not getting up early to do it but rather I enjoyed getting some inspiration from the Olympic trials as I spun away.

Started yesterday feeling "hung over" even though I did not drink one drop of alcohol during our party! Too busy making sure things ran smoothly and socializing. There were a couple of things Glenn and I could have planned better but overall the party was a success. As the evening wore on though, I knew there was no way I was getting up early to ride.

Fortunately I'm at a point now where any workout under two hours seems pretty short so it ended up being not that big of a deal and I felt tons better after the ride. As I was eating a recovery meal at 11:30pm I marveled that I had gotten it done at all – last year I would have surely skipped it altogether. Total Bonus – I'm getting faster on the trainer! I'm also quicker outside than on the trainer so this makes me very happy. Sometimes it's the little things.

I have a 1:10 run today. Not sure exactly when I'll do it but it will get done.

There is no way I could do this sport without Glenn's support. Not only did he help me deal with my family drama, he listens to me talk nonstop about the Olympic trials and Dara Torres (don't get me started on her I feel like I could write a novel on what her accomplishments mean to me personally given that we are about the same age). AND he even sat with me during the first hour of last night's trainer ride, watching the swimming. We watched Dara win the preliminaries in the 50m and the look on his face said it all. WOW. Can't wait for the final tonight!

And of course he is great with the pets.

Here is a picture of him and Brinley in Long Beach a couple of years ago. She is just a puppy here, under a year old, and we went to Long Beach for J Fest. I wasn't racing which is why we found a pet friendly hotel and brought Brinley. That was a fun weekend. J

Turning a Corner

I'm feeling a little "blah" this week. Maybe because it's a short work week, I'm not sure. Glenn and I are having a 4^th of July party at the house and I'm really excited about it! I'm actually (gasp) going to take pictures and if I get some good ones I will post them!

As far as training goes, I have really turned a corner. Here is how I know:

1. I am not worried about my pace anymore. Rather, I am focused on being strong and doing every workout within the parameters, which is typically staying in a certain heart rate zone(s). I first discovered this NEW attitude last week when my schedule called for a spin class followed by 20 minutes on the treadmill running in zone 2. I had never taken spin before. And it was TOUGH. I worked HARD for the full hour. Skipped the stretching at the end and went straight for the treadmill where I proceeded to run 20 minutes very comfortably in zone 2. I was so excited I was able to run comfortably after the spin class and even though my pace was 14 minute miles that was so not the point! The point was I was running comfortably! YES! Felt like I could have run indefinitely.

    

2. I have also discovered this same attitude works when running in the heat. Let's face it, running in the heat raises the heart rate, and thus the pace slows down considerably. I have not been doing very well with getting up super early so I've been running outside in the 8-10am time frame. Around here it is already upper 90s and lower 100s by that time. Without a lot of mental whining, I've sucked it up and DEALT! I've been getting my runs in, logging the distance, and yup, the pace is slow and I couldn't care less!! SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS. It helps too that for this week coach told me the workouts are more to build strength and so don't worry about pace, but still . . . it has taken me a long time to reach this point of self/pace acceptance.

    

3. I have accepted that I don't like to work out at the butt crack of stupid (stealing that line from Kevin) and so I don't. I work around (and occasionally in) the heat to get the training done. Weekends are somewhat of an exception. For those two days I do get up early so I can train and then have the rest of the day left to do other stuff. But during the week, since I work from home, my schedule is different every day. I have finally accepted that I don't have to get up super early to train and be a good athlete. I have options. And for crying out loud there is nothing wrong with that!

    

4. I am looking forward to the long rides and runs. Coming from me, this seems really crazy. I have some monster (for me) rides coming up later in summer and fall. The runs will progress very similarly to my half marathon training so that is somewhat familiar territory. But I've never been on the bike over 2.5 hours. Instead of being filled with dread at the prospect of five hour rides I am filled with anticipation. I can DO it! The Half Silverman is my dream and that tough course requires tough training. My Coach knows this. I'm going to be so TOUGH and prepared come race day! Plus, Izaac has said he will ride with me, which is awesome!

I hope everyone has an excellent 4^th of July weekend! Party hard (but get the training done first)! J

Monster Swim

I blame Izaac. This is all his FAULT!

Here's how it went down. Izaac texted me Thursday to see about coordinating some workouts. I was SO grateful because I've discovered that having a training partner really makes a difference in my motivation to get out there and TRAIN.

So we emailed about schedules agreed we would do an open water swim at the lake this morning for an hour.

Izaac has a Garmin and he set it to beep every ten minutes so we would know where we were on time. We went out and started swimming the buoy line. Went four out and I was very surprised to hear that was only twenty minutes! When we returned to our original buoy we were at forty-five minutes. Izaac pointed to the next buoy which was WAY DOWN THERE and said we need to swim to that one no ifs ands or buts about it Stef!!! You will do either do it or I will spread the word on my blog that you are a wussy and I will never ever train with you again!!

OK.

I'm lying.

What he really said was something like what do you want to do what about that buoy down there and then I said we need to swim down to that buoy and back.

I don't know how far that one buoy was but it was FAR. For some reason there are no buoys between it and where we were.

And THAT is how we ended up with a 1.5 mile swim in 1:18:46.

A break through swim for me in both distance swum and time in the water swimming continuously. WOOT!

I'm In The Paper!

Last week a reporter with the Boulder City News emailed and asked if he could interview me for an article on triathlon.  Apparently he had checked out my blog and read a bit about BAM! 

I met with him earlier this week and the article is out!

There is a link to download the pdf file below. 

I couldn't figure out how to make the article appear on this post all pretty and stuff where you could just click on it to enlarge.  Too advanced for me.  ;-)

Download bc_paper_article.pdf

Hell YES!

Best Stef finish photo EVAH!

Starting Another Week, YES!

Started out last week great with the recovery workouts but then, as the week wore on, I found myself cutting some of them short. That is OK though. Coach said cutting them short was allowed as long as I did something. Check!

Yesterday morning I volunteered at the Las Vegas Triathlon Club's second mini tri of the year. It went fine but I found myself getting overly annoyed that it was so hot out at 6:30am. Then earlier today I read RBR's race report of Billy Bob's Backyard Triathlon and got a new perspective. I wished I would have had that report yesterday while bitching to myself about the heat as I sat on the tailgate of my truck with my bottle of warm water and waited for the 33 racers to reach the bike course turnaround. LOL! I've lived in southern Nevada for 23 years – the summer heat is not going anywhere! Deal with it Stef!

With that, I am enjoying my rest day today and will dive into my training anew tomorrow! YES! I am so excited for Silverman. Need to keep the momentum going even though I know that I will have more motivational slumps. I will just have to work through them and get the training DONE.

In other news, I am excited to "announce" that I am now a bartender over at the Endurance Sports Bar! If you haven't been there you should check it out. Tons of cool tips, stories, photos, and yesterday Shirley had a chart going of the IM C'DA athlete bloggers, with links to the Athlete Tracker. I didn't have to go anywhere to check out how everyone was doing with the day! Shirley has taken a wonderful concept and run with it and I feel very fortunate to be a part of it. Thanks Shirley!

Last but not least, I have to congratulate Johnny Tri on his finish yesterday. JT is a local blogger friend of Form's and mine and I was so happy to see him cross the line last night on Ironman Live. I raced to my phone to text Form, but Form beat me to the punch with:

He did it!

I was going to say something really profound like:

He made it!

But Form summed it up nicely and then we proceeded to get into a friendly argument about whether or not I am doing an Ironman. I have told Form before that Ironman is not on my radar but he keeps bringing it up.

Whatev.

Right now I can't see past the Half Silverman. Once I do that who knows what else will be on my horizon.

Nice Warm Recovery Run/Walk With Brinley

This morning I headed out for my first run since BAM. 35-40 minutes, all in zone 1. Nice. It was 90+ degrees, but there was a bit of a breeze so it wasn't bad. I decided to take Brinley.

Summer around here is hard on the dogs because they are cooped up in the house A LOT. Fortunately since I work from home I let them out as needed during the day and then hustle them right back in cause it's just so freaking hot. Being cooped up for hours and days on end starts to mess with a dog's head – I mean how could it NOT. I live with two medium to large sized athletic dogs. They need exercise. And, unfortunately, they just get less of it in summer. Walks are much shorter. So this morning when she looked at me with her I've been cooped up too long eyes, I decided to take her. She's young (only two) and strong, I figured she would be fine.

So, we were off!

I was very proud of my girl. She got through the run like a champ. Oh don't worry I take water for both of us. She knows what those bottles are and is NEVER shy about asking for a drink!

And, for those of you who may be wondering, we do NOT and will NOT, EVER shave her coat for the summer. Not only does the coat with all of its hair and insulating layers protect the dog from cold, they also protect from heat. Shaving is one of the worst things that can be done as it brings potential for sunburn and other skin problems. It also looks incredibly FUGLY. She gets an occasional very conservative trim, and sometimes we will take the scissors to an exceptionally stubborn mat. Oh and the area around her butt gets trimmed too (for obvious reasons). Other than that, she is and will always be in FULL COAT. Full coat and running whenever she can talk me into taking her!

Recovery

I'm learning to appreciate recovery weeks and workouts a bit more I think!

After BAM I was the sorest I have been after a race. Which is GOOD!! It means that I had worked hard – the hardest I have ever worked in a race. The soreness was not debilitating or anything and it was in all the right places so to speak. No injuries and no pain that was any cause for alarm. Just a lot of stiffness mostly, especially after sitting for awhile.

Coach gave me an optional day off yesterday and I took it. She said I could move the 35 minute swim set for yesterday to Friday, which I am. This morning I hopped on the trainer for a 35 minute easy spin. Didn't particularly feel like doing it but it sure set me up for the day. Tomorrow is an easy run which I must get up early to do. Mostly because I don't have a treadmill at home but also because I do love to run outside. It's 85 degrees here in the early morning now which kind of makes it mandatory that I get it done nice and early. I've been doing a lot better with getting up early but still leave my options more open on some days (like today).

I am excited to follow several bloggers as they do Ironman Coeur D'Alene this weekend. Also this weekend is the Las Vegas Triathlon Club's second mini tri of the year. I don't think I will race but will definitely go down there to watch, volunteer and maybe attend the clinics they are doing beforehand. I also have an hour run scheduled for that day so I will be up super early!

There is always something going on for those that want to participate. Pretty cool I think!!

BAM Photos

To read the full BAM Race Report, click here, or scroll to the post directly below this one.

Pictures by Jerry R.

 

Standing on the half frozen mud/sand before the swim start.

Jerry captured my expression rather perfectly, don't ya think?

Here we GO! On my way to a HUGE swim PR!

Doesn't this expression just say it all? I think Jerry was a photographer in another life.

Struggling to get out of my wetsuit! Told Coach that is where the majority of my T1 time went!

Struggling to get my shirt on! We're ALMOST THERE! J

YES! Almost ready to leave!

On the bike course.

My butt on the bike course!

Leaving T2

Finish line and run course. The course weaved thorugh the scenery in the background.

Jerry found me on the run course just after the Mile 5 marker

Running down the grass carpet!

Almost there!

Bringing it home!!!

In the finisher's tent immediately post finish!

Look MY NAME IS ON THERE!