20 Very Random Thoughts

1. I hate it that I just burned my 100 calorie pack of popcorn and having to sort through the burned pieces is slowing the rate at which I can consume my lunch.
2. I'm grateful for the opportunity to train and complete my first IM. Despite all the whining I feel like I've been doing lately, I really am excited.
3. I'm looking forward to this weekend, not because of the training, but because I'll be able to support Adrian in a race. I love running around tracking where he is and cheering for him, I'm extremely proud to be his girlfriend.
4. My cats give me geniune happiness during the week. I woke up this morning to a big black furry face staring at me wondering when it was time to wake up.
5. Putting the cat box outside on my back patio was the best idea ever!! Now I just need to figure out what to do when it rains this weekend.
6. Helen from the Biggest Loser only weighing 117 has prompted me to take my nutrition seriously.. yes yet again. If she can do it, I can do it. Can you imagine how fast I could run if I weighed 117 pounds.
7. Friends change, but friends will always be friends :)
8. I miss my BFDee. I miss running with that fart fool that can't ever do a run without getting US lost. I miss the giggles about random things we see. I drove down to Manchaca on Mother's day and thought about the one run we did, where I knew we were going the wrong way, but was too afraid to tell her, so we ran to Manchaca :)
9. I catch myself calling random people FOOL, that don't understand and I have to apologize.
10. I enjoy swimming more than I ever thought I would.
11. I wish I were rich enough and had enough time to train with both Rogue and T3 simultaneously.
12. I'm glad I went to the doctor about my knee, looks like I'm weak on my right side.
13. I'm looking forward to Grey's Anatomy and The Office tonight, and my day OFF to try and regroup my sanity.
14. I'm oddly scared of crossing the finish line in CdA. I'm afraid I'll love the moment too much to want to do this again.
15. I can't wait to make the bike cutoff and run a marathon on June 21st.
16. I can't wait to call Adrian after the race and let him know I'm an Ironman.
17. I wish I could buy the house next door to Adrian. That would be the bestest thing ever. I could have my own place, my own space, and we could still be together without the inconvenience of having two places 10 miles away from each other, and I wouldnt' have to stress about my kitties.
18. I genuinely respect the people on my team that have done more than 1 Ironman. It seems unreal to have to do this again knowing how difficult it is.
19. I wish I had bigger boobs.
20. I wish I had more of a butt.

Updates, updates, updates...

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of running with my Dee. Surprised her at Rogue at 6am (Eek, forgot what it was like to wake up that early!!) We ran 10 miles and had a blast! Tons of farting, tons of "Fool!", and tons of giggles. I miss just running.

The rest of the week....
Sunday: I rested. Adrian finished 4th overal at the Xterra Ruston :) So I decided to celebrate with him and do NOTHING :) Slept in, ate a good breakfast and rested and relaxed.
Monday: Swim class, rocked it. Got to lead the swim lane for half the class.
Tuesday: OFF
Wednesday: OFF
Thursday: OFF
Friday: 4,000 meter swim. No wetsuit again.

Splits:

1. 4:26
2. 4:37
3. 4:43
4. 4:32
5. 4:43
6. 4:32
7. 4:38
8. 4:29
9. 4:35
10. 4:23
11. 4:42
12. 4:31
13. 4:44
14. 9:16 - whoops! this is for 400
15. 4:38
16. 4:48
17. 4:35
18. 4:47
19. 4:19
20. Total 1:32:07 (Yay!!)

Saturday: I rode my first century. 104.5 miles. Included the Dam loop, then out Parmer to the end, then back to the intersection and back out again, then back to town. Did Jollyville out and back to make sure I hit 100, then home to Adrian's :) Average 14.7 mph riding time :) 7 hours and 10 minutes, riding time :) I am feeling more secure now about not getting kicked off the course :) :) :) :)

Sunday: Met Steve and ran 20 :) Good stuff. Ran the whole time, except for water stops, felt amazingly well, until the last mile.

One more hard week and we're smooth sailing :)

Cute Animation

I got this off the T3 forum, thanks Jim!

Check it out, too cute!

http://www.onwards.tv/

After IM...

There's been lots of talk regarding what everyone is doing after the Ironman. I've gone back and forth in my mind about what I want to do. At first, I thought I wanted to continue on with this tri stuff, after having such a great race in Galveston. Now that more time has gone by, I've been thinking I don't want to do anything. I don't want to be a part of any training group, just relax and be normal. I miss playing poker, I miss running with my Dee, and I miss being able to work late, or just go home, or have a weekday evening where I don't have to be somewhere. I just want to be. Then because of a certain someone's comments in a past thread, I got to reminiscing. Oh my gosh... the fun I had with Rogue.

I've grown to love T3 and all the teammates, but there's just something different about running. The stories, the adventures and the camraderie that Rogue gave me was priceless. I can't remember a long run where Dee and I didn't get lost. Where we didn't fart so much that our stomach's hurt from all the laughter. The giggles we had from running aimlessly, and most importantly the pure joy and genuine love we had. We not only shared laughs, giggles, and farts, but that crazy fool got me through some hard times in my life at the time. I've come to miss these crazy runs with her.

I'll always be a T3'er now and they have a special place in my heart, but I think I want to get back to running. After seeing so many friends have such awesome races in Boston, that's my next goal. I want to make it to Boston. Reading Dionn's race report brought me to tears. Reading Mike's race report brought me to tears, and I can only daydream about how freaking awesome it would be there myself. Then I thought, why daydream, let's make this happen.

So that's my next goal. Maybe not immediately after CdA, but definitely in 2010, that's my mission. I want to go to Boston. I know I can do it. 3:40 seems crazy right now, but I know I can do it, I know it. Now let's just make it happen.

But for now... I need to stay in IM mode. Michelle posted on the forum, "CdA is next month." Holy shit, she's right. June 21st will be here before I know it. I'm excited and ready. I'm a little nervous about the bike and I'm super nervous about the emotion that will go through me at the finish, but I'm ready to get to the start line. It's gonna be amazing...

(PS, Mike, you're gonna have to wait for more FOOL shout outs till after June 21st, be patient... FOOL!)

2 out of 3

Tonight was a big night :) I went to Barton Springs and went into the swim on a mission. Last Friday, I heard the script was to swim 4000 meters. It just sounded ridiculous hearing it last weekend. The thought of swimming FARTHER than 2.4 miles seemed insane. I took Tuesday off and ended up taking Thursday off too, because of work, and just laziness.

I got to Barton Springs, and opted to swim without a wetsuit. For 1, I didn't have it with me, and 2, I wanted to see if I could do it without. Before I got into the water, I made it a point to commit to swimming 10 laps without stopping. I warmed up pretty fast and got into a rhythm. Around the 6th, 7th, and 8th laps, I was getting tired, but still trucking along. I noticed my times were slowing and was ok with it, until a girl not wearing a wetsuit passed me! I tried to kick it into gear and draft off her, but she was overall faster. I reminded myself I was 8 laps into a swim and for all I knew she had just started fresh. I later realized that kicking a little harder didn't take that much energy and it was ok to keep the pace up.

Here are my splits :)

1. 4:18
2. 4:21
3. 4:31
4. 4:32
5. 4:39
6. 4:29
7. 4:35
8. 4:33
9. 4:51
10. 4:43
11. 4:48
12. 4:37
13. 4:46
14. 4:39
15. 4:53
16. 4:30
17. 4:40
18. 4:29
19. 4:39
20. 4:27

Total time: 1:32:09

I'm figuring with the wetsuit, it will make me faster. The fact that I swam a tad bit OVER the 2.4 will bank me some time, but I know the congestion will take away. So if I can swim the 2.4 in 1:30, I'd be ecstatic!! This would buy me 50 additional minutes that I much need on that damn bike.

I think if I keep with my swim workouts, and keep with my long swims, I'm 100% sure I've got it in me to do the swim.

If and when I make it to the run, I'm 100% positive I've got the marathon in the bag. I don't know my time, and I've got high expectations to run a decent marathon, but even if I have to walk the whole damn thing, I know I can do it.

Now if I could just get the confidence on the bike, I'd be golden. Still have a few more weeks to build. Looking forward to a down weekend :) 75 miles and 9 miles running, piece of cake :)

Weekend Update

Friday - Swam 1 mile at Barton Springs. Should have swam farther, but just wasn't feeling it.

Saturday - Attempte to ride 100+, but made the stupid mistake of forgetting to charge my Garmin. I started at Adrians, went south on 360, down on Bee Caves, up 620 to Anderson Mill. Instead of going out to Parmer, I thought I would add some miles, so I went through the neighborhoods to get to Jollyville. I went down and back and then went to Parmer via Duval/Amherst. I rode down Parmer and my Garmin died at mile 64. I called Adrian and he said to go ahead and go all the way down. I went to the very end. First time doing that :) I came all the way back and was for sure I hit 100. I mapped it out, and it only came out to 95 and some change. ARGH!!! Oh well, the good in it, is it's farther than my longest ride which was the weekend before 90. It took me 8 hours. I still feel nervous about the bike cutoff, but with the weather conditions we've been having, and all the stop lights and waiting on trains, I should be fine. I'm also counting on banking at least 50 minutes from the swim. Good day.

Sunday - met the girls to run 18 miles. Good stuff. I felt strong in the beginning, but got pretty fatigued as the run progressed. I've been learning my run/walk, but am thinking about going back to running without stopping. I know the likelyhood of walking during the Ironman will be high, but I'd like to run as long as I can without having to stop. We'll see.

Monday - Called in "exhausted" to work. Used a sick day to relax. Got to sleep in. I made Adrian and I a yummy breakfast, and we went to the T3 swim class at lunch time. I lead my lane with two other guys and had a good workout. Afterwards, Adrian and I spent the day shopping. Came home took a nap, and now we're watching tv with all three doggies on the couch. A very awesome weekend indeed :)

Another Breakthrough

I took two days off, for no apparent reason. I took Tuesday off, cause that was going to be my new day to take off since I'm swimming at Barton Springs on Friday and that used to be my day off. It was odd. I found myself bored and wishing that I had gone to core/spin. In any case, I managed, did laundry, spent time with my cats, and watched a ton of recorded shows :) Wednesday, I just felt tired, so went home and did the same.

Thursday, I was excited to go to spin. Chrissie ended up setting her bike up behind me, so that made me nervous the entire spin class. If I wasn't on cadence or my heels weren't down, I was paranoid that she was thinking I was a complete idiot. Thankfully, she didn't yell at me.

My breakthrough...

During core class I did my FIRST ever real pushup. Ok, I didn't go all the way down, but I went down far enough that it took me a good 1-2 seconds to get back up. I could only do 4-5 over the course of the 30 minute core class, and each one got shorter and shorter. My improvement is that I switched from girl pushups on my knees to full on real pushups on my toes. I was waiting for Mo to yell at my slow/weak self, but thankfully he didn't. I did switch it up and go to girl pushups once, then decided I'm done with those. I'd rather look like a weakling and get stronger doing the real ones, then to do the girl ones. I have graduated :)

Looking forward to getting stronger. If I can build enough strength, I might try that 100 push up challenge that everyone did a few months ago :)