Overbooked and Overtired Indeed.

Listen to your body it will tell you when it’s overtired; it’s like hitting a brick wall. Referring to my previous post, I think it all (training, class, studying, work, life) caught up with me this past weekend and the evidence was in my workouts.

Saturday was a simple 3000m swim and a 2 hour ride, nothing too hard and definitely the norm for a Saturday. So Ryan and I got up relatively early and hit the pool...well I think “the pool hit us” is a better statement. For some reason, Ryan, nor I, had it in us on Saturday morning. Personally, my shoulders were really aching and I just felt slow. We REALLY wanted to call it quits when we saw an 800 pull set followed by a 400 kick was coming up, but Ryan and I pushed through our fatigue and lack of motivation to complete the workout.

Feeling good about actually finishing the 3000m, when all we wanted to do was quit, was a great motivator to get outside and complete our 2 hour bike.

Luckily, Colorado takes better care of their trails than they do their roads, so Ryan and I were fortunate enough to ride outside on clear trails, in the balmy 40 degree sunshine-y weather. The out n’ back we were doing was only 32 miles and we were figuring that if we could keep our (my) normal 17 mph pace that this route would be perfect for the time required in the saddle.

Now Ryan is a much better cyclist than I am but usually I can stay on his wheel, drafting of course, for the majority of the ride. However, this was NOT the case this awful sunshine-y Colorado day. Ryan kept yelling at me to get on his wheel, so he could get a better workout by pulling me and I could get use to the higher cadence that I’ve been lacking, but every time he picked it up to his normal pace he dropped me like a bad habit. I was trying so desperately to stay with him but my legs were just not having it. They felt SO fatigued. Finally giving in to what my body was telling me, I let Ryan go ahead and continued on at a pace that wasn’t as uncomfortable for my legs.

I don’t have my bike computer on my road bike, but I didn’t need it to tell me that I was going very slow; every pedal stroke was a fight and very painful. I just could not get my legs to go.

Upon arriving at the half way point I looked down and saw a 1:03 on my watch and perked up thinking I had to be faster on the way back since it was mainly downhill. Well I arrived home approximately 1:02 later making the whole ride (32 miles) 2:05! Good grief, I really was as slow as I felt. To put this in perspective, I raced last week on my MTN bike and was only .2 mph slower! Yikes! My legs were definitely on strike.

Once I finally got inside and warmed up a bit, the consequences of pushing my body, when I shouldn’t have, became apparent. I was more fatigued after this 2 hour ride than I was after any of the IMs I have done!!! And to top it off my stomach decided it was angry with me too! I pretty much spent the rest of the day in bed complaining to Ryan how awful I felt and continually asking him if he thought I was a worse athlete than I was last year, still not realizing I was just physically worn-out.

Now a few days removed, I have had the epiphany that my body was trying to tell me something, it was overworked and underpaid. I was tired, I pushed it, and I paid for it....lesson learned. Thank you body, your message was received loud and clear!

Now I must make a change and lighten up my schedule so me and, well, myself aren’t at odds again.

Overbooked and Overtired

The worse part of the triathlon life is definitely the time commitment. I absolutely love training and will do just about anything to get my training in but sometimes life just gets in the way. So what’s a girl to do? Something has got to give, right?

Well unfortunately, I am and never will be a good enough athlete to quit my job and dedicate my whole life to triathlon, so a precise delicate balancing act is necessary to continue doing the sport I love and carry on with my life. Right now I must admit I am struggling with balancing everything. Here is what I have on my plate

1) Depending on how far into training I am, at any given point we can have 10 to 20+ hours of training a week.

2) I work an average 45 hours/week and sometimes those hours are spent in the field where 10 to 12 hour days, hours away from home, are the norm.

3) I am trying desperately to finish my grad school work, thus I have class two nights a week. Not to mention my thesis which will be going into full gear VERY soon.

4) I like to give back to humanity wherever I can since I find myself so blessed with a fantastic life therefore I volunteer one night a week at the Children’s Hospital.

5) Engineering is a different kind of professional world than most; it works like an apprenticeship like in the old days when a son was sent off to learn a trade. First we must take a brutal 8 hour exam on the fundamentals of engineering and pass it (four years of engineering school put into one test), then we must work for four years under a licensed engineer to learn “the trade”, and finally, we must take another brutal 8 hour exam on the practices and principals of engineering to become a licensed engineer. This last one is where I am at in my career. The professional engineering (PE) exam is just a God awful exam testing your knowledge of the last four years (6 year for me, hehe I’ve been putting this off) under a licensed engineer. Imagine taking a test on every little detail of your profession and then some... it’s just plain hard. People study anywhere from months to years for this exam and yup, you guessed it I have to take it in April!!! So I must study all weekend every weekend and then any time I might find during the week!

6) Family time. My poor husband is so neglected! Lucky for me he does Ironmans as well, so he understands the time commitment but with everything else, he is probably really annoyed with me because he is just getting ignored. I know it’s awful and I need to carve out some time for him!! (and the pets!)

Ya see, SOMETHING HAS GOT TO GIVE!!! I find all these things above equally important to me so how am I to choose what goes? I mean I am overbooked, right? And I need to back off on something, right? Am I just being an overdramatic person? How does everyone else balance all of this? I know in the end I will find a solution but right now it just all feels so overwhelming. I guess “overwhelming” is what you get when you have the luxury to complain about such things.

"You owe it to everyone you love (including yourself) to find pockets of tranquility in your busy world"

Chilly Cheeks Duathlon, Race #2

This past Saturday I raced in the second race of the Chilly Cheeks Duathlon series. This race was vastly different than the first one which was a 4 mile run followed by a 10 mile bike. This particular race was a 1.5 mile run, 3.6 mile bike, 2.5 mile run, 7.2 mile bike, 50 meter run, very odd distances but it was a blast!

At the first race I entered the “fat tire” division and decided to stick with that division because I figured I ride my tri bike about 99% of the time so why not have some fun and ride my mtn bike. The first race in this series had the roads partially covered in snow and ice where this race was pretty clear except for the run course which was on trails. Since it was so clear the race attracted a lot more people and a lot more people with road bikes.

Even though it was so nice I was determined to stay in the fat tire division and use my mtn bike; I didn’t want to change divisions and I certainly was not going to cheat and use a road bike in the fat tire division. Unfortunately other people weren’t so honest. There were numerous people using their road/tri bikes in the fat tire division!!! How not nice!!! I was/am so angry with this. I mean if you look at the results I would like to know how ANYONE can ride a fat tired mtn bike on a relatively hilly course holding an 18mph pace! YEA RIGHT!!! Most of the people in the open division couldn’t hold that pace!!! I actually had a lady tell me that she was blatantly cheating and using a road bike in the fat tire division because “the roads are just so nice and it’s not a big deal to not change divisions”. Yea guess who was one of the 6 that beat me??...grrr. Oh well enough ranting I’ll get back to the race.

The first run I did awesome I really put my all into the whole mile and half and surprisingly my efforts paid off I finished the run in 10:02 and second OA. Not bad, not bad. I was happy with this because, doing the math that is a 6:41 /mile pace!!! I have not been able to get under a 7 min mile (7:30 in reality) pace since I moved to CO...not sure if altitude has something to do with that, but I’m gonna blame it on the high altitude ; )

After an embarrassingly slow transition (I couldn’t get my helmet clipped) I hopped onto my bike and began the second leg which started with a nice three quarter of a mile climb. This is definitely where riding a mtn bike sucks! I was very jealous of all that road/tri bikes effortlessly zooming up the hill. Oh well head down and pedal pedal pedal. I finished the first segment of the bike at a 15.4 mph pace, which in my opinion is awesome for a mtn bike.

Another embarrassingly slow transition (no excuse here) and I was off onto the second run which was 2.5 miles of hills. Obviously my pace went down significantly from the first run but I was still at about an 8:30 pace. Again not bad for an uphill 2.5 mile run.

Yet again, another embarrassingly slow transition (see a pattern here) and onto the bike again for 7.2 miles of mtn biking fun! I felt slower on this leg and in fact I was, I averaged about 15.2 mph, still not bad for the equipment being used. But again, I was getting passed by numerous people on road/tri bikes, which was a little disheartening. HOWEVER, I did manage to pass about 8 people on road/tri bikes, WOAH!! (thus going back to the aforementioned women doing 18.4mph on a mtn bike, yea right!).

Coming into transition I felt ok, and knew I only had 50 meters of running left so I wracked my bike and ran barefoot across the line in 1 hour 15 mins!! I was VERY pleased with this time for two reasons 1) I knew I had pushed as hard as I could throughout the race (well set aside the transitions) and 2) I was 7 mins faster and this race was a mile longer than the first race in the series, not to mention having to do 3 additional transitions! DAMN! That makes me one happy lady.

Overall it was a great race, beyond the cheating that was going on, and I finished 7th overall female and 3rd in my age group. My placing was worse than the first race but I can hold my head high knowing that I did the best I could and I ran an honest race. So suck it, you cheaters!!! Tehe ; )

The third and final race of this series is February 20th and again I plan on riding my mtn bike, no matter the conditions and again, running a hard and honest race. Hey maybe I can knock another 7 mins off my time! (Dreaming BIG)

Chilly Cheeks Duathlon Race #1

On Saturday I raced in the first race of the Chilly Cheeks Duathlon series. Actually it wasn’t a real duathlon it was just a 4 mile run followed by a 10 mile bike. It’s been bitter cold and really snowy here thus for this particular race I entered the “fat tire” division....good move on my part, the roads were completely snow packed in parts. Overall it was a good race and I finished 5th overall female and 2nd in my age group but I could have done a whole lot better. However I did learn a few things at this race that I would like to share:

1) No unexpected sprints before a race! Bringing your new puppy to a race and having him slip out of his collar is NOT a good way to warm up for a race! Porter (the new pup) decided it would be a great time to run away from us and play keep- away twenty minutes before the start. Since he really only responds to me right now I had to help catch him. 19 mins later the little rascal was back on his leash and feeling Ryan’s wrath : P and I was running to the start line for the start of the race, out of breath already!

2) Know the course before you race it!! The race was in a state park called Cherry Creek. Ryan and I have ridden there a lot!! So I figured I would know the course and not have to worry about where to go and what I would be racing on because I was already familiar. Two little details that didn’t enter my mind, 1) I haven’t ridden there in the winter and 2) I have never actually run there. Well the run course was on a dirt trail that had about 3 inches of snow covering it and there’s stupid me with regular running shoes on. As you could imagine I was slipping all over the place!! I was first in my division in the run until about 3 miles when some girl, who had these nifty spiked attachments for her shoes, came flying by me! DOH!!! I never saw that girl again : ( Should have brought at least trail running shoes or even my spikes from HS track, anything would have been better than my regular running shoes!

3) Know your equipment!!! After this race I have now claimed the title of being the dumbest/ most unprepared racer of all time! As I mentioned before, I decided to enter the fat tire division of the race because the roads still had snow and ice on them after a week of below zero temps and about a foot of snow, thus onto my mountain bike I climbed. I rarely think I’m good at anything, but on a mountain bike, I’m good...I know, surprising. I don’t know if it’s the confidence of the wider tires or what but, I feel, I’m A LOT better mountain biker than road biker....well until this race. I started the bike and shifted to the gear I thought I should be in and just started to pound away, like usual. Then I noticed my cleat wasn’t properly attached to my pedal, here my cleat had frozen and I couldn’t attach it, thus I stopped, stamped my foot a few times to loosen the ice, and off I went, determined to make up some lost time. I got into the biggest chain ring and just pounded away (insert dramatic irony here). I noticed within the first few miles that my legs were super tired and I had no idea why, the run wasn’t that hard, so I just kept pushing and pushing. My cadence was surprisingly high but since I was in the hardest gear on the bike I just kept forcing my legs round and round. Around mile 8 I started to get really tired and kept getting passed. I was very much dismayed and thinkin’ “WTH! You are good at mtn biking, get you’re a$$ in gear and go!” So I PUT MY HEAD DOWN, started to push as hard as I could and happened to notice I was in the GRANNY GEAR SMALL CHAIN RING AND NOT THE LARGE ONE!!!! The whole time I thought I was in the hardest gear and I flippin’ wasn’t!!! No wonder why my cadence was high and my legs were so damn tired!!! My mountain bike and my road bike are opposite when you are gearing and being that I ride my road/tri bike about 99% of the time, just out of habit, I was shifting gears as I do on my road bike!!! Ya see, I’m a freakin’ idiot!!! UGH!!!! Well as you could guess I switched my gear to the “real” big chain ring and pounded the last mile. I passed 10 people that last mile, that’s a lot for a 300+ person race!!!

Overall the race was great and really well run for a non-sanctioned small race!! Funny that the race that I kinda blew off in getting prepared due to the small size and short distances of the race is one of the races I learned the most from! Oh well the next race in this series is Jan 23rd and I plan on kicking some major a$$!!! : )

Let the Games Begin!!

Finally 2010 training has commenced and ,lucky me, it started with me having a head cold. UGH! Oh well I’m still very excited to get things going even if it’s only the base training stage. Here is my 2010 race schedule (note the two IMs, I’m nuts):

Chilly Cheeks Duathlon series: December 12
January 23
February 20
Boise 70.3: June 12th

Ironman Lake Placid: July 25th

Colorado Relay: September 17th and 18th

(Tentative) Denver Marathon (half or a relay): October 18th

Ironman Arizona: November 21st


Happy Training!!!!

Checking a Different Box

Last Friday, at the doctor’s office, I got to check the married box!

November 7th I married my biggest and best competitor. I’m not talking a competitor in the senses of a mean rivalry or one of us constantly trying to “beat” the other....although don’t think for a second it doesn’t go there. I’m referring to a deeper level of a competitor, a beautiful relationship.

A great competitor is someone that you know can go stride for stride with you, someone who will push you to your limits, someone who frustrates you, someone who pisses you off and most of all someone who at the end of the day you respect and admire. This is Ryan for me! He is literally my perfect competitor.

Ryan is an obstinate, hot tempered, moody, relentless, determined and hard to manage man. If you know me well you can see that Ryan is the perfect guy for me, seeing as I’m not the most, shall I say, easy person to live with ; ) And you can also see that these qualities make for one hell of a competitor. These aspects in Ryan are what I fell in love with, not his anal cleanliness or his ability to cook something more than toast (yea I suck) or his amazing ability to make me smile. Yes those things are great but I was always taught to love someone first and foremost for their faults, I never understood this until I met Ryan.

So three weeks ago I got to marry my perfect man! The day was unbelievable!!! It was over in a blink of an eye and now I get to check that married box.

“It’s one thing to check a new age-range box on a form at the doctor’s office after a milestone birthday. It’s quite another feeling to go from checking the “single” box to the “married” box.” It most certainly is another feeling....it’s wonderful!

Here is a pic of us on the big day...notice the fancy footwear. More, better, pics to come.

Ryan and I with my siblings

Ryan and I with our neice and nephew (Meghan and Daniel)

Trying to post from my phone.