Varation can be a good thing... but not always.

Training has been going better. Been keeping my runs during the week to around 4 or 5 miles and last weekend did an 11 mile road run. Went well. The pain in my side seems to be lessening (fingers crossed), so hopefully it is a non factor by the time the half-marathons start up.

This last weekend was supposed to be a 12 mile road run, but plans changed a bit. I was at a local coffee shop and bumped into someone I knew. She was sitting with a friend who I had passed on one of my runs earlier in the week. I asked what she was training for and it turns out there was a sprint triathlon at Hueston Woods State Park (in Oxford) on Sunday. The girl who was planning on competing in the triathlon had someone drop out who she was supposed to compete with and so she asked if I wanted to compete. For some reason, the sprint triathlon sounded so much more fun than running 12 miles. So I agreed and went and signed up.
That night as I lay in bed, these were my thoughts: I have not swam distance for over a year, what if I drown? I have not ridden a bike on the road at speed... well, ever, but that is OK, I might drown. I think I should be OK on the 5 k run, unless I drown.

The competition was a 750m swim, 20k bike (12 miles), 5k run. My biggest concern was the swim. I figured I could tough out the bike, and I was not concerned about the run at all. I borrowed my sister's boyfriend's bike, which after riding it around the block, realized it needed some work. The front and rear derailleur’s were all out of alignment, causing the chain to rub (and fall off as I found out later) and the front brakes were rubbing. Also (as I learned later) the rear tire has trouble holding air. So I got the bike in what I thought was working order, got a swimming cap, and realized the closest thing to a Speedo I owned was a pair of compression shorts, so I would be swimming in pretty much a pair of underwear.

The morning of the competition rolls around (the next morning) and I got up plenty early from not being able to sleep. I go out to the garage and realize my back tire is completely flat on the bike. Not only completely flat, but will hold no air. So now I am faced with a problem. No bike store is open on a Sunday morning at 6:00 a.m. I fiddle around with it for about half an hour more, can't get it to inflate. Already feeling defeated before the race has begun, I load up my mountain bike and the road bike, thinking I am going to have to ride 12 miles on the road on my mountain bike, which is the equivalent of driving a car vs. driving a Mack truck. I figured that there would have to be some bike people at the competition who could help out.

I headed off and as soon as I get to the competition I am completely intimidated. There are people all over the place, with bikes that look like they (and probably did) cost more than my car, people with bike helmets that look like they are straight out of Back to the Future, guys all tan with completely shaved bodies.. it was all a bit much. I checked in and luckily there was a mobile bike shop set up where I took my bike to get a new tube. While I was getting a new tube, the owner made sure to make me feel like an idiot because I did not have an extra tube on hand. To that I responded with "I signed up for this yesterday and have not trained a bit," He didn't speak to me after that.

So with air in my tires I felt good. Then I remembered I had to swim. Don't get me wrong, I like to swim, but I had not swam for exercise in over a year, and I think I have swam in open water once for conditioning. The race starts and I gallop into the water with all the other 0-29 year-olds and Elite Athletes (yeah, when they signed me up, I asked to be put with the slow people. Because of my age, they put me in the most competitive grouping). I dive in, and off come the compression shorts. Well not completely off, but enough to make me reach down and have to pull them up into their proper position. I start to swim. Kicked in the chest, bumped on the side, kicked in the chest; these are the greetings from my fellow competitors as I tried to get my breathing and freestyle stroke back in working order. I break off from the group so I did not get pummeled to death and let all the intense people swim the most direct line to the first turn-around buoy. As I got my own stroke back and start to get the hang of it I look up from the murky water and realize I am completely off line with the buoy and swimming in the middle of nowhere. I point in what I think is the right direction and start again. This time I end up on the other side of the buoy next to a life guard who looks at me like I am a complete idiot and points me in the other direction. So my swim continues in this manner for the next 200-300 meters before I realize I am just wasting a bunch of energy and getting tired.  I switched to the breath stroke and my point of attack gets much better; however, since this is a much slower stroke for me, here come the 30-39 age group to pass my slowness up. Humbling? You bet. Well, I trudged through and made it out of the water (before standing up I made sure I still had covering), feeling quite naked in only my compression shorts, but also like I had accomplished something.

On to the bike. I make it to the transition stage, put on some shorts and shoes and off on the bike. Very first thing is a nice little climb. I go to switch to a very low gear with my font derailleur and clank, off goes the chain. Sigh, first 300 meters and my chain has already fallen off. No big deal, easy fix and I am on my way once more. I felt pretty good on the bike, I was able to keep up with some people who looked like they knew what they were doing and I seemed to fare better on uphills than most.  At one point in the race, there was this old lady, probably 50's, who just blew by me. That was motivation to pick it up; I passed her on the next uphill. As the hill crests and we began to go down, I try to switch to a high gear with the front derailleur, and once again clank, the chain falls off and Old Woman fly’s by me. Humbling to say the least. I got it put back on and finished the bike pretty much incident free. The hardest part of the bike ride for me was getting used to the bike itself and finding the right gear. If I had been more familiar with the bike, I think I could have done a little better, but I seemed to always be searching for the right gear. By the time I found it, the topography had usually changed and I was having to find new gear to fit that section of the course.

I finished the bike ride and I made it through transition again and started on my run. I must say, the run was my strong suit out of the three. I caught Old Woman and passed her and actually caught many of the people who had passed me on the bike while I was fixing the chain the second time. Only bad part about the run was at the very end, where I had been sitting on the bike seat began to seize up on me. I think from sitting for so long, it fatigued the muscles and they were completely spent right at the end. I was able to finish strong, but then could barely walk through the food line. I sat down and rubbed the area out and it was then fine.

Overall, I was pumped I was able to finish. I have no idea on any of my times and I really am not too interested because I know they will be terrible. I will say that sprint triathlons are definitely do-able without training, and even somewhat enjoyable.

Hope training is going well for everyone.

starting to run more . . .

The past few weeks I've been doing the Tues/ Thurs runs with my brother and one of the Mason superintendents. They are training to do a fast half at Columbus (if they run a half marathon at 6:20/ mi pace that qualifies them for the New York full marathon . . . go figure). Anyways, the work outs are track/ speed on Tuesday and usually a 5+ miler Thursday with a longer run on the weekend.

Tuesday we all completed the following:

1x1 mile: 5:32

1x2 mile: 12:00

2x800 meter: 2:38

That's much faster than I was ever able to do in HS XC.

Thursday I ran on a nearby trail 1.1 mile loop. Here are my laps (I did 5 laps with enough time in the middle to catch my breath, etc):

1) 7:43

2) 7:33

3) 8:21

4) 8:15

5)8:08

I'm still splitting time between running and cycling for my endurance workouts but I'm merging into more running now so I can get accustomed to the training for the marathon.

Trudging Along...

Well... haven't posted because it has been a ROUGH couple of weeks.  That stupid side pain has sidelined my running for the past three weeks.  I finally ran some distance last weekend with a 10 miler on the trails here in Oxford.  I think the lower impact of the trails allowed me to run the longer distance.

For now, I have completely given up timing my runs and I am trying to get in miles anyway I can.  School also started back up and my body is taking a little bit of time adjusting to the new hours.  Hopefully this weekend I will be able to do around 11 miles, and fill in this week with shorter runs around 4 to 5 miles.

I hope those who planned to run the Air Force Half have signed up, because registration is full for the half marathon.  On a separate note, cheapest registration for the Phoenix Marathon ends on September 15, so make sure you get signed up for that if you have not already.

Hope every one's training is going well and look forward to running the Air Force Half in about a month : )