On your mark, get set, GO!

Things are about to get real...30 weeks of training begins tomorrow. Well, kind of. My training program starts tomorrow but conveniently, the first day is a rest day. I think I'm going to like Mondays! I've mentioned before but I am following the "intermediate" training program from the book Be Iron Fit.

For those of you who are wondering, here is the breakdown of my workouts:
Monday - rest day (and since I'm not good at resting, it will most likely involve a brisk walk and some yoga to stretch out)

Tuesday - swim and a medium length run Zone 2-3 run

Wednesday - short Zone 2 bike transitioning into a short Zone 2 run (focus is on the transition from biking to running)

Thursday - swim and medium length Zone 1 bike

Friday - medium length Zone 2 run (and beginning in April, I will add swimming on Fridays too)

Saturday - long bike

Sunday - long run

Since it is still rather cold outside, I'll be doing a lot of my training indoors. During the week, I'll be at the gym. I am going to try and do my long bikes and long runs outdoors though. Hitting the gym during the week also works better with my schedule so even when the weather improves, I'll still frequent the Lifetime.

One of the things I really liked about the above book was all of the references it gives. It tackles everything from effective time management to technique to mental training to proper nutrition during training and during races. It is going to be my go to resource. Hopefully with constant reference, I'll make it to my end goal. And obviously, the main goal here is to finish Ironman Louisville well within the 17 hour time limit so that I can officially be an Ironwoman. But I have a smaller list of goals that I hope to accomplish on my way there. So I'm going to post them here and hopefully I will be able to update each time I accomplish one of them.

Here they are:
1) Beat my friend Matt in the Lifetime Fitness indoor triathlon! (We still need to sign up for this so if you're reading this, let's get on it!)

2) Complete an Olympic distance triathlon in less than 3 hours. My personal best is 3:11.04. So taking roughly 12 minutes off is a reasonable goal I think.

3) Finish the Muncie Ironman 70.3 in less than 6 hours and 15 minutes. Surely I can shave off 21 minutes over 70.3 miles.

4) Reach my ideal racing weight by August (roughly 15 pounds less than what I weigh today)

5) Finish Ironman Louisville in less than 15 hours and run the marathon portion in less than 6 hours.

6) Get my m-dot tattoo without passing out!

Oh, hello flip turns!

After taking last week off from swimming due to an eye infection, I went back this morning and got a wonderful surprise...IT'S TIME FOR SHORT COURSE SEASON! I really like short course season, even though it only lasts from January 24 - mid April. I like walls. And flipturns. But I must admit, doing flipturns and pushing off the walls more frequently really has no benefits for a 2.4 mile open-water swim. Oh well, doesn't mean I can't enjoy these next couple months anyway!

In addition to discovering the short course set up, I also found out today that I am no longer the youngest masters swimmer! Two new girls started swimming this week that are my age. So now there are more women and more people my age. This is good news! Although I will admit that I love the guys I swim with and I think the respect me for hanging with them. I hope that doesn't go away. Because these new girls are FAST! I am no longer the fastest woman there anymore. That's a little tougher for me to swallow. I liked being the only girl to hang with them. But these girls seem really nice and if they stick around, I think they can push me harder and further in my training and I can really benefit from it.

So you all can get an idea of where I'm doing the bulk of my training, here are a few pics:

The UIC pool where I swim with the Chicago Masters.

The new Cannondale Six Carbon 6 on the Magneto trainer in my living room.

So those are two places I will be doing the majority of my cold weather trainer. Add into the mix the Lifetime Fitness treadmill and that's where you'll find me until about March. After last week, I am beginning to find my motivation again. I'm also slightly OCD and keep meticulous notes on each day's workouts. Want to know how many times I've been to the gym each month since August? I can tell you. Want to know what exercise I did 6 Wednesdays ago? I have that too. Want to know what I will be doing 6 months from today? That's planned out too. So I have a concrete way of tracking my goals and my progress. That's just how I am...and let's be honest, you love me for it!

GET EXCITED: We are 214 days away!!!!!! For those of you that want to come join in the festivities, I have made my hotel reservations. Let me know if you are coming and need to find a place to stay. There are some Ironman rates at Louisville hotels. Mom and I have our room booked at a reasonable rate. I hope you'll come and play!

Can Someone Help Me Find My Motivation?!

Missing: my hard-core motivation

Last seen: October

Handsome reward for finder!

For some reason or another, I am lacking some serious motivation. Guess it's a good thing official training hasn't begun yet. I don't have any problem making it to the gym in the morning. Usually, Staci is meeting me there so I have someone to hold me accountable. Getting myself to the pool, however, is trickier. I don't have anyone making me go to the pool. (Hint hint, Melissa! COME BACK TO SWIMMING!!!!!)

I think part of my problem is that I typically swim on days I am in court. If I don't go to the pool, I can sleep in until 7:30 (benefits of living closer to court than I do the office). So, when my alarm goes off at 5:00am and I know that it won't save me any commute time to get up and moving (and I know that it is very cold outside and usually there's snow on the ground), I would just rather stay snuggled up in my bed for an extra two and a half hours. So, if you see my motivation laying around somewhere, please pick it up and return in to me. I give you permission to call me at 5:15 on Tuesday and Thursday mornings to make sure that I am up and moving and on my way to the pool!

I'm pretty sure my body hates me

After spending the majority of last week in bed, I started feeling better Sunday morning. I cannot remember the last time I was that sick. And while I never made it a point to get a flu shot, after last week, it will be a yearly thing for me...I will do whatever I can to avoid having another week like last week! Since I was no longer confined to my bed, I decided it was time to get back into the exercise routine.

It started off innocently enough with a 45 minute spin on the bike Monday morning before heading into court. Once again, I will say how much I LOVE my CycleOps trainer. After an uneventful morning in court and a long day of playing catch up in the office, I needed to unwind a little and headed to the gym with the future roommate (and fellow crazy athlete), Staci. I spent about 45 minutes on the treadmill walking briskly enough to put in 3 miles but still having enough breath to catch up and talk with Staci. By the time I got home last night, I was feeling FANTASTIC! It's so good to be back in good spirits and feeling well again :-)

Then came this morning. Since I did so well yesterday, and because there was only a light dusting of snow this morning not requiring too much scraping of the car, I headed to the pool. And then my body decided it hated me. The guys at practice are always giving me crap for a myriad of reasons...I wait until exactly 6:00 to get in the water, I missed a Thursday morning because Wednesday night got a little out of hand, I decide I don't want to do a kick set so I change it, etc. And usually I don't mind it because I can hold my own and hang with them on the main set. Well, NOT TODAY! My body essentially went through shock after doing nothing for a week then trying to swim like I normally do.

I was feeling pretty good through our warm up. 3 x 100 on the 1:45; 200 IM 25 drill, 25 kick; 8 x 50 kick, underwater middle 12.5 on the 1:20, 3 x 100 build on the 1:40. Piece of cake. I was feeling alright and had a decent rhythm going. Granted, I was a little slower than usual but I was doing ok. Then we got to the main set. We were supposed to do it twice through but time contraints (and my body's reaction) said I could only do one round. First up was 3 x 100 on the 1:30 followed by a 200 IM on the 3:40. Then came the biggest challenge. 400 free on a 1:25 base. Yeah, that wasn't happening this morning. So I opted to do the middle 200 of it. Then the first round ended with 4 x 50 sprint freestyle. Those actually went pretty well and although I felt incredibly weak, I put up some decent times. Then it was almost 7:00 and I had to get out so I could dodge the crazies that don't know how to drive in the snow. So today's swim workout including my half-assed warmdown at the end totaled 2200 meters. Not too shabby for the first time back. Hopefully I'll keep feeling better and Thursday morning will be a much better experience :-)

Sunday Shout-Out

I have some really awesome friends and family. So every once in a while, I will send a shout-out to them. Here's the first of the Sunday Shout-Outs to come:

One of my best friends from home, Ashley Donnell, completed her FIRST marathon this morning! She did the Walt Disney World Marathon in Florida. She rocked it too! I can't wait to see pictures of her running through the happiest place on Earth with all the characters.

Additionally, a great friend from law school, Melissa Hinterhauser, also ran through Disney World this weekend. She, however, kicked it up a notch and completed the Goofy Challenge! She is one that truly can understand my desires to see just how far I can push my body. The Goofy Challenge consists of running the half marathon on Saturday followed by the full marathon on Sunday. She and her sister both completed the Challenge.

I give huge props to them for training through the nasty winter months with ice, snow, and below zero temperatures. I don't know that I would adapt well to cold weather training. So props to you, Ashley and Melissa, on your accomplishments this weekend!

Mind Games

For all of my competitive athletic career, the focus was always on putting in the distance. Running cross country, it was always about how many miles we ran. In my 17 years of swimming, it was always about the yardage. Every race that I have trained for up till now has been based off training in terms of distance. And that makes sense. When training for my first marathon, it's practical to train in terms of miles to make sure that you can indeed complete the 26.2. When training for an Olympic distance or half-Ironman distance triathlon, I trained to make sure I could complete the given distance for the swim, bike, and run. When preparing for shorter running races, I build up my mileage to within a couple miles of the total race distance.

This time around, I'm doing things differently. Completely different. Completing an Ironman is as much of a mental task as it is a physical task. And the main goal is not to focus on the 140.6 miles I will have to complete, but to make sure I can last through the roughly 15 hours it's going to take me to complete it. Since I haven't actually started my training program, I'm not quite sure how I am going to feel about it.

The swimming isn't such a big deal because I don't focus on distance or time. Since I swim with an organized team, I put in anywhere between an hour and an hour and forty-five minutes at each practice. Swimming is my strongest leg of a triathlon and not the crux of my training. Biking in terms of time is a little different. I get too caught up in how far I'm riding. The cyclometer just makes it so easy to focus on distance. Running is going to be the most difficult to switch over to time. I'm so used to running a certain distance in a certain time. I've always ran with pace in mind. Maintaining a ten minute mile to run 6 miles in an hour. Now it doesn't matter how many miles I get in during that hour, I just have to keep running for that hour. I feel like maybe I'm going to sacrifice distance now. I don't know if I can keep up my distance when I'm not trying to run a certain distance. Does that even make sense?

So I'm looking for some insight. Has anyone out there done a training program based on time? Any suggestions on doing this? Let me know if you have any experience and I'll let you know how it goes once I get started.

I can't just sit around

Everyone who knows me knows that I am a pretty active person and while I have my lazy tendencies, I can't just sit around and do nothing. So it shouldn't come as any shock that I hate laying in bed right now not doing anything. I'm pretty sure I have the flu but that didn't stop me from putting in 45 minutes on the bike last night or hitting the pool this morning. (Perhaps that should have stopped me because the small child that was sitting on my chest last night has morphed into a rather large elephant and I sound like I picked up a pack a day habit.) But, I will take this opportunity to do a little updating.

I went back to the pool today after taking about a three week holiday break. I swim with the Chicago Masters Swim Club at the University of Illinois at Chicago. My friend Melissa convinced me to join with her last year because she wanted to get back into swimming. She has since left me (COME BACK MELISSA!!!!!!) and on any given day, I am one of only a handful of women. Today we had five women and I think that is a record! I also am the youngest one there by at least ten years. But I still really enjoy it. It's a good group of men that I swim with. I've moved up to swimming on the fastest intervals but I still routinely get my ass kicked by men in their 60's. I hope that when I am that age, I am still that active and in such awesome shape. I try to swim on Tuesdays and Thursdays. As my training program progresses, I will add on one more day a week. They are all incredibly supportive and I can't think of a better group to train with through this process.

Today's practice was a little rough on me not only because I was sick but because I hadn't been in the water in a while. I actually got there early today too to get in additional warm up. The running joke is that even though I may get there at 5:40, I won't get in the water until "official" practice starts at 6. Today I shocked them all and was in the water by quarter till. Put in an easy 500 meters before we got going. Our warm up set was pretty good too...1200 meters. I made the intervals and it was a nice stretch out swim. Then Andy (our coach) decided he hated us today. The theme for the day was a broken 600 followed by a 50 sprint...3 times through. The first and third time through included a 400 IM. There are few things I loathe more than 400 IMs. But, I can't complain too much because I only made it through the first round before I absolutely couldn't breathe. So I did only 800 of the 1950 meter main set before I quit for the day. So I put in 2500 meters while sick...all in all, not too bad.

I made it in to the office this morning but as the minutes passed, I kept feeling crappier and crappier. So by 9:00, I had to leave and came home back to bed. Theraflu and Mucinex are pretty great though and I feel ok until they wear off. Let's just hope I can kick this quick and be back in the pool Thursday morning.