Moving on

I miss Boston. :( I miss talking about it and wearing my medal around the house and I miss being sore. Let's be honest, I miss the attention. I hope some of you can relate... I mean, we train our asses off 365 days a year and on 1 or 2 of those days people actually give a crap. I know you all give craps year round, and that's why I love you, but it is so neat to get emails from family and friends and all that. Sigh. I swear I'm not bitter, I'm just rambling here. I actually forget about the "glory" for most of the year and then as I approach the finish line at that goal race it all comes rushing back to me and I am on top of the world for about a week. But life goes on. The un-supported, solo, spectator-less 6am morning runs are really what it's all about, and I love it. I love the alone time, the solitude, challenging myself knowing no one will know about it besides the 12 people that read my blog. Anyway, that's what's going through my post-Boston brain these days.

Also taking up space in my head: TRIATHLON!!!! Bike bike bike bike. Did I mention my sweet new bike?

I've set up my training schedule for my Half Ironman race on August 2nd, which is just over 13 weeks away. I'll be on that bike a lot. Here's the basic foundation of my schedule, feel free to comment:

Monday am: run 6 ish

Monday pm: Masters swim class (scary!)

Tuesday: bike 20-30 miles

(only workout scheduled for that day, gives me some wiggle room to move workouts around or do strength training or add workouts)

Wednesday: same as Monday

Thursday: same as Tuesday

Friday: rest

Alternating weekend schedules:

(Endurance Weekend)

Saturday: Long run (8-12 miles)

Sunday: Long bike with group (40-60 miles)

(Brick Weekend)

Saturday: Bike 30-40 miles plus 3-6 mile run

Sunday: Open Water Swim plus short 2-3 mile run

It all looks more organized on paper. I based the schedule kind of on one I found on trinewbies.com and I got the alternating endurance/brick weekend idea from some article I read but can't remember where.

I have three races taking place between now and August. Two are sprint tris and one half marathon (see side bar for specifics). The tris take place on Brick Weekends and the half marathon takes place on an Endurance Weekend so it works out perfectly. I would do an Olympic distance tri but couldn't find one that fit my schedule.

The schedule technically began this week but I have just been doing my own thing since I'm still recovering from Boston and Zach has a tri this weekend. He's doing the next sprint tri with me and also the half marathon, so our schedules will kind of overlap (like master's class and group rides). We'll really get on the schedule next week.

Well, here's what I've been doing this week. I certainly haven't been lazy but it's nothing crazy.

Starting last weekend- on Saturday we went for our first open water swim of the year. Only about 300 yards but it was nice to try out our wetsuits and get those first open water heebie jeebies out of our systems. Sunday I rode my old bike 19 miles which I mentioned in my last post, and then got my new bike. :)

Monday: 17 miles on new bike! AWESOME.

Turns out I totally over-thought the clipping out thing. It wasn't hard at all. In fact, clipping out of the pedals is the easy part. It's getting clipped IN that's hard! The bike felt comfortable and smooth. The only place I felt discomfort was my forearms from the new handlebar position. Everything else was great. Our time was 1:14:40 which is 13.6 MPH but that includes my clipping in/out practice. I got one of those wireless digital bike speedometer thingies which is great for tracking speed and distance, but the timer is a little annoying because it basically keeps running when you stop. Well, it pauses eventually, but it captures a lot of that stopped time which f's up my average pace. I guess it's no big deal but it bugs me. Anyway, YAY bike!

Tuesday am: swim 1000 m (250 crawl, 250 backstroke, 500 crawl)

Tuesday pm: 3 miles/27:41/9:13 average pace Easy run with Zach after dinner (we were bored).

Wednesday pm: 4 miles/36:14/9:03 average pace Another easy run with Zach after work.

Thursday am: swim 1000 m

Thursday pm: bike 17 miles/1:06:00/15 MPH (approx) We've been riding on the Iron Horse Trail until I'm comfortable enough to go on the roads, which will be soon I'm sure. Again, I think the average speed is misleading because we were doing about 15 MPH on the way up into a headwind, and more like 18-20 MPH on the way back. It was a very fun ride. I feel so cool when I'm on my bike. :) I was even singing a song about "how cool am I" until I realized that singing a dorky song significantly reduces my coolness. My compromise: humming!

Friday 3.0 miles/26:09/8:43 average pace Finally getting a little speed back! Ran this morning before work with Zach. We're leaving tomorrow to drive up to Napa with his parents. We'll stay at a hotel and then his race is on Sunday. I will take a lot of pictures and cheer him on, it will be so fun. He's definitely ready to race. Which is amazing because he just had surgery 2 months ago and was completely out of commission for a few weeks after that. What a comeback! GOOD LUCK ZACH!

Last but not least, big shout out to my MOM who is officially retired!! Congratulations Mom! Wish we could be there for your big dinner tonight. Love you!

Have a great weekend everyone, thanks for reading this super long post.