Thursday, July 30, 2009

M(uuuugggggggg)y

Yesterday's run was hard. I thought getting out there at 6:30 am would be early enough to avoid the intense heat, but no! I started sweating in the first minute--the humidity reminded me of my childhood summers. It was a 4.5 mile Level 3 run (Level 1 is where you can talk to your running buddy and tell your life's story easily, Level 5 is approaching death, at Level 3 you should be able to communicate in 1-word sentences and occasional grunts.) That doesn't stop the conversation in my head however, which was quite loqoacious. It mostly was directed at my coach, Glen. Kind of like how birthing women get mad at their husbands, triathletes take it out on their coaches: "He probably looked at the weather schedule for July, found the prediction for the absolute hottest day, and scheduled this blasted workout for today!" "Thanks a lot, Glen!" "Rackum frackum %&*&^$%%!!!" Not that I REALLY think that. He's actually a very nice guy. He is an Ironman Champion, so he can be intense, but he can only do the challenging tough talk for so long before he has to profess his love for all of us. Having lost a loved one to lymphoma, he appreciates what we are doing and volunteers hours of his time to whip our sorry butts into shape. And really, all he wants is for us to do well, make it through race day without injury, and have fun along the way. As a bunch of novice triathletes, what more could we want from a coach?

Back to the run, I was glad to have my shoe tag with the emergency numbers on it on my running shoe that day. Besides the mental conversation with Glen, I had a morbid scenario of me going down from heatstroke playing in my mind. Wondering how long it would take to locate the shoe tag depending on which position I landed in. Who would find me? Judging from the early morning Forest Park jogging crowd, it would probably be a 22 year old blond woman with shorts that barely covered her bottom and a sports bra that would fit around my arm to hold my walkman in place (if we were allowed to use them, that is: no electronics in the race, so none with the workouts.) Since she would be in fantastic shape, then after a brief moment of indecision of whether to interrupt her stellar sub-6 minute mile workout to help me, would make it back to civilization rather quickly. I would be ok. But just in case, I didn't quite push it to a level 3.

I think Glen has a 6mile loop scheduled for Saturday's group practice; 3 miles uphill to Pittock Mansion, then 3 miles downhill. Meanie. I love you, too.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Watch What You Think!

Today's bike ride was supposed to be a 30 miler, and I decided to go out with my hubby for some moral support. We plotted our route and then headed up Marine Drive to this weird industrially section of the city I had never seen. At exactly 15 miles as we were crossing a bridge of some type, a thought occurred to me, something like, "Now that I know how to change a tire (since my coaches MADE us do it before our brick last week by sneakily letting the air out of all our tires while the other coach was giving us a talk--I was the last one to start out that brick, by the way), I wonder when I'll actually have to change one on a ride." Within a minute, I got a flat. And I didn't play the helpless female and punt it to the man, which I fully admit is what I usually do when it comes to anything mechanical. I handled it entirely myself, well, almost....he did help me figure out the CO2 cartridge do-hickey thing, but then I filled the tire myself. I felt so capable, thoough of course very grateful for Chris' minor assistance and support! It didn't end up being quite 30 miles, because after fixing the flat, it started to get dark, and I didn't have lights on my bike, so we coasted home as quick as we could. What an adventure this is!

Saturday, July 25, 2009

What the Brick am I Doing?

Well, I've had this blogpage, courtesy of my teammate Joel who possesses more than my Neanderthal computer skills, for over a month now. Finally, I have a day with my family gone, and thus some time, to figure out how to use it, and update my friends and donors on my progress with Team in Training. This morning we had our fourth "brick" workout at Sauvie's Island. We biked 24.5 miles, which is essentially the distance of our triathlon in September, followed immediately by a 4 mile run. Now if you remember from my original letter, I had a hard time running even 1 mile, and could barely bike up a hill at the beginning of all this in May. So clearly some progress has been made!! As a matter of fact, I felt pretty good!! Especially at the end when the pain was over and my whole team was there to cheer me in to the finish line and bang that blasted cowbell.....this is one of the advantages of being relatively slow - there are more teammates to cheer for me!

The other big juicy piece of news is that our Triathlon Outfits AND our wetsuits are in, and we got to try them on today. I bet we looked a sight in the 85 degree heat stuffing ourselves into these heavy black wetsuits in the parking lot by the bridge on Sauvie's. It even fit, and what I have discovered is that even though the wetsuits do not hide any of the curves, you definitely CANNOT see the cellulite underneath!! Forget those products advertised on Yahoo! Just go out and get a wetsuit, and the cellulite is gone in as long as it takes to get yourself into it! So soon, as promised, you will get your photo. Yes, even those who donated less than $50 (that was a trick, sorry, to try to get more money out of you...but hey, it's all for a good cause!)

I'll try to keep you posted better, in case anyone is interested in reading this in the future, and if not, then I'll just have fun journaling and imagining all my fans checking in on me in my little bubble of endorphin-fueled bliss.

Hasta pronto,
Suzy