Quad conundrum

Ouch.

Stupid lunges and thrusters and wall ball at Fit Pit.

My poor quads are so tight!

Combine Fit Pit with a tough spin session yesterday and hoo-boy! Stairs are not my friend today. I'm also not getting along too well with crouching down and getting up out of my desk chair. Sitting still and I have never been on better terms though!

But I must remember that beautiful sound I want to hear on Sept. 13th. That will make all this pain very very worthwhile!!

Like a sinking ship

That's how I felt in the pool this morning.

It was such a let down from an AWESOME swim this weekend. Saturday afternoon after my 8 mile run, I swam 2500m with Chelsea and it felt great. We did 50m sprints at the end and got down to a rediculously fast 42 second 50. It was awesome. I was so winded and exhausted, but I felt so aerodynamic, svelte, like a bullet in water. I've never been that proud of myself in the pool before. That feeling even carried over for a few days.

Until this morning. Masters swim. Ugh. I didn't even want to get out of bed. But I knew a swim would make me less sore from my butt-kicking yesterday at Fit Pit. That's the only thing that got me there. Once I was up and at 'em, I felt better. Until I started to actually swim.

I felt heavy and sluggish. Ugh. Not fun. But I figured once I warmed up, things would improve. Not so much. I know that everyone else, even the slowest of the rest in the class are leaps and bounds ahead of me. They've all been swimming a lot longer, which entitles them to be that much better than me. But holy cow, I am one slow swimmer. Normally, I'm cool with being the tortoise to everyone else's hare. Today though, it sucked.

A 50 seemed like a 1000. My heart rate was way up and so my breathing sucked. (Luckily, I do think the Flovent is helping me deal with the whole asthma issue, so that's good.) I swam 150 in the time it took the others to do 300 or 400. Talk about blow to the ego from the weekend. Sheesh.

Hopefully I'll feel better tonight on the bike.

Hoppin' Uphill

Getting up this morning was tough. But I did it. After hitting snooze several times. I made it to Fit Pit and remembered how sore my legs were. Combine that with my fight with stupid asthma the past week or so and I had to do a different workout. Luckily everyone there is super supportive and accomodating. So after some push ups, pull ups, upright rows and overhead presses, I did a couple supermans and some sit ups.

A busy day at work ended a little early, so I was able to get in my run workout before a 5pm meeting. Gage had escaped the backyard again, so I figured he needed the exercise. We ran a few laps around the park and then Gage sat nicely while I sprinted downhill and hopped uphill. And battled my stupid lungs. We did another couple laps at the park and Gage got a little jealous of a chubby beagle who had caught a squirrel. So while he turned green, I talked to the beagle's owner. He seemed nice enough, working to train his dog to be more social and behave, but I could tell he had no Dog Whisperer skills. I was my normal friendly self, even though he seemed to me a little odd. He asked to introduce himself. And then he asked me out for a nice, casual date. I have never been so thankful to have the boyfriend excuse readily available!! It was a great copout! What can I say... I'm a heartbreaker!

Great day to run

So after our FRIGID days here in the not so distant past, I really enjoyed the gorgeous weather here in KC today. Even though I wanted to be a bum and lay on the couch - I forced myself to lace up and head out to Shawnee Mission Park for my 7 mile training run.

I took both Pete and Gage, and illegally let them run off leash while Derick and I ran the paved trails to the east of the lake. We took the trail north past Shawnee Mission Parkway. I turned back at Mile 3.5 and he continued on.

Running back with just Pete, I noticed how calm and beautiful the park is. I found myself hoping that my house would be just around the corner of the trail, hidden behind the trees. Maybe I should think about a more scenic location to call home one of these days...

All in all, the run felt great. I did struggle a bit to breathe on those hills. They are STEEP! But otherwise, my legs still felt great. They had a few more mile in them. I'm sure Pete would have loved that. I'm still pretty shocked at how well both the dogs did off-leash out there. They stayed close and behaved themselves. If you know my dog, you know that's an impressive feat. And Bomper of course found a couple squirrels to chase up trees, but he didn't venture off either. He was a surprisingly good listener.

Saturday moning I headed down to Velvet Creme for a little indoor spin with fellow triathletes. Riding inside is just SO different than actually being out there. Luckily Preston was his full self, so I was entertained the whole time. I also got my new Garmin Cadence Counter all set up, purchased through KC Triathletes' World Multisport. New gadgets make everything much more exciting!

My training plan this week has more 2 a days scheduled, but nothing too bad. Should be able to K.O. everything without too much difficulty! IMOO here I come!

This has nothing to do with IMOO, but....

So my brother Ryan went to help out at my nephew Ian's preschool class today (Catholic school too). They are learning about winter and made snowmen. Mr. Bradley the PE teacher, who is really young, was in helping too and was at the same table as Ryan and Ian when Ryan looking at the snowman said "Oh wow your snowman has some hair." Ian says (dead serious) "No Dad, it's a nest for his penis." Mr. Bradley bit his lip and had to leave the room he was laughing so hard and well Ryan just says "Hmm, nice." And then he proceeded to say that it's not appropriate to talk like that in public.

I'm still laughing!

Legacy

Today was pretty intense. I attended a funeral of a wonderful YOUNG woman who battled human's great enemy known as cancer for the past 10 months. She was a good friend to my brother, and though I originally attended to support him, I left feeling like she would have wanted me there.

Funerals always have a way of helping you put things in perspective, but this one hit me in a special way. I am lucky that I have not attended many in my life. I haven't struggled much with the loss of someone close to me. Her service made me especially grateful for that. It also made me start thinking about how I'm living my life. I think that was one message she particularly wanted to get out there. Hers is a message of hope and of life and of love.

They told a story about how she deliberately but somewhat subconsciously would reach out to those a few steps outside of the group to make them feel welcome and at ease. I think this is a great way to be remembered. It made me wonder, "How will people remember me?"

The service was at the biggest church in town, which easily seats 3,000 people. You walk in and think you might have mistakenly entered the Sprint Center. The place was probably half full - which is a complete testament to how wonderful this woman was and how she touched so many lives in so many ways. It made me wonder, "How many lives have and I will I affect for the better?"

The pastor spoke of her courage, her optimism, her hope. How she loved her family and prayed for them in her last days that God would make things easier for them. Her husband's message of continuing her life through our own lives hit me. "You can love your life. You can look at each day as a gift and make the most of it. You can smile more, and frown less. You can Love. " It made me wonder, "How can I adjust my lifestyle in order to create more happiness, more hope and more love?"

I know these thoughts don't directly relate to triathlon or my journey to Ironman, but in a way they do. This is going to be a year of self-discovery, a year of pushing myself to the limits, learning about what makes me tick, and finding the legacy I want to leave. I in no way mean to trivialize the loss of such a great woman and wonderful person, but I think she would be happy to know that she is making a difference even after she's gone. I'll think about her and her battle as I fight the hill on Old Sauk Road in September and ask for a little push and to borrow a bit of her courage.

Iron Year!

Ironman Training has begun!!!

It started with the "Resolution Run" from Muddy's for a little over 4 miles. I was definitely not fueled well for that run, but it was fun and a good start to the year. Many thanks to April and Stacie for keeping me running - and to Pete for dragging me up that horrible hill!

Today at the Fit Pit we had some fun. Girls on the Run came in! But before we had to do the leg matrix (24 squats, 24 lunges, 24 jumping lunges and 24 squat/jumps) and then 100 sit ups, 100 push ups and 100 pull ups. It was a lot of fun to watch the girls and their moms try some of the Fit Pit exercises. And even more fun to watch Sheryl be a food nerd and a health nut. Many thanks to her for being such an inspiration, role model and good sport! :-)

New Years Resolutions to come....