Sparrows Experiment

I think I'm taking the day off. Thats how its looking. The day is too busy. I'll get to it if swim practice is canceled tonight.

Coaching masters was rewarding today. One of my tri friends who got hit on his bike a few months ago came out to the pool! He had quite the walker set up and was dragging one leg. He was talking about how he had done spinning a few days ago (slowly of course) and that he'd tried water aerobics today. ha! He is an amazing athlete and its really increadible that he even survived the hit. The car was going very fast. He talked about getting back in the water at Masters and if I'd help him rehabilitate back to his normal swimming.

As I was talking to him I was eyeing my masters members in the water warming up. One in the middle caught my eye-it was Jamie Whitmore! She is the Xterra national and world champion. She is AMAZING and the one I spoke of that had cancer removed from the nerves in her pelvis. This woman has been THROUGH IT. She most recently had her eggs harvested because she is soon to go through some intense radiation on her pelvis and it may damage her ovaries. I was so happy to see her! She had a COOL walking cane by Cannondale, one of her sponsors, and she was doing a pulling workout because one of her legs is pretty useless as a kicker. It was so refreshing to see her up close and personal after all that I know she's been through.

I coach double workouts today with the kids' team (plus the masters). The air quality is HORRIBLE here. Everytime I'm out I get all stuffed up and my eyes water. Lots of smoke in the air.
 
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together, we can take it off together. I am goin to soak and stretch and eat ice cream and watch a movie.

and I am doing that because I can, and so can you!

XO
T
 
Practice was canceled last night afterall but I stayed home and the kids and I did pizza and a movie (okay well they did pizza). I was easier knowing you took the day off too FF. I'm always in such "GO" mode even if I loathe the idea of going to the gym I'll make myself go.

I had the worst time sleeping last night. I finally fell asleep at 3am and had to be up by 6am to get me and the kids to swim practice. sucks.

I have no real plan this week for my workouts since I'm single mom bound to the gym, so I've been showing up at the gym ready for anything and then go with where I feel the holes are in my workouts. Today spin seemed overkill since I did that for 1:30 on Tuesday, tri class wasn't going to be a challenge and I knew i needed to run so I just hopped on a tread mill and went for 1:45. Wow, it was so boring. My ankle hurt today running. I went at a 9min pace and it was cake. My stomach was the rebel today, not my legs, they felt like they could go forever but my stomach hurt pretty bad for some reason.

Then did some core work.

I'm totally missing my hubby and ready for summer to be over. I'm not sure how much longer i can keep this crazy schedule up.
 
swim:

300 warm up
6x100 25free/50 back/25free @1:45
600 free
8x25 backstroke working on distance per stroke @.40 sec
400 free
4x25 backstroke
200 free

I held about 1:25 per hundred average on the longer swims. Its very hard to breathe here. We're getting slammed with smoke

My ankle was really tender today from the run yesterday and is a bit swollen. I could feel it in that run and a few times I sucked it up and pushed through even though it hurt. Soaked it today in epsom salts bath and going to get some arnica gel tomorrow.
 
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Swim meet was canceled today due to air quality. This is crazy!

So of course I slept in and then worked out.

7 mile run (treadmill-blah)
2000 swim

I did a set of 10x100 in my swim alternating buoy freestyle and non-buoy freestyle trying to keep the same pull and distance per stroke. My stroke count on both and for all laps was 17 per lap but I was 5 seconds faster without the buoy. Held 1:25 buoy swim, 1:20 w/o. I was happy this was my "cruise" speed today. In the recent past I've been working hard to get worse numbers than that.
 
those fires are unreal! Wish it weren't happening like that sweetie!

your tenacity is going to pay off major. Think how many athletes are "just blaming" the air quality.

yeppers!!!! :jump1: Total advantage to the athlete that shows resilence! :hug2:

7 miles in one spot, and then into the pool! :luxlove:

and to think of all the other stuff you have on your plate is alot to even think about... for you--


yers truly,
FF
 
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Thank you very much Todd :) I reallllly appreciate that.

I took today off. I surely could have gotten on my bike or taken a few hours out to the gym to lift but I stayed home and made myself chill. Its amazing what a rat race it all becomes and how your body literally thrives on the intensity and duration of workouts. Sitting still=laziness is mentally fought and has to be redirected to sitting still=recovery. Not that I'm feeling I need to recover from anything. If anything I'm feeling rather guilty that I'm not caught up to where I should be in my training. Its sometimes good to step back and be still all the same.

I have my 5 week schedule laid before me. I'm repeating 2 of the heavy weeks that i felt I didn't do to my optimum (schedule conflicts/ankle problems) in order to tear me down a little more and build some extra endurance. My goal will be to do as many of these workouts as possible in the wide open sky. That is definitely something I'm lacking right now. When I DO get out there, I'm fine, but I have yet to do a bike/run brick OUTSIDE. I have biked, and I have run, but not together (outside anyway), and it makes a difference to practice it on real ground.

I have chosen to skip workouts that deal with details. I know details can potentially kill me but I feel I have enough practice in transitions to not have to spend an entire training session repeating a transition 8 times. Plus I'm not going for some world record time. I'm going to finish so in that respect, who cares how long that transition takes me.

My focus in the 5 weeks will be to gain respect for the elements outside, to do many bike to run bricks and to practice my nutrition and hydration constantly. I'm also opting to go sugar free and clean eating for the remainder of this thing. I need to refine.

So here's to the rest! Here's to the countdown!
 
Here is a pic from the last tri I just got from a friend. My NROL lifting buddy is next to me, she was the swimmer and next to her was our runner (her sister in law)

Today I ran 10 miles in 90 degrees with a strong headwind going one direction. It was rough. I felt like a slug but still managed 8:45 pace with a total of 1:25. Still ripped me up. My goal was to run 2 hours. I've still only accomplished that one time-which makes me nervous. Ninety minutes seems to be the "wall". I had a hard time with hydration and need to bring my camelbak with me next time.
 

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60 min spin-hills
30 min run (3 min @ base pace, 1 min sprint)
30 min swim

quads were sore from the run yesterday. It felt good to work them more in spin and I pushed it. Felt great still to run on them again. When they're slightly sore they're responsive, I like it. I kept my run at 9:30 base pace and 7:30 sprint which are slower numbers for me, but necessary to get used to.
 
50 mile bike...outside...in the blazin heat...alone...with sore legs...
half mile run

:D

I really did have a hard time with this one because of the other heavy workouts this week but it was a "now or never" situation. I wouldn't get my long bike in this week if I didn't do it today.

In my favor, I was doing this ride to practice a SLOWER pace. I did an out and back course. Going out is about 15 miles of flat with the occasional rolling hill with the remaining 10 miles being all hills. Coming back was the headwind :( I covered my cateye computer on my bike so I would go by feel. At 25 mile turn around I'd done an average of 19.4. At the end of my ride I'd done 18.8 average. So I did good!

I realized off the bat that I normally just go for it full throttle. Normally I can hold this kind of pace for quite a while, but it will get me in trouble for the half. I had to slow myself down many times-especially on the way out. It was nice to relax into the ride and just ride to ride, not ride for some real goal time or speed.

At about 40 miles I had back pain. The hills had really ripped me up because I had stayed in the saddle for most of them. I'm not sure how to handle the back thing. It hasn't happened for the past few rides but I think it was because I was fresh for them. Today I was already sporting some pretty sore legs so my back was compensating. I switched positions frequently from 40-50 miles and the pace slowed as I became more and more uncomfortable. This is a frustrating point for me.

I went through my whole camelbak and a 20oz bottle of NUUN electrolyte stuff. I could have used more. I need another bottle cage on my bike. When I got back to the car I ran a half mile to see what that felt like (not too bad) and then I drank 2 more bottled waters on the way home, and ate half a pack of starbursts. haha. All in all a successful workout.

k
 
Swim: 6x500's odd no buoy, even buoy. RPE 3. Averaged about 7 min each.

Lots of fun :rolleyes:
 
Out of town today and only had a half hour dead time this morning to squeeze something in. I went out and ran 3.5 miles recovery. Felt tired, its been a long week! the run got easier as I got into it. Happy 4th...happy eating! lol
 
Day off, its nice. I got really achy and funky feeling last night. I think the week caught up. It felt like the flu, all my joints felt attacked! I took some tylenol PM and had a good sleep. I'm better now. Taking the day for a little personal TLC. Increasing the good carbs, resting and enjoying my family.

This weeks totals

Swim: 6000m
bike: 90mi
run: 17mi

no weights and one day of core. That needs to change.

Thought this was a record week in terms of mileage all around, but I guess it just felt like it because looking back, its not my heaviest week.
 
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