Category: Exercise

To Freeze or Not To Freeze

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pic via

This morning I got an email from Big Shoulders saying the water is a delicious 78 degrees right now, but “forecasts call for heavy rain this coming weekend due to the remnants of Hurricane Isaac” which could churn up the lake and drop temps significantly.  Participants have until the 5th to change their entry from the non-wetsuit to wetsuit division.

Despite the fact that I wear a heavy jacket in the office 365 days a year and regularly lose feeling in my feet from cold, I’ve never seriously considered wearing a wetsuit for an open water swim, even though you do go faster.  Part of the reason is because I still kind of feel like wearing a wetsuit is wimpy or something.  Another is that so far it just hasn’t been necessary for any of the swims I’ve done.

But also, in my mind at least, dealing with the conditions is part of the sport.  Pool swimming is for shaving down and wearing high-performance gear and nailing your technique and having everything. go. PERFECTLY. so you can out-touch your opponent by .0001 seconds.  Open water is where you fight for clean water and sight and navigate through seaweed and (hopefully no) animals and…deal with the elements.  That’s what makes it different.  And fun.

So, whether it rains or not this weekend, no wetsuit for me.  (We’ll ignore the fact I don’t own one, so there’s a problem in and of itself.)  Lucky (?) for me, I’ve spent the past few weeks (unintentionally) putting on an extra layer of blubber.  In the past, I have done shorter swims (30 minutes) in the low 60s and even low-50s during the few months that I swam at the Dolphin Club up in SF (like, 5 years ago, but still).  So I’m hoping 75 minutes or so in temperatures closer to 70 will be fine.

Regardless, I will most likely need a little flame sax before I hop in the water.

Old Spice Muscle Music from Terry Crews on Vimeo.

MUSCLE.  MUSCLE.  MUSCLE.  FLEX.

Thanks to Joe for the video.

Facecake and Bourbon

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I’ve been in a funk for a while.  Today, I decided to attempt to break out of it.  How?

Step one: bake a cake of someone’s face.

…and then proceed to eat the whole thing by yourself over the course of the workday.

That is my coworker and his facecake.  Today is his last day of work, which is the actual reason that I baked the cake, even though his departure and the consequent onslaught of work crap that is rapidly heading my direction is probably contributing directly to my level of funk.

Coworker’s departure also means a new cube addition.

Yup.  Fish abandonment.  At least my tree has a friend now.

Onward.

Step 2: Make up a new training schedule.

Despite being signed up for 2 races in the next month, I’ve been doing completely unstructured, haphazard training since Hawaii.  And while I’m not looking to go back to 17 hours of training a week, a little structure sometimes helps keep you going.

That’s right.  You know who to turn to when you need some structure.

I have been talking to J and my sister in law about potentially running a half marathon sometime this fall.  So this morning, 3 pieces of facecake deep, I decided to brush off the good ol’ Hal Higdon training guide and integrate it into my current schedule of yoga and swimming.

I’m seriously considering shooting for a full marathon sometime in the spring (my sister and bro in law just signed up for the Catalina Island Conservancy Marathon, which would be hilly and brutal and AWESOME), but with all the running injuries I dealt with this season I’m going to stick with a halves for now and see where they take me.

catalina

We also just received our leg assignments for the Bourbon Chase.  I’m leg #12, which means I get to carry the team across the finish line in dramatic fashion.  Score.

In handing out the leg assignments the race directors also let us know that they had to change the route for two legs of the course due to the Burgoo Festival in Lawrenceburg and the Ham Days Festival in Lebanon, where they auction off grand champion hams.

Bring on the burgoo.

Just keep swimming… + a wedding

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So it turns out August might not be the best month to really ramp up your swimming regimen in Lexington.  With the UK pool closed and half of the outdoor pools shut down because school has started, and the half that are open usually jam packed with 3 club teams sharing 4 lanes…it’s ugly.  So the only real option is getting up at 5 to go to the Y…which, seriously, I’m just not going to do during the one month of the year that I don’t coach.

But guess what’s just around the river bend.

Training started out ok…I was good about swimming at least 3500-4000 every day when we were out in SB in July, and when I got home from that trip I shocked myself by coming up with long sets and doing the whole thing after work BY MYSELF, including a few 3K swims straight for time.  Like, what?

But last week work got super busy with travel, and this past weekend I was out in LA for my cousins wedding, which calls for a…SIDE POST:

the beautiful bride and father

part of the paternal side of the fam looking so sad because we missed molly so much

a classy granny…i can only hope that this is genetic and i look that good at 86

…and my dad in a yarmulke

So the wedding was wonderful and the bride was stunning and…it was in LA!  So all of my time was spent either with family or in the ocean, or with family in the ocean.  No complaining there.  But none of it training.  Even though I sometimes count body surfing as a swim workout.  Almost.  Because it’s my favorite thing to do ever.

When I got back, crazy work schedule + Paul’s 24 hour shifts continued, along with a peeling forehead from forgetting to put on sunscreen (really great for client meetings.)  But I did finally manage to hop in on Thursday and squeeze a 2000 “for time” (really I just tried to hold a steady pace and feel comfortable) into my workout.  But that’s all I’ve done in almost 3 weeks.

Got another longer swim on the docket for tomorrow morning (anyone who wants to join…call me) and I’ll continue to do my best to cram for the next 3 weeks, but I’m pretty sure things are going to be touch and go until UK opens up again in September.

Moral of the story: might be best to start preparing for a painful swim in Chicago.

pic via

P.S.  Good luck to Joe who is running the Old Farts Marathon this weekend up in Michigan, a marathon that sounds brutal, is full of hills that appear to be named after my father and his brothers (Ed, Chuck…), and that you apparently don’t have to be an old fart to race in.   GO GET EM

Sucking Air

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You may have noticed there hasn’t been much on here lately about exercise.  That would be because, aside from watching the Olympics, I haven’t been doing much of it.  And while it’s nice to know that I still have no problem whatsoever embracing time off to participate in other activities, I have also learned that my perception of my personal fitness level is not always in line with…well, reality.

Over the past 2 months I’ve been running about 2 times a week, usually no more than 4 miles (usually closer to 3), and always in the morning at a nice easy pace.   That being said, I ran the Bluegrass 10K on the 4th just fine, so I took that as a sign that I was maintaining my fitness level just fine…even though my motivation has been super low and I wasn’t really training.

Then this week my aunt Barbara who works at StrideRite sent me and Paul some REALLY FRICKIN SUPER AWESOME shoes.

These combined with the Mizuno Elixirs that I bought a few weeks ago, because I had to leave my stinky mcstinkster Brooks in Hawaii after the 70.3, got me kind of amped about getting back into running (because few things get me more excited about working out than getting new gear).  Plus, I am signed up for the Bourbon Chase again, so theoretically at some point I do need to start training.

So yesterday I got excited (for the first time in a long time) about doing an easy 5 miler after work then making a nice healthy dinner for Paul (who has had a pretty busy first week).

The super intense heat has mellowed out a little bit, but it’s still pretty warm…as in 91 degrees with 60% humidity at 6pm when I went for a run.

Again, relative to what we’ve been experiencing, it felt pretty good when you walked out the front door.  So I figured it’d be hot, but doable.  So I found a solid This American Life podcast on my phone, laced up my Kinarvas, and headed out the door.

Turns out I was wrong.

The first mile/mile and a half felt great.  The shoes are amazing.  Then, around the 10 minute mark, I started to hurt.  Like the kind of hurt where your chest burns and you feel like you’re going to ralph.  After 10 minutes.  And no matter how much I tried to slow down my jog, I couldn’t shake it.  First I blamed the heat (which was probably part of it), then the pollen (allergies have been bad lately)…I mean, really, what else could it be?

And then it hit me: I’m just out of shape.

I haven’t struggled like that in a long time.  My heart rate was through the roof.  Even switching my podcast over to One Direction on my RUN FASTER playlist couldn’t get me moving.  I walked twice.  I was super hot and super thirsty.  I felt like I may have a GI disaster at one point (but didn’t, crisis averted).  It was ugly.

My red-faced self got home from the debacle (not like the flushed, healthy-looking I-just-finished-working-out red, but the people-stop-what-they’re-doing-to-ask-you-“oh-my-god-are-you-ok?” kind of red), chugged a gatorade, and lay on the couch moaning while Paul chopped the veggies in the kitchen and kept asking me, “did you still want to make dinner or should I just do it?”  After about 15 minutes before I pulled my melodramatic self off the couch and re-engaged with the world.

The moral of the story: time to get back on the wagon.  Shooting for ~15-20 miles over the next week.  Quasi-regular training starts this weekend.

One final, sad (for me), relatively unrelated note: on Monday Allison hopped on a plane to Scotland to start vet school.

While, as with Kristin, I am happy for her to be moving on to something bigger and more exciting than sitting in Lexington coaching me for free (if that exists), my long rides and long runs won’t be the same without her going as slow as she possibly can giving me instruction while I struggle to keep up with her.  She will be sorely missed.

Enjoy your weekend.

Hot Hot Heat

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Yes, that’s right.  Hotness to the max.

Weather forecast for today…and yesterday, and the day before that, and tomorrow: too hot to move with lots of humidity.

The good news about the heat is that it’s PERFECT weather to go enjoy a swim outside now that the public pools are open.  And considering I’m registered for the Big Shoulders 5K open water swim in Chicago in September and have swam exactly twice in the past 5 weeks, this pool motivation is a good thing.  Got a long swim workout with Allison on the calendar tomorrow morning to get the ball rolling.

Time to get back in the water.   Aw hecks yeah.

The secret to these pools is to get there early, before the hairballs and bandaids take over.

Speaking of sporting events, BIG FAT SHOUT OUT to everyone who is racing the 70.3 in Munice, IN tomorrow.  Please don’t melt.  Remember, ice is your friend.

I’ll leave you with A Midsummer Evening’s Walk With Spike: In Pictures.

We got about a block before he plopped down and wouldn’t move.  So he got carried home.  Fortunately his baby pool was waiting for him there.

And yes, for reals.  Dog ice cream.  WTF Marsha.

Enjoy the weekend, stay cool.

The 4th

~ meh ~ 6 Comments

The 4th of July is quickly becoming one of my favorite days of the year.  And I don’t even like fireworks.

First off, they line the entire main street in town with these little tiny American flags.  I have no idea how long it took someone to do this.

Secondly, Wednesday off work.  WHATTUP.

Then of course was the BG 10K.

I ran the race last year as part of an 11 mile training run.  This year, my long training runs are over (YESS!!) and I haven’t done a very good job at keeping my running up to par, so this time around it was just for fun.

To make things even more fun, it was almost 80 degrees with 87% humidity at 7am.

My entire in-law family did the race.  Paul ran with his dad, and my sister-in-law and ran with their mom.  I ran with my friend J whose goal was to not walk at all (she has been known to take this race out a little too fast) or barf before mile 4.

the starting line

I absolutely love love love this race.  To me, it embodies the all of the good things about living in small-town America.  Most of the run is through downtown and on one main tree-lined road.  Everybody and their mother is out, either running or hungover on the side of the road supporting somebody.  The entire course is lined with people cheering and little kids holding signs and the owners of the houses along the route hosing you down.  There is a band at mile 4 wearing boating hats and that plays When the Saints Go Marching In.  Everyone is in a good mood.  Every time I run this I feel like I’m in a movie.

Anyway, J and I made our way down the vomit-lined chute (the heat was a problem) without walking once.  There was also no barfing, and she PRed by like 2 minutes.  Win.

For my sister-in-law, 10K was the furthest distance she had ever run by like 2 miles.  She came in at just over an hour…and ralphed at the finish line.  Another win.

Because the temperature just kept going up and up, after the run we headed over my sister-in-law’s boyfriend’s mother’s pool (get that?) where we lounged around and his mom served us post-race spiked lemonade and snacks.  It was…amazing.

And of course the evening ended with America-inspired dessert.

Special shout out to my sister who is serving over in Afghanistan and celebrated the 4th by getting beat in a 5K run by a bunch of Spaniards at her base.  I asked her how it was and she said, “Hot.”   Which probably trumps the hot we felt here.

How to prepare for a race in the heat

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The long taper into the 4th of July 10K continues.

This weekend it was over to Denver to visit some friends.

…where, like most of the country, it was blazin’ hot. We avoided the fires, but it was still too hot to run. So I figured the best preparation would be a lot of walking

…in between breweries.

Which resulted in the impulse purchase of a cheap pair of sunglasses that look almost exactly like the ones I already have.

hipster

And a few tasty snacks to cool us off.

And some of this.

I’m ready to PR.

Trials

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The European Cup (Paul is obsessed), Olympic Trials (craziness in track and field), NBA draft (huge for Kentucky), the Tour de France (starting this weekend)…it’s an interesting phenomenon watching all these amazing athletic feats going on while your own body slowly turns into a pile of mush.

This past week from 8-9pm every night has been devoted to watching swimming.  I really think I enjoy Trials more than the actual Olympics. They are so fricking exciting.

And while the whole Phelps/Lochte thing is so overdone, and Rowdy Gains and Dan Hicks feel the need to sit in each other’s laps while they announce (see above), there are moments like this:

breeja larson winning the 100 breast, first time an A&M swimmer has ever won at olympic trials

…and this…

matt grever’s family celebrating his olympic berth (picture taken by a friend who is attending the event…awesome)

…and this.

first olympic team for both of them

I pretty much tear up after every race.

So far I have been the only one home when they’re on, so I settle in with Spike and a box of popsicles (it’s been like 90* here at night, ridiculously hot) and yell and cheer and scare the dog while slowly making my way through the box.  It takes a lot out of you. And kind of feels like exercise.  I recommend it.

P.S. Germany just lost to Italy in the European Cup.   It’ll be a sad night at the in-laws.

Eggnormous

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Tired of these titles yet?  Never realized there was SO MUCH TO TALK ABOUT when it comes to eggs, did you?

Maybe because I hadn’t seen a store-bought egg in a while, but I didn’t realize how much bigger ours were.  When you put them next to each other (these are cage-free, vegetarian store bought eggs), R&Ms eggs look enormous.  You can’t even get the carton closed.

Speaking of food and fatness, since Hawaii I haven’t really been working out.  But now that I have more time in the mornings, I figured I would walk or ride my bike to work every day (haven’t driven once since I got back) and that would make up for it.

Turns out one hour of walking a day does not equal 3 hours of intense cardio in terms of calories burned.  Weird.

my “cardio” the past 3 weeks

So anyway, because I wasn’t totally stoked on my performance in Hawaii, I had been seriously considering doing another 70.3 in September at Cedar Point.  It’s a Rev3 event, and the race is supposed to be fun, the course is flat, and it’s not too far to travel.  I gave myself a week off to think it over.

One week turned into three and a half weeks, and yesterday I finally admitted to myself that I a.) was officially out of shape, and b.) didn’t really want to put in the training for another long race.  There’s something to be said for coming home after work and being like oh, guess what, I’m going to go for a short run, cook dinner, and watch 3 straight hours of Pretty Little Liars instead of a 2 hour ride on the trainer followed by TRX.

To counteract my feelings of extreme lardiness, I decided to sign up for something small, just to get me off my butt.  Good thing the Bluegrass 10K is next week!

An even better thing is my friend J is running it and is looking to hold a pace that I should theoretically be able to hang with.  So we’re going to “pace” each other.  (ie, I’m going to try to keep up and try not to barf all over/embarrass myself.)  I’m hoping my long taper and the superhuman eggs will give me some superhuman speed.

J has also issued a finish line photo contest, like the one we had at MiM.  Lucky for her, this happens to be my specialty.

If we do manage to finish together, it could be epic.

I’m never gonna be a professional marathoner

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I didn’t see this ASICS ad when it came out last fall to promote the NYC Marathon, but it’s awesome.  A 60-foot interactive wall video in the Columbus Circle subway station that lets you race marathon Olympian Ryan Hall for 60 feet at his marathon pace.  Not to ruin the surprise, but basically nobody can keep up.  For 60 feet.  But what an inventive way to engage people.

And 4:46 a mile is totally absurd.