Tag: Triathlon

Race Reports: A Backlog

~ meh ~ Leave a comment

Turns out:  New job + Old jobs + Training + Paul out of town = Blog fail.

Did a few races the past 2 months.  To spare you from pages of details that you don’t care about anyway, here are a few haikus to fill you in.

USMS 15K Relay National Championship (5K Open Water Swim)
Poor Buoy Placement
Can Make For Frustrating Swim
In Indiana

(I'm the one with the 3 on my arm)

Markey Race for Women’s Cancer (Sprint Triathlon)
Thunder And Lightning
Cannot Stop Us From Racing
In Our Wet Clothing

4th of July Bluegrass 10K (10K Run)
Fun To Run Fast In
The Bluegrass But Blisters Sting
Go America

Music City Tri (Olympic Distance Triathlon)
Nashville Has Hills
Do I Still Like Triathlon?
Heat Stroke Feels Like Death

For full race reports (if you really want them), go here.

Feb Fitness: Week 4, the final frontier

~ meh ~ Leave a comment

Due to circumstance (traveling for 3 days this week), Feb Fitness didn’t end on as strong of a note as I would have liked.  Oh well, I tried.

Swim: 6,200 yards / 1.75 hours

Bike: 40 miles / 2.2 hours

Run: 6.5 miles / 53 minutes

Packets of chocolate mints from Trader Joe’s: 3

So what were some lessons learned from this year’s February Fitness Challenge?

  • After about 30 Swedish Fish before I start feeling a little off, but I can eat a whole bag of gummy life savers and be perfectly fine.
  • My iPod earphones shock me when I run on the treadmill.

Total everything:

Swim: 39,200 yards (~22.3 miles) / 11.8 hours

Bike: 140 miles / 8 hours

Run: 48.2 miles / 6.8 hours

Total distance: 210.5 miles

Total Time: 26.5 hours

Total Sugar: way too much

…and with that, here’s to a healthy 2011.

Feb Fitness: Week 3

~ meh ~ Leave a comment

…and of course, just like clockwork, here come the shin splints. Though mild, running this week wasn’t where it was supposed to be (might be time to consider new shoes).  But I got to spend a little more time on the bike, and with a little more ice and Advil and I should be ready to hit the road again soon.

Swim: 9,200 yards / 2.5 hours

Bike: 60 miles / 3.5 hours

Run: 13 miles / 1.8 hours

Gummy Lifesavers: 1 bag in about 4 hours

Feb Fitness: Week 2

~ meh ~ Leave a comment

Swim: 10,000 yards / 3 hours

Bike: 40 miles / 2.3 hours

Run: 15 miles / 2.1 hours

Swedish Fish and Jelly Bellies: ~20 oz

I have a sugar problem.

And I love my bike!  …granted, I only ride it on the trainer, and I’ve only ridden it twice.  (My arm still won’t extend, waiting until I’m just a little less lopsided before I actually get on the road.  No need to wreck yet.)  Half marathon still coming up in April, so running is probably going to pick up a little bit.

Feb Fitness: Week 1

~ meh ~ 1 Comment

First week in to the February Fitness Challenge.   Struggle.

Swim: 14,000 yards (about 8 miles) / 5 hours

Bike: 0 / 0 hours (I’m getting fitted tomorrow, should pick up this week)

Run: 14 miles / 2 (ish) hours (+5 miles of walking with the dog one day due to a scheduling snafu)

Ice cream: ~1 gallon

A little short on all fronts (minus the ice cream), will ramp things up a little bit this coming week.

The Plan

~ meh ~ 4 Comments

Below is the (very tentative) schedule of events for the year:

  • April 3: Fitness Magazine’s Women’s Half Marathon, NYC
  • April 30: Scenic City Triathlon (sprint), Chattanooga, TN
  • May 6: DERBY (I consider this an event that requires training), Louisville, KY
  • June 26: Markey Race for Women’s Cancer, Lexington, KY
  • July 23: Trans Tahoe Relay, Lake Tahoe, CA/NV
  • August 14: Steelhead 70.3, Benton Harbor, MI

As of right now I am only officially signed up for the half marathon in April.   And Derby.  So we’ll see how this pans out.

Let the games begin.

February Fitness Challenge

~ meh ~ 1 Comment

February can be kind of brutal.

With the novelty of New Year’s resolutions slowly wearing off, winter dragging on, breakups on the rise…it’s easy to spend the month moping in cold darkness.  Enter: February Fitness Challenge.

Every year US Masters Swimming holds a February Fitness Challenge where swimmers track how far they can swim during the month.  A number of people on the team I coach participate, which means writing slightly longer workouts than usual.   Results are released nationally so, in addition to personal records, participants can see where they fall within their age group.  A general goal for many swimmers is 100,000 yards (almost 57 miles.  Some of the results are ridiculous).

Because I am starting to train for a triathlon and swimming is far and away my strongest leg (and because I did the hour long Postal Swim in January and feel as though I have filled my quota for winter swimming challenges) I personally will not be devoting all my time this month in the water.  I will, however, attempt to swim about 15,000 a week (nearly double what I did last month) and will be tracking my combined mileage on the bike, running, and in the pool, which I don’t normally do.

This is a nice event, especially for people who generally don’t like to compete in their sport.  Setting any kind of goal for this month, swimming or not, is a way to stay in the swing of things until the warm weather rolls around.  Plus, who knows, you might surprise yourself.

Fall 7 times…

~ meh ~ Leave a comment

Nana korobi, ya oki.

~Japanese proverb

Fall seven times, stand up eight.

There is a guy that swims on the Masters team that I coach named George.  George is 55 and his life goal has been to qualify for the Ironman in Kona, Hawaii.  (For those of you unfamiliar with an Ironman, it is a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and 26.2 mile run…one right after the other.  Absurd.)   To qualify for Kona you have to either achieve a certain time or place at specific races.  It’s a prestigious race, really difficult to qualify.

2 weeks ago, George completed the Ironman Louisville.   He dropped his time by 40 minutes, won his age group, and will be flying to Hawaii in 3 weeks to race at Kona.  His marathon time was 3:41, over 20 minutes better than his previous PR.

Louisville was his 8th Ironman.