Boy that was fast.
1). My arms are killing me! This rapid increase in swimming time has me oh so sore but it’s a good thing I’m doing it because:
2). Sharkfest! Our intrepid friend and 90+ something triathlon finisher Fe-Lady somehow got me to sign up for Sharkfest! What that means is that next June 10 I will ride a ferry out to Alcatraz Island, pull on a wet suit, jump into the 58 degree, murky waters of the San Francisco Bay and swim back to Bakers Beach. Have I ever told you the one about how I am terrified of fish? This should be interesting. I’d say I did it so I could meet Fe-Lady but I live here so I could have done that, anyhow. If I drown or get eaten by a shark you know who to blame 🙂
3). 5K – I need to run a 5K to get a current 5K time. The only one I ever I ran was in 1997 and it took me 38:23. I could beat that time tomorrow by quite a bit. Imagine what I can do with a little speed work training. I love getting better instead of older.
4). Lance! I’d like to thank Lance Armstrong for saying that running the NY Marathon was the hardest thing he had ever done as an athlete. When asked if he would do it again he quipped “Now’s not the time to ask that question. The answer now is no, I’ll never be back. But I reserve the right to change my mind,” he said. “I don’t know how these guys do it.”
Anyone taking bets on how long it will take him to get over the pain of NY and decide to actually train properly and run another one? His original goal was 2:30. I give him 2 months, max. Or maybe he’ll decide to do an IM. That is also a possibility and one I rather like.
5). A thank you to the BlogFather of the RBF and now CRN – Mark. Mark did a post on his training in which he said he would do his long runs at 70% of his max heart rate and short runs at 80%. I wrote him and said that was daft – too hard! He wrote back and explained that it was actually taking it easy. I looked at my own history with the HRM and realized that according to the (inaccurate) age – 220 rule my max is about 169. I usually run at about 150. That would be a little over 90% effort. No wonder I get burned out early and can’t negative split. I’m going to try actually slowing down to speed up. I’ll keep you posted on how that goes.
6). Wedding Plans – Humbly Ann and I are working on floor plans for the wedding. She submitted this one with a little note:
“The fourth one is you and me at the end of the party on the ground because we are tired and drunk. It’s a little blurry – but we will be too.”
If you need any child rearing advice you know who to call.
21st-century-mom.com 
Is there any other way to celelbrate? Really I don’t think so.
If you get Runners World, there is an article in the recent issue about cross-training to increase (and maximize) mileage. Since I do tris, I have cross-trained for years and while I feel it helps, without knowing really HOW to train, I wasn’t getting my maximum potential. In an effort to rehab myself after an accident and to try to build my running base without doing 100% running, I decided to use the formula in this article. The magic number? 70% maximum heart rate. Even if 220 is skewed for the fit, RW uses this number minus age. Your age is close to mine, so 70% is around 117-119. The amount of time needed? One hour. I tried this last weekend (only for 45 min. as that is where I am at), and I have to say keeping my heart rate at that level was nearly impossible, but when I made myself slow down to around 124, the workout went well, I was able to finish what I started, and I felt great after. So to go faster, you need to go slower and farther. Make sense? So do your longer workouts at this rate and your cross-training and do your short runs faster and see what happens.
I’ve been hearing so much about heart rates lately, and I’ve never paid attention to or measured mine. But it’s about time. And yay for celebrations!!
Your daughter sounds great, just like her mom. Thanks for the laugh.
I love your daughter. 🙂
Your daughter sounds like me during both of my weddings – drunk and on the floor. 🙂
Your daughter sounds like me during both of my weddings – drunk and on the floor. 🙂
when you guys start talking heart rates my eyes roll back into my head. maybe it’s because my heart rate is too high.
Love wedding talk. Esp. now that I can only hazily recall the hellacious planning days before mine.
I am sure you can run a 5 k in 30 minutes! I would like to bet about it. Mmmmm sharkfest is a scary name….
Sharkfest sounds scary. I am scared of the OCEAN. It will take some doing to get over this. Good for you for taking the plunge. I am looking forward to reading about that training. Be sure to do your practice ocean water swims with a group though.”The fourth one is you and me at the end of the party on the ground because we are tired and drunk…” Are you inviting all of US?
isn’t that funny that deirdre left you a message? that’s only because it was really me.