You know how that goes. Some days you are the dog and some days you are the hydrant. Today was way more hydrant than dog. I’m not talking about training – I did no training today. I’m just talking about life in general. Today it seemed like my life was getting away from me.
Whenever I have that hydrant feeling I try to remember the important things in life. I have good health, my kids have good health, I have resources and I have friends. How bad can it be?
I just wanted to update everyone on my 3 AM masters swim. It was fabulous. The air was cold, the moon was full and the pool was very warm. 44 people showed up to swim and we had 2 coaches on deck. We took a picture which I will hopefully be able to share with you when someone sends it out. Everyone felt deliciously maniacal for getting up at that hour of the morning and showing up to swim. The coaches provided coffee and donuts (I ate 2 glazed donut holes) afterward.
The workout went like this. You had to swim 6 x the distance where the repeats looked like this:
1 – kick swim by 25 (that means you kick for 25 yards then swim 25 yards)
2 – swim free 25 and non-free 25
3- choice (we repeated round 2)
4,5,6 swim the distance descending your time each one.
So we did 6×150, 6×125, 6×100, 6×75 = 2550 plus I did a warm up of swim 300, pull 200, kick 100 for a total of 3200 3300 yards.
When I got home I surfed Facecrack, read my email, ate some more and then got back in bed where I slept for 4 hours. So mucy for being an early riser.
As days go I’d say that was pretty good if not a twee lazy. Hopefully next year I’ll be a working woman and will only be able to take a quick nap before getting ready to go to work.
This photograph proves a few things. The ‘Then’ version was taken when my eldest was 16 months old. She is now 25.
The ‘Now’ was taken today, Nov 13, 2008. Although the baby has changed, the Mama, the pants and the sweater are the same.
Then and Now
So what does this picture prove:
1). I’m a pack rat
2). I have a dewlap thing going on – oh well
3). Triathlon rules!
4). Somebody has too much time on her hands.
I don’t have a lot to say today but here’s a thing or so
1). Another issue I had with my 20 mile run was a lack of calories. I decided, foolishly, not to carry a hand held bottle. I had 3 gels on me and I took Gatorade – once. Therefore, I took in less than 500 calories over the course of a 2,000 calorie run. Not smart and not recommended.
2). I went on a ride today and ended up wending my way through end of the day at high school traffic – ugh. I went into hyper-vigilence mode and it’s a good thing I did. As I was about to cross the driveway of a gas station a HUGE SUV decided to turn right – almost smooshing me. I was ready for that, though – paying attention and clipped out of one pedal. I screamed at the car which kept on going and a woman in another car looked shocked and said, “she didn’t even look!”. I took off across the gas station yelling “HEY – IN THE BIG SUV … STAY PUT!!” I pulled up next to her and told her she almost ran me over. I’m happy to say she was appropriately mortified and actually said, “I didn’t even look”. I told her I could see that and that she HAS to watch for cyclists – always. She aplogized and I let her go. The real killer here is that she was cutting through the gas station to get turned in the other direction. Using a private property as a through way is illegal. She was nice so I didn’t ream her for that.
3). Trader Joe Dark Chocolate Mint Creams are deadly but they are second to Trader Joe Dark Chocolate Caramels. I bought both for bookgroup last night. Only one caramel was left over but there were at least a dozen mints. I have a sugar ache in my tummy right now.
4). Finding old notes from your children and reading them can bring you to tears. I miss my babies – a lot.
5). My masters team is having their inaugural annual 3 AM swim tomorrow and I’m going. Good times.
There are a couple of truisms when it comes to racing.
Don’t go out too fast …. and
It’s all about the shirt.
This weekend’s 20 miler gave me an opportunity to be reminded of both – one in a good way and one, not so much.
The race was the Clarksburg Country Run featuring several distances. I originally registered for the 20 mile race but had the option to change to the 5K, the 1/2 marathon or the 30K. My original thought was to do 20 miles as a testing ground to decide if I wanted to run the California International Marathon on Dec 6. I had pretty much decided against that so I thought I might switch to the 1/2 Marathon and go for a PR but then I decided to stick with the 20 miler because….. because… well just because.
I went up to the race with 3 other women from Forwad Motion including my training partners Dana and Maggs. The ride up was beautiful, winding along sloughs and vineyards. Lovely. We got our chips and bibs and then went for the shirt where we were pleasantly surprised by this:
Nike Shirt from Clarksburg 20 miler
It is a beautiful technical fabric shirt and when you fondle the fabric – like buttah. The shirt alone made the $40 entry fee well worth it.
This is in contrast to the shirt I got at the Folsom International Triathlon which has to be the fugliest race shirt I have ever gotten. It is cotton which makes it pretty useless to start with but check this out:
T-shirt from FIT '08
I have no idea what the artist had in mind there but that shirt did NOT make the $75 entry fee worth it. Fortunatly it was a great race and they had burritos afterward so it all worked out.
Back to Clarksburg, though – I started out with the idea that I would run 20, 10 minute miles. That was my plan and it was a good plan – a very good plan. I believe I could have done that, too. It isn’t what I did, though.
The day was perfect – sunny and about 60 degrees. I started out running with Dana and Maggs and we were pulling about a 9:05 – 9:10 pace. I knew that was all wrong and I decided I would drop back at the 5 mile marker – only I didn’t. I stayed with them. Then at 6 miles I said I would drop back and I sort of did but not by much. I was still quite close to them. In fact, by the time we got to the turn around I was only about 1/4 of a mile back but definitely losing steam.
I was happy, though because this run was non-stop pretty, taking us along country roads through vineyards with no traffic at all. I could see Mt. Diablo off in the distance, bumped up again a clear blue sky with a row of fluffy clouds marking the horizon. The view was a great distraction because I took the no-iPod rule seriously and had nothing else to keep my mind off the pain blossoming in my quads.
At the 1/2 marathon marker (and they did have one) I PR’d with a 2:06:30 and I was still okay – barely. By 15 miles I was toast and in pain and at 16 miles some women we had left in the dust at the start passed me. I was done for.
The last 4 miles were a walk/run death march but I made it – I finished in the official time of 3:26:20 for an overall pace of 10:19/mile. I was in serious pain and none too happy but whatever. Done, done.
This little race also served lunch which turned out to be ziti with canned sauce and salad made with iceburg lettuce mix but they did have fruit and water and it was clearly a community effort and I loved it.
Lesson learned once again. Do NOT go out too fast. It just doesn’t pay, particulary with me. I tend to run out of 02 and then I need to stop and let my muscles re-oxygenate and it takes time. Next time I race distance (which won’t be for a while) I’m going to take myself seriously and hold back. Hopefully I’ll get a great shirt out of it, too.
Not to worry- this is light on politics and long on swimming and fun
1). I think we all know how I feel about this election. Hope is the new black, baby! Obama has a mess on his hands but I believe he will assemble a crack team and take methodical and well thought out steps to clean it up. I’m a happy girl today.
2). I hope my Republican friends and take after John McCain (who gave an excellent concession speech and reaffirmed my admiration for him) and put down the swords to join in the postive energy and the spirit of patriotism and ‘can do’ mentality to help dig the country out of the nasty pit we now find ourselves in. Come on folks – quit acting on your fears and stop hating on the other side. We need everyone’s participation to turn things around!
3). Just when I thought I was over my fear of fish and could really enjoy open water swimming I see this on Fox News
The One that Didn't Get away
Can you imagine swimming in a river, looking down and seeing THAT??!! Holy crap – I’m going to have to go through a whole new cycle of getting over my fear of fish – damnit!
4). – Speaking of swimming – last week there was a lane with about 5 people in it doing what appeared to be a really hard repeat set. The rest of us looked at the coach and said, “I hope we’re not doing THAT” he said that no – we were not. Later in the locker room I asked one of the women what they were doing and she told me they swam 50 100s with the first 20 or them on the 1:20 and then they went to the 1:30. For those of you who don’t swim that means they swam 100 yards so fast that they ended one 100 yard lap and started the next in 1 minute and 20 seconds and they did that 20 times in a row and then they gave themselves and extra 10 seconds between laps for the next 30 laps for a total swim of 5,000 yards. Mind boggling. They are all life long swimmers who started when they were kids. The woman I asked said, “don’t worry about it – I couldn’t ride my bike 5 miles” It wasn’t much of a consolation, though. I swim 100 yard repeats on the 2:10.
5). Did you know that SWAG stands for “Stuff We All Get”? I didn’t until very recently. doh!
6). – I uploaded my Garmin data to Sport Tracks recently. Previously I had only uploaded a few select runs and races. It thought many of my recent runs were races. It just decided that. Can you spell ‘getting-faster’?
7). – Lastly, I bring you the George Costanza Candy ID quiz to see if you were really paying attention to Halloween or just stuffing your face. I got a 70%. Draw your own conclusions. 🙂
If you’ve never read anything by Doris Kearns Goodwin you would do well to check her out. She is an historian with a PhD in government from Harvard who worked as an assistant to LBJ and who is married to a guy who served under both Kennedy and Johnson. In addition to being well schooled and having been very far inside the Washington scene, she is a great story teller.
I first learned of her when I read her memoir Wait ’til Next Year which is about her love of baseball and particularly her burning desire to see the Dodgers win a World Series. Back in the 50s baseball lovers attended the games equipped with score books that they used to record every play and nuance. Goodwin’s father gave her her first score book at the age of 6 and a baseball fanatic was born. I don’t care much about baseball but this book captivated me with its detailed and intimate descriptions of life in small town America just after WW II ended, before TV and the internet and big cars and people crazed to have the sexiest kitchen and coolest electronics.
She has also written books about Johnson, Kennedy, the Roosevelts and Lincoln. I’m not much of a history buff but I am a fan of her writing so I think I will read at least one of these books soon.
Jon Stewart recently had her on his show and he asked her if she thought this election cycle had been particularly vicious. I was heartened to hear her say that this was nothing compared to the lies and vitriol that was spread around in earlier times. She talks about how a Connecticut newspaper said that if Thomas Jefferson were elected the schools would teach rape, incest and murder. Kind of makes the California Prop 8 campaign look benign. “That’s nothing!” doesn’t generally serve to make me feel any better but in this case it did. I was reassured that all evidence to the contrary, we are living in a kinder, gentler time.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/sitewide/video_player/view/default/swf.jhtml
I had all kinds of things to say today but I’ve decided to go with this;
THANK GOD THIS ELECTION WILL BE OVER TOMORROW!
I’m very excited. I’m going to swim, lift weights, and then go vote. I’m taking a book to read while I stand in line if that’s the way it goes but I don’t think it will. I don’t care, though. I’ll stand there for hours if I have to. I’m so exicted.
VOTE EVERYONE!! VOTE!
I’m having a pain. Actually I’m having a couple.
My first pain is that I really, really, really want to register for the New York City Triathlon but there are a bunch of reasons why that might not be my race this year so I just can’t. Registration for USAT members is open now and it costs $225 and I SO want to do that race. It’s killing me. That would be a great time to go to the East Coast because I could do the race and then go hang out with my sister. However, there are other vacations that I want to take and there is Vineman 70.3 just a week before the NYC triathlon and then there is the small matter of me having no money right now so I’ll have to let this go by. *whimper*
My other pain is in my legs. OW. I went on a ride today with Dana and Maggs and I was pitiful. Every time we went uphill my thighs just burned and they never got better. I bailed at the top of a big hill because going down the other side was even steeper and I knew I’d never make it back up. I bid them fairwell and headed home, going in circles for a bit because I have such a bad sense of direction. I made i eventually, though and now my legs are still in pain. I’m not sure what I’ll do tomorrow. I’ll let my legs figure it out for me.
Of course the last pain is the kind induced by eating too much sugar. Stupid Halloween!
Race of Hope - Start
From the web site:
The sleepy town of Buea in the Southwest Province of Cameroon hosts Africa’s most grueling footrace: the Mt. Cameroon Race of Hope, a marathon-length sprint 10,000 feet up a live volcano, and back down again.
To conquer the mountain, racers must overcome some of the cruelest conditions in sport: temperatures fluctuate 50 degrees, altitude sickness claims the weak, and loose volcanic stones can cause serious injury, and even death, as runners fly back down the mountain
Volcanic Sprint takes you deep inside the lives of athletes like Sarah Etonge, a five-time champion and mother of seven known as the Queen of the Mountain. Just days before the race, Sarah is haunted by a nagging knee injury and the strain of a hospitalized child. Sarah needs the money she earns from racing to support her children and the Race of Hope is the biggest purse in Cameroon.
For these competitors, Mt. Cameroon isn’t just a race. It’s their best shot at achieving fame and fortune in a country short on both. For former champion John Ekema, it’s a chance to relive fading glory through his son. For two-time champion Dominique Tedjiozem, attacked by rivals during the 2002 race, it’s a chance for vengeance.
All the competitors’ hopes and aspirations come together on the biggest sporting day in Cameroon. The winners will achieve lifelong fame. But nearly half of all runners will quit the race … conquered by Mt. Cameroon.
Joe Bob 21CM sez – check it out! Twenty bucks is a small price to pay for some at the ready off-season inspiration.
21st-century-mom.com 