I may never get around to writing up those last couple of magical days in Peru. You may or may not ever hear about my enchanted days in Machu Picchu and about my climb to the top of Huyana Picchu and my subsequent day of extreme altitude sickness suffered while I rode the train from Cusco to Puno for 10 hours. Luckily I managed to drink a lot of water and Electrolyte (Peruvian Gatorade) and inhale O2 from a tank for a while so I was fine the next day. You may never hear about our fabulous trip on Lake Titicaca complete with elementary school style field trip where they explain the history of the floating islands and how they are built and maintained.

You can watch it, though, condensed into a 6 minute long super amatuer video. You can either watch it in teeny, using the embedded player below or you can click on the picture to get a full screen version. Enjoy!

1). Cycling Training DVDs – Do I need these or can I just kick my own butt to do drills? Do any of you use them? If so what ones?

2). Training plans – any recommendations? There are a lot of them out there from Beginner Triathete and Tri-Newbies on line and other places.

3). Getting a coach – yes or no? There are real time coaches a plenty in this area as well as a lot of on-line coaching options. Are they that useful? Couldn’t have done it without them?

4). Sports nutrition – does anyone have a book to recommend? I’m a vegetarian and I really need to pump up the amount of protein in my diet. I also almost always get leg cramps at the end of a swim workout so I think I need some help with my electrolyte consumption. If you know of a particularly helpful source of good information please let me know.

5). Ho Ho Ho! (or is that ha ha ha??!!)

I might just have to buy one of those photos!

New wish list!
I want one of these

to do my lap counting for me. I haven’t started doing long, endurance sets because I just do the masters set but I have a hard time counting a 200 (was that 150 or is this the last one???!! I DON’T KNOW!) I am learning to focus and chant (50,50,50…..100,100,100…..150,150,150….) but I’m pretty sure I’d go nuts before I got to 3000,3000,3000….. I need one of those gadets.

See this unhappy woman in the hat?

That’s me, sitting at my desk, freezing my buns off. I really wish my heater guy were not so irrepsonsible. I bought a second space heater but took it back because it didn’t work that well and I didn’t buy another one because I’m supposed to have heat today! I have no heat – and the temperature is dropping. Poor little me.

Did you watch the NBC coverage of Ironman Kona? Whoa – that was some serious inspiration. I missed the first hour but I think the end of an event like that is where the real inspiration comes from.

Loved that OCD guy with his Forrest Gump/Rain Man thing.

Love, love, love Sister Madonna Buder. Love her.

Loved it all. Maybe some day. For now I need to make it through my first Oly then I’ll think bigger thoughts.

The other morning in the locker room a woman asked me what was my season looking like. I actually had an answer. I’ve never had an answer before because I’ve only ever trained for 1 event at a time. I feel so energized by having a season – I feel like a big girl! Of course this means I have to start training in ernest now but it’s time. What better time to start some real training than the oink-alicious Holiday Season, right?

I’m not sure what my “A” race is but I’m thinking that sprint distance Triathlon I’ve done twice is it. I would so love to come in under 2 hours on that thing and I think I can.

If I fully participate in my Race Club I will do 8 events this year but so far I have this:

1). WildFlower – Olympic Distance May 5-6
2). Sharkfest 1.5 mile swim – June 10th
3). Breath of Life Olympic Distance Tri – June 24th (I will be SO ready for the swim!)
4). Tri for Real – sprint distance Tri in mid-Sept
5). Nike Half marathon (possibly) in early October

I’m sure I will add lots of events in the summer as I find them. Right now it’s all about WildFlower which will be my season opener. My.Season.Opener – I have a season!

1). My official time at the Bah HumBug 5K was 29:29 – woo hoo! (ps – PR!)

2). I ran the race in a little Christmas outfit – a red skirt with white fake fur trim around the bottom and a Santa hat. And a white shirt. And red socks with Teddy Bears and gift wrapped packages on them. I’m hoping the photographer who was on the course will send me an email and try to get me to buy the pics.

3). I was listed in my new Run Club’s newsletter! Wow – I belong. I’m so happy. I was listed both as a new member and as a participant in the race. When I went to the 5K I wore my team visor but I never said hello to people in the team shirt because I’m shy like that. I did watch them and it seems that there isn’t a lot of team interaction per se. There were lots of team members there and they formed various clumps but no cohesive group. I’m going to another team event tonight but I think I’ll have to reach out a lot more aggressively to find training partners. Just another challenge (only slightly more daunting than swimming SharkFest)

4). The most amazing thing about that race were some of the other times. The age groups went from 80 – 85 down to 1-4. The winner in the men’s 80 – 85 group came in in 33:34. The winner in the women’s 70 – 74 did it in 30:15 – she was right on my heels. This same woman was in my Triathlon this summer. I came in in 2:08, she came in in 2:15. More old lady inspiration coming your way. I can’t help it, though. I really look forward to being a winner some day when I’m a grown up.

5). I said I would report on my increased swimming for November. If you recall I was going to try to swim 5 days a week. ha ha – didn’t even come close. That was partly due to work travel and partly due to my unbelievably sore arms – ow. The good news is that today I was able to lead my lane so clearly it is has paid off. Plus I got this graph off of Breaking the Tape and I am definitely getting the desired result. The red line represents pace. Of course it is possible that I’m not very accurate in the way I report time but whatever. I’m getting stronger and that’s what counts

6). My furnace has not worked all week. That might seem like a big yawn because I’m in Northern California but it is mighty cold in the morning so my house is at about 48 – 50 degrees for most of the day. Brrrrrrrrrrrr…… The part was supposed to be in today but no such luck. I hope it comes tomorrow.

And that about wraps it up which reminds me that it is time to go Christmas shopping! I love the holidays.

I think I’ve written before about how I’m afraid of my bike. I spend a lot of time screwing up my courage to go for a ride. Were it not for my riding friends and pre-determined dates and times for rides I just wouldn’t go. In fact, due to lack of same, today was my first ride since September 24 when I rode a whopping 16 miles. Now we could go and blame it on my trip to Peru but I got back from that in mid-October. So now we can blame it on the Nike 1/2 marathon but I that was Oct. 22. There really isn’t anything else to blame it on. Really. It was just fear plain and simple.

But wait, there’s more. Ever since I got my spd pedals I’ve been even more afraid. Not only am I in danger of being hit by a car or attacked by a bear (because you know – those suburban bears are real killers), I might forget to clip out and just fall over. I have, in fact, done that 3 times. Of course it didn’t really hurt but it could, you know – it could really hurt. Add to that the fear of climbing a hill and slowing down until I just fall over and I become apoplectic.

Then there’s the issue of what has happened while I was training for a marathon and traveling to distant places (and YES – I am going to finish that travelogue soon). My friends B and C have been climbing mountains and learning how to draft and generally getting faster, and faster and faster. So in addition to the fear of cars and bears I have to grapple with the fear of B and C hating to ride with me because I’m so damned slow.

Today changed all of that. Today our other biking friend, E, asked if I wanted to go for a ride even though B and C were not available. I didn’t hesitate to say “yes!” lest I never get on my bike again. Then she suggested we try to climb Mt. Diablo to the ranger station. Ow. So that’s get on the bike at all AND climb a big hill. E is kind and forgiving and wanted a riding partner and she had done way more traveling than me in the last couple of months so I knew what we were doing – we were trying to catch up to B and C.

As FDR said, ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself’ and so I agreed to that plan. By thee time we met up I was already thinking of good excuses to back out. As we got closer and closer to the base of the mountain and my legs got a little sore (because I did just PR in a 5K yesterday) the excuse-o-meter ran to the red and my mind became a blinding blur of reasons I just couldn’t go on. But I went on.

And here is our ride

We rode 1300 ft up the mountain! There were a million times when I wanted to turn back and didn’t actually make it as far as we had wanted to but we did a lot and I feel cured! I also feel like maybe I CAN train for Wildflower. Maybe I really can.

Now I just need to learn to relax a little coming down. I mean really, who comes down a mountain at less than 20 mph?

“They” say (and you know who they are are) that your pace drops by a minute per mile every year you age after some time (I can’t always remember everything they say). Well don’t you believe it. (Actually I don’t believe it either because a minute a mile per year would mean that if you run a 10 minute mile at 40 you will be running a 20 minute mile at 50 and that’s not right). Oh well – “they” say you slow with age but I love proving “them” wrong.

In 1997 I ran the ‘Run to the Far Side” 5K in 38:23 at a pace of 12:21 per mile. That was 9 years ago. Today I ran the Bah Humbug 5K in (according to the clock over the finish line and my Garmin) drumroll please……

29:32

That would be a 9 minute improvement. And lest a certain someone from Boulder Colorado think I haven’t grasped the magnitude and importance of this event –
that would be a

proving yet again that I am not getting older – I’m getting better.

* I’m not sure what my official time will be becaue it was one of those races where you end up in a chute full of people waiting and waiting to hand them your slip. We’ll see.

“They” say (and you know who they are are) that your pace drops by a minute per mile every year you age after some time (I can’t always remember everything they say). Well don’t you believe it. (Actually I don’t believe it either because a minute a mile per year would mean that if you run a 10 minute mile at 40 you will be running a 20 minute mile at 50 and that’s not right). Oh well – “they” say you slow with age but I love proving “them” wrong.

In 1997 I ran the ‘Run to the Far Side” 5K in 38:23 at a pace of 12:21 per mile. That was 9 years ago. Today I ran the Bah Humbug 5K in (according to the clock over the finish line and my Garmin) drumroll please……

29:32

That would be a 9 minute improvement. And lest a certain someone from Boulder Colorado think I haven’t grasped the magnitude and importance of this event –
that would be a

proving yet again that I am not getting older – I’m getting better.

* I’m not sure what my official time will be becaue it was one of those races where you end up in a chute full of people waiting and waiting to hand them your slip. We’ll see.

I’m in! I did it. I registered and paid for the Olympic distance race. I.CANNOT.BELIEVE.IT! And yet I have a receipt.

I won’t be in any danger of staying up all night watching TV because I bought a camping pass. Me – camping. I am NOT a camper but as I understand it, camping is part of the WildFlower zeitgeist and I’m all about the zeitgeist at athletic events which is good because I’m not much of an athlete.

But I will be there – toeing the line. Oh yeah.

I’m extra excited because a lot of bloggers are going (Stronger, Bold, Wil, TriMama to name a few), a friend I used to work with is going and I joined a race club so I will have real world peeps to train with.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Are you going? Weigh in, please, and I can’t wait to meet you!