But check out what Donald’s been up to! His blog is a treasure trove of information on ultra-running and he has give aways! But shhhh… I want to win!
Not that kind of race – the other kind. The rat race.
A year ago I would have given up all the training time in the world to have the problem of having to go back to work tomorrow. This year I am giving up all the training time in the world to go back to work tomorrow. Training time or time of any kind that isn’t dedicated to work is very hard to come by these days.
I am deeply grateful to have this problem but oh how I miss those days of leisure.
Anyone have some cheese to go with this little whine?
Never mind – no more cheese. No more cookies. No more pie. No more high carb meals. I have a vacation to tropical paradise coming up and I need to to de-lard for that.
Ooooo…. what’s that, you say? More later.
Oh yes – this will be a happy new year.
Last year I was at the end of my rope (and my money) with being unemployed and I was a nervous wreck.
Now I’m an over worked nervous wreck with a paycheck.
Last year I was desperately lonely and longing for a ‘someone’ in my life.
This year I have a kind of a someone that may or may not stand the test of time but it’s still nice to have something going on.
Last year I was injured and not coping with that very well at all. This year I have had a nice looooong rest and I’m fine.
Everyone in my family is healthy and that’s the best news of all.
My New Year’s message is “so far so good!” and my horoscope tells me that June is my month. Hopefully you won’t have to wait 6 months to see how things are progressing on that front.
And what happened to November? Whoosh! gone. I did “run” that marathon and got my worst time ever. Then I ran a 1/2 a week later and did okay for this year. “For this year” is a key phrase because this was my year to kind of walk it in and just not care that much. Actually – I cared but I had no fight. Working for a living again kind of took the fight out of me but not to worry. As the man said, “Ah’ll be back”
After enjoying slugfest 2010 I’m ready to figure out how to work, train and race in 2011.
It hurts – no way around it. My feet especially hate distance and now my knees are starting to complain when I hit the double digit miles. But you know what else it does? It makes you feel young and amazing. I just have to keep reminding myself that if it were easy, everyone would do it. As it is most people tell you you’re crazy. You know what I say to them? SUCK IT! Actually I just give them a wry smile; a knowing smile.
Is worth a whole lot more words. Thanks Pundit Kitchen!
see more Political Pictures
Folsom, August 15, 2010 – Folsom Olympic Distance Triathlon
There is no better time for self-evaluation and a trip to the internal loony bin than during a race. The rollers on the bike course are no match to the rollers in my head that have me selling my bike and going back to Jazzercise by the time I’m halfway through only to leave me wanting to sign up for another longer, harder race by the time I cross the finish line.
Folsom was the same story. I thought my swimming was just fine and I knew I was not last in my wave and that I had passed people from the wave before so that was fine, right? Oh no. I got out of the water and saw that my swim was long by a couple of minutes and immediately decided that there’s just no hope for me. I will never be a good swimmer and I might as well quit fooling myself. Why do I even do these races anyhow? But Oh well – here I am and my bike awaits.
Then on to T1 where I absolutely could not get my wetsuit off – again. It wasn’t enough that I had ripped a giant hole in the leg pulling it on (yes I know you need to tug on it from the INSIDE). Oh no – it would NOT come off. And then it did and I had on my bike shoes and helmet and off I went.
My legs hurt – they were tired and had lactic acid burn (in spite of eating some SportLegs before the start) and I felt weak. I couldn’t get my speed up. I hated myself, hated racing and decided once again there was NO WAY I’M EVER DOING THIS AGAIN!! And I’m certainly NOT going to do Big Kahuna because races that suck are OFF THE TABLE and it WILL suck!
On I rode, trying to give it my best; trying to speed up. When I had about 5 or so miles left I noticed on my bike computer that my average mph was 15.1 NO WAY! And really – there was no way I could have that pathetic performance on the permanent race record so I spent those miles going absolutely as fast as I could trying to rachet up that number past 16 because really – I MEAN REALLY! And I did. I got it up to 16.1 and decided that perhaps there had been a wind/hill issue going out and I wasn’t maybe (just maybe) well enough trained. Maybe.
The run was fine. I felt pretty good and I ran and ran. Nothing notable. It hurt and I wanted to stop but I didn’t.
And then I finished – 2 minutes off my last year time and 16 minutes slower than I wanted to finish. I was certain that divorcing triathlon was the only solution to how crappy I felt about that. No Big Kahuna, no more racing, no more being a poseur. Done done!
A day later, having really looked at my times and my splits it occurred to me that given the training I had done my finish wasn’t so bad. 5 out of 10 in my AG, right in the middle where I always seem to land. My run was 1 minute faster than last year. My swim was what you might expect when you only swim twice a week, if that. My bike split was truly pathetic but what if I put in more time and trained? What if I did some hard intervals on the trainer? What will happen this weekend when I ride 75 hard ones on Saturday and then do a long run on Sunday?
Hmmmm…. guess I’ll figure it out when I race Big Kahuna.
ps – I have done way more training than you can see evidence of in the side bar. I’m just not the numbers junkie I used to be.
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The man’s blog is both informative and entertaining. You really can’t go wrong!
My but it’s been a while. Many things have happened and many have not. My ass, for example, is at least as big as it ever was if not a twee bigger. I was not diligent about doing my rehab exercises, did not get the tight tush I envisioned in my last post but I did get better. I trained a little and I raced Vineman – sort of. I had to be in Boston working 12 hours a day the week before the race and had to fly home Friday, drive to Sonoma Saturday, race Sunday and then take a red-eye back to Boston to spend another gruelling week working. It was brutal.
As for Vineman – the swim and the bike were okay but the run was cruel beyond description. I’ve never experienced so much pain in my life as I did that first mile of the run. I spent the first mile just chanting “just make it to the 1st aid station – come on, you can do it” but mostly telling myself that it would be okay to turn around, turn in my chip and call it day. But I got to the 1st aid station so I made myself go to the 2nd. At that point the stretching was making my neck go out and the pain washed over every muscle cell, flogging it like an executioner with a cat ‘o 9 tails warming up the condemned. I thought about doing a U-turn and then reminded myself that I had committed to spend 3 miles trying to get my legs under me so I tarried on. Once I got the 3rd aid station I fired up the Jedi mind tricks – go to mile 4 and you’re home free – you ran 9 miles 2 weeks ago – you can do this! And on I went and once I got to mile 4 I figured even a U-turn would involve 8 miles of locomotion so I might was well just keep going. And I did. 3 hrs and 3 minute after I left T2 I finished. Worst race of my life but under the circumstances not quitting was a major triumph so yay for me!
But that’ s not the blog thing I’m talking about. I’m talking about blogging and time. Not that it’s been months since I posted but that it’s been years since I started doing this. I just finally took a look at my Bloglines and many of my fave blogs had double digit unread marks approaching 100. I went and read an old favorite, Laid off Dad and he’s talking about how his youngest son likes to ride his bike and run stuff over and I was struck by how the passage of time never fails to deliver a sucker punch. When I started blogging, Laid off Dad really was laid off (he is no more), he was married and had 1 small son. Then another one was on the way and then son #2 (named 2Bert since his brother’s name is Robert) arrived, then the marriage hung a left and dissolved (the wife is a big name blogger, too and that may or may not be causative – LoD is too much the gentleman to have ever told), and now Robert writes comic books and 2Bert plays demolition derby on his bike.
I might wonder how that happened but I know how it happens. Time goes by leaving us staring in the mirror, squinting to inspect our wrinkles and grey hairs. And then it keeps happening – over and over and over again – sucker punch after sucker punch.
I guess the message here is that stuff is kicking my ass. My job (and I do have a regular, full time job with a regular pay check), my training, my races, and time. I guess I’d better get my ass in shape so it can take it.
I don’t think I can make lemonade out of lemons quite they way Runner Susan can. She turned a 3 hour traffic jam, a full bladder and a missed race start into running an ultra marathon and getting a marathon medal but I digress. My particular brand of lemons come in the form of non-running, rather than running so there’s less to be done with them.
My lemons are known as ITB syndrome 
and it all started with a bicycle seat in the wrong position. I’ve been battling the demon for a couple of months and I finally got out the big guns and went to a physical therapist who treated it. We talked about training through the pain (a fairly common methodology for triathletes) and that just didn’t work. I tried to run off the bike and the pain was intense and I was defeated so he said he thought 6 weeks of rest along with some glute strengthening exercises he gave me would do it.
Excuse me – did you say 6 weeks?
Holy mother of God – I can’t NOT train for 6 weeks and oh, by the way, I have a race in 4 weeks.
But the gig was up – if I can’t run off the bike then I can’t very well do a triathlon so bu-bye Oceanside. You were a great idea a few months ago.
So where is the lemonade? I have a bunch of glute strengthening exercises to do and although they aren’t difficult and they aren’t too terribly painful to do my buns get really sore from them. I can also do core work as well as a little upper body work. So – in however many weeks I can hold out (I’m committed to 4 at this point) I will do my glute and ab hardening work and come out of this with a great butt and a six pack! Or a 4 pack! Or no pack at all but a nice flat, hard tummy. Just look at the physique in this picture of a person suffering ITBS. I think that says it all.
So there’s your lemonade. Or maybe it’s not lemonade – maybe’s just an Arnold Palmer because it will be a cold day in hell before my butt ever looks that good but it will look better and I loves me an Arnold Palmer (the drink, not the man) so, in the parlance of the 21st Century, it’s all good.
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21st-century-mom.com 