"I cannot go to school today"

I feel like little Peggy Ann McKay in the Shel Silverstein poem "Sick."

But I can't ride TOSRV tomorrow, my knee feels all tweaky.

My rear break is too loose?

It's too windy?

Too sunnny?

Oh, all right, fine.

We arrived in Columbus in the wee hours of this morning, bikes and camping gear in tow, and adventure in our hearts. I dropped into the bed at my father-in-law's around 2 and suddenly 8 o'clock came to early. My body was not yet willing to give up on sleep, but apparently my brain had other plans.

"It's light outside, so it must be time to get up!" it kept shouting at me.

I rolled out of bed and wandered upstairs to the kitchen for my required cup of coffee: it was time to get the day moving.

After a leisurely breakfast of yummy bagels and cold cuts, we moved outside to start organizing our gear: rolling and repacking our tent, stuffing sleeping bags that had just been tossed into the car, into their stuff bags, the hunting down of biking gloves that had gone astray from their helmets during the trip.

We adjusted my seat (to hopefully eliminate the tweaky knee that resulted during the last long ride), gave my handle bars a tiny turn up (wish I had done that a year and a half ago), and tightened the aforementioned loose rear break.

My saddle back has been packed with tools and spare tubes that I am completely unsure of how to use in the event of an emergency. But I did receive coaching on that as well. "Pull out the tools and the tube and then just play dumb. Someone will stop to help you," were my husband's sage words.


Excellent, no problem there.


Okay, yes, I should learn how to change a tire. Bicycles do not come with AAA after all. And how big of deal is it when I already know how to tighten my breaks and align my gears? One of these days....


The weather forecast had been promising, mid 60s and sunny. 


That has since changed to mid 50s, cloudy and winds at 25 mph from the WSW.


Great. We'll be bike SSE.

Sunday is slightly better. The winds drop to 12-15 mph but shift to coming out of the WNW, the direction we'll be heading.

Good times.

Here's to hoping that the weather man is wrong.

Once more, with feeling...

It's amazing, the greening that is going on right now. I swear that my garden was a dull pile of brown dirt just a couple of days ago. But the Hostas are insistently poking their creepy little worm-like talons up out of the ground now. Bushes and trees are starting to take on the green haze of early leaf buds. My favorite, the tulip trees, are getting ready to explode with their lush, pink chunky blossoms.

And as I bike more and more, I am beginning to appreciate the little things that you don't really notice when you're traveling by car. The croaking toads that I had mentioned earlier for one. The canopy of trees that cover a street that you bike up for another.

I took a new route home from the Y on Saturday: Bever Avenue.

It was a different type of hill than what I had been riding. Mostly they had been long and slow. This was a little more rolling. Different on a Saturday morning than the normal busy weekday, I decided to take it on since it was an unknown. If I had been hoping for an easier rode home, I was sorely disappointed.

After a decent swim workout, about 1000 yards, my legs were already on the tired side. But there was the promise of fresh chocolate croissants from one of the best places in Cedar Rapids: Croissant du Jour. Well, they are certainly the best places in Eastern Iowa for croissants, as far as I'm concerned.

So I pushed on.

Bever Avenue turned out to be a different sort of hill challenge: shorter, slow climbs, mixed with short downhill spurts and an actual traffic light.

Thankfully, the last stretch was a flat/downhill combo, before it came time to tackle The Hill.

Yes, those are capital letters.

I'm paying The Hill the respect that is due. It's the last hill; the hill home.

I have not made it up to the top since that one time, so long ago that it's now only a vague memory. I have, however, learned to respect it and what it can teach me.

Small goals are my way of conquering it now. Each time, half a driveway more until I stop. The last drive on the right before the first cross street was my best.

Somehow, somewhere, on these few trips to work or workout and back I have learned how to attack. Maybe it was the dreaded spin class where I learned it and the addition of the clips have helped put it to use in the real world, I don't know. I attacked the long, slow hill up Blake a couple of weeks ago, making the first time I made it up without stopping ever.

I did it again, though this time I was aware of what I was doing, up the last portion of The Hill.

And it was an amazing feeling.

I'm down to one stop on The Hill. That's the most that I will make anymore.

Yesterday, I was to that last drive on the right, ready to throw up, when I figured I would try to shift down one more. And to my amazement, there was one more gear to go down.

And one more.

And one more.

And one more still.

If I had been better aware of the gear that I had been in, it was entirely possible that I could have gone on to Ridgemore, and then on to Terry before crossing the buckle in the road that I consider to be my finish line: the line where the road levels out and begins to slope ever so slightly back down to my street.

I guess I'll never know if it could have happened. But it will happen one day. And one day soon.

My breath was hard, my legs jello-y, as I flopped down onto the couch in my living room, begging for my chocolate croissant and the cup of coffee.

The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man's determination. ~Tommy Lasorda

The pros and cons of catching pneumonia

Spring has finally sprung in Cedar Rapids.

The 50 feet of snow that had blanketed my lawn has melted.The oak in the backyard has given up its leaves. It is officially spring.

I have been hemming and hawing about starting to bike into work.

I've been blaming daylight savings since it now doesn't start to become light until 6:45.

I've been blaming the fact that we switched my pedals to clip-ins so I can ride with my new bike sandals and the fact that between work and cake orders, I've been too busy to get out and ride.

I've been blaming the weather for not being warm enough or for being too rainy.

Really, it's been the fear of the frustrations the biking causes me. Hills are still my nemesis. And I'm sure that in the 6 months it's been since I've been outside on my bike, I haven't magically gotten better at it.

But I had quickly run out of time, considering how soon TOSRV will be here, followed shortly by the Pigman.

So I packed up my new bike bag last night with clothing for today, set out my sandals and collected my riding gear: bike shorts, thermal tights, long sleeve shirt, short sleeve shirt, bike gloves and helmet. Well, it was only going to be in the high 30s when it was time to set out.

7 am came fairly quickly and I began to second guess my decision. The recent, very fast thaw, followed by buckets o'rain had flooded the Cedar River again and it was quite possible that my bike trail would be submerged still at certain points. This wouldn't be a huge deal, but using the bike path allowed me to skip certain monstrous hills and tons of traffic.

Okay.

I'm being a bit dramatic. I live in Iowa after all.

Tons of traffic doesn't really exist. At least not in the direction that I was headed.

My husband offered no sympathy, though he did admit to being mildly concerned about me being alone on the 4 miles of bike trail that runs through the woods. Not because he was concerned for my safety (see above reference to living in Iowa), but because I was clipping into my pedals. He is fully aware of my lack of coordination and was worried that I might fall and break something.

I relented and off we set, heading down the hill and through the park together until our paths diverged.

And I was left alone with my thoughts.

Which, to be honest, consisted mostly of, "um, why the hell am I doing this again?"

I don't know if it was the addition of bike shoes and pedals or maybe the effort I've been putting in has just paid off, but I certainly felt stronger. The ride that I had made a couple of times last year seemed easier.

The trip itself was uneventful. The portions of the trail that had been washed out by the floods of '08 had been repaved and were dry, though they were still covered with sand where the river had taken over again. I was able to stay within myself when the climbing became difficult, not paying much attention to what awaited ahead. I focused on the gearing advice that been given to me by someone who had many century rides under his belt.

I got into work an hour later than usual, which had been expected. It threw my day off as I'm so accustomed to being the first one in our set of pods each morning.

Unfortunately a quick peek at the weather forecast around lunch time showed that the 10% chance of showers at 3pm turned into 60% by 2. At 3, I checked the radar. There was almost only green on the screen with a big blob of yellow storms sitting over Cedar Rapids.

With Pete having biked in to work as well, I had no choice but to set out for home in the rain.

I was mostly surprised with the results.

Early in the trail portion of the route, I became concerned by a sound that I could not identify. I turned my head to to try to get a better ear and realized that the path was winding through some swampy lands. The sounds that had caught my attention was many happy toads wallowing in the rain. Definitely not something that I would have gotten to experience had I driven in.

I arrived home, soaked, sandy and cold, but really, it hadn't been as miserable as I thought it would be.

“It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect it’s successful outcome.” ~William James 

Who would have thought?

Who would have thought that my local grocery store follows my blog? I mean, how else can I explain that everything that I wanted was on sale this week. They surely heard my complaints last week and promptly resolved the issue, right?

It seemed that all produce was $.88 cents (each or per pound, didn't matter). Chicken breasts were $1.99 per pound and 99% lean ground turkey was Buy One Get One. Roma tomatoes are slow roasting in the oven (where they will be for the next 6 hours) in prep for a couple of menu items this week. Avocados are ripening on the counter for sandwiches. Joy has returned to my kitchen.

Since Pete worked late a few days this week, I hate cooking for just one, and we had massive amounts of turkey chili left over, some of last weeks items were moved to this week. So while it may not have changed much over last, I feel more inspired with what I have to work with.

Same goes for my work out this week.

Though I'm sure it was sitting back in my subconscious already, I was reminded by Andrea during our swim yesterday, the Pigman is just over three months away. And while I have been better about getting to the gym, I've let my running program go a little lax. Part of it was the lingering cold that I fought for two weeks, true. Part of it has just been my struggle to fit it all in.

So I have decided that I need to start pushing myself even harder. I'm going to start sacrificing the warmth of my bed in the early morning hours to get to the track to run. Sure, I could just do the treadmill, but having been through four 5k runs now, it doesn't seems to be enough to aptly condition my body. The track still offers more shock absorption that the concrete roads that surround my house, and, quite frankly, it's still too cold to start running outside in the dark hours of the morning.

It also seems that the weather has heard my pleas for mercy. The current 10 day forecast shows temperatures at or just above freezing with some sunshine to go with it. At the moment, next Saturday is showing a low of 31 and a high of 42. If that sticks, I may have to bike to the Y for my usual Saturday swim.

And now, in the world of biking and extreme goals for this year....

It has been decided that Pete and I will be participating in the annual Tour of the Scioto River Valley bike ride in May. I'm optioning only the half ride: 50 miles one way. It'll be good prep for both the triathlon and for our planned vacation. I need to get over my dislike of hills and being stuck in the middle of nowhere will force me to complete the ride.

Sign me up, pay the fee, announce it to the world so I can't back out.

"Things that hurt, instruct." ~ Ben Franklin

I'm getting back up

Nike once said, "Just so it."

So I did.

Sitting on the couch today, still nursing this stupid cold and watching the Olympics, a new Nike commercial came on and asked, "When will you get back up?"

I realized that it's my own fault that I'm still sick. I've been babying this cold when instead, I should have been telling it who's boss.

My biggest mistake was not keeping up with the Board.

"The Board?" you ask.

Yes, The Board:

This week's training schedule

Each week I post my training plan to a dry erase board in my kitchen. It's partially to keep me on track and partially helps my husband keep track of me.

I neglected to write it out last week. It's a mistake I won't make again. I'm taking a firmer hand with the stuffy nose and coughing.

It's time for me to get back up.

~ Life is 10% of what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. - John Maxwell

Goals

Goals.

I have them.

Okay, so clearly I've stated my goals in the past:

1) Complete the Pigman.

2) Not drown while doing doing #1.

3) Raise $1,000 for cancer research.

But I've learned that I'm "Short Term" Girl, the "What's in it for me?" Girl.

The "Show me how I can be better than I already am or I'm going to get bored and lose interest" Girl.

I need something to work towards.

So I've finally figured out a way to measure my training progress. These goals have been hard to come by as I have absolutely nothing to compare my training to. Sure, I can google "Triathlon Training Plans." But most of them assume a level of fitness that I haven't had since my climbing-the-furniture-gymnastic days.

And yes, I'm improving. I've increased my endurance for running and swimming, but how do I know that I'm on track for what I now will refer to as "The Ultimate Three"?

I had asked Ann, my swim coach, if she would help me set these goals for the swimming piece a couple of weeks ago. She proposed her idea at my last lesson. She's not much for tracking yardage, feeling truly that endurance is better. If I can swim for 30 minutes straight, the yardage will follow. I just need to slowly build up my endurance time.

She proved it me on Saturday by making us do our first continuous swim. She set our goal for 10 minutes of straight swimming. The only stopping allowed was to grab or drop our kick board every 50 yards. I'll have to admit, 10 minutes sounded like a long time to someone who hadn't been able to really get passed 37 yards straight.

But what did I have to lose? There were two life guards on duty, my coach, plus three guys in the lap lanes who were told were also "training" for the Pigman. (I'm guess that they're doing the long course in August and not the sprint). I really didn't have to worry about drowning. Only being embarrassed if I had to be rescued.

11 minutes later I had completed 300 yards of continuous swimming.

So back to my goals.

My Vegas vacation is on the horizon. We leave on Friday and won't be back until the following week.

1) Spinning will begin the following week. My first cycling goal will be to make it through my first class. It's all downhill from there.

2) Increase my swimming endurance by 1 minute each week for the next two months. Hopefully at that point, I'll be able to start working on my speed.

3) Continue working on my walk to run program.

***That'll be $10 please.

What I have learned in the past week and a half - Part II

Half a peanut butter sandwich (non-salmonella laced, of course) does not make a good pre-run snack.

I figured that since it was loaded with protein and carbs, it would be a good choice to get me through the run since it was getting close to dinner time.

It did get me through the run. It really didn't sit heavily in my stomach, as I had begun to worry that would in the last couple of bites. The downfall was the peanut butter belches.

Not tasty.

I've also learned to focus on short term goals.

About two weeks ago I got to the two and a half minute run/two and a half minute walk stage in the program I've been following. I felt that I was up for the challenge. Until I read how long the first day was supposed to last:

13 5-minute intervals.

65 minutes. (75 with my warm up and cool down.)

The longest run/walk to date.

Panic!!!

How on earth was I supposed to run for 32 and a half minutes? That's almost forever!

On top of the long program, I have been battling extremely tight and sore calves. No matter how much I stretched, I couldn't seem to get them to loosen up.

So I too a deep breath, stretched, tied on my shoes and got on the treadmill.

20 minutes later, I feel like I'm going to start crying like a little girl, so I give in and cut the run short.

Two days later, I tried again.

I lasted 30 minutes this time.

I tried again.

35.

Okay, so I was making progress, but the tightness in the calves wouldn't go away. And it's still not the 75 minutes that I needed to get through to make it to day 2 of this interval. Frustrated, I made an appointment to see one of my favorite people: the massage therapist.

Not only were my calves tight, but so were my hips. She worked out some knots, reviewed my stretches and then sent me on my way.

Eager to undo all of her hard work, I got onto the treadmill.

30 minutes.

Gaaahhhhhh!!!!

I talked it out with my husband and my mom. I wasn't looking for advice, just simply to vent and maybe get a new perspective. It worked.

So did ibuprofen, tiger balm and sitting in the whirlpool after my swim workouts.

These are three things that I now love.

I stretched this evening while going through my "just got home from work" routine, paying special attention to my hips and calves. I got on the treadmill with only the hope of making it to 40 minutes.

Baby steps.

So what if I don't progress as quickly as the plan says I could? This is why I began training in November and not two months before the triathlon. I have room to take it slow.

I love a challenge, though up until this point, only if it's something that I'm good at right away.

Time for that to change.

So I took the baby steps. I turned on my iPod and the close captioned the TV to a couple of back to back episodes of Scrubs and set out.

My first goal was to make it through the first episode.

Then on through the second.

"Hey, the Daily Show was coming on. What do they have to say about the historic events of the previous day?"

"Oh my! Look at that! "

77 minutes later, I turned off my iPod, and the TV.

And the treadmill.

I defeated the interval.

Thank you

Thank you.

I don't know how it happened, the barrage of emails from friends who seemed to know my struggles and frustrations last week before I had a chance to get it off my chest. Random emails came in from friends giving me words of encouragement, seemingly unrelated to my trials.

Was my doubt so strong that it could be sniffed out?

I swear I shower and use deodorant.

Whatever the cause, I appreciate it.

The words of encouragement helped bolster my sagging spirits and reminded me that this is just as much psychological training as it is physical. If I allow the doubt in, it could take root and undermine my determination. And we all know that is not allowed to happen. Too much is on the line.

Which brings me to my next thank you.

Thank you to those of you who have not only opened your minds to my decision to transform my squishy-couch-potato-self into a triathlete, but to those of you who have opened your wallets as well. Your decision to donate to the American Cancer Society will help continue to hold me accountable. I solemnly swear that I will uphold my end of the bargain come June. Thanks to you, I am already almost half way to my goal of $1000.

And now for the training update.

Swim is back in session!

A new coach has taken over the adult swim lessons. We've lost a member from last session and added another. All three of us are working toward the same goal now, not drowning during the tri. It's comforting to know that I will not be alone in this journey. Other people that I know will be floundering along with me.

Not to make light of the two previous coaches. I learned a lot from them. They helped me get over breathing under water and gave me a solid foundation on which I will continue to build. But this new coach kicked my ass! She introduced a nice combination of drills and laps and kept us swimming for about 50 of the 60 minutes classes.

She kept asking us if we hated her yet.

I think she really didn't want us to, didn't want us to think that she was pushing us too hard.

I did.

Just a little bit.

But it's all for for my own good.

Not to mention that I liked it.

In the Throes of the Winter Blahs

I survived the holidays.

We'll just start there. I survived.

Now I'm not saying the I had a horrible holiday season. Not by a long shot. Sure, the drive to Columbus to visit family was almost ridiculously painful. I think we managed to choose the absolutely worst days possible to make the drive, turning a nine and a half hour drive into 15 hours of white-knuckle steering. It was great spending time with family and catching up with some friends. But the sleeping in.... ah, the sleeping in....

While I was away, I learned my first real hard lesson about how important it is for me to do everything in my power to not miss training days. With the busy holiday season looming closer and closer, I neglected swimming and my newly established running program the last five or six days before hitting the road.

Determined to be good and get back on the horse, I jumped on my parents' treadmill early Christmas Eve morning to continue on with the walk to run program I had started a few weeks earlier. And the confusion set in.

Now, let me tell you that I have never once given any consideration to my preferences of treadmill features. Not even when my husband and I purchased ours several years ago. It was more for him than for myself. You got on it and ran. This made you sweat, which we have already established that, until very recently, I did not enjoy. I had no real intention of using it. At least not then, anyway.

Staring at the controls on my parents' treadmill I tried to find the button to press that would start me at my 3 MPH warm up pace. But it wasn't there. Wait, in fact, I couldn't figure out how to get it started at all. After a couple of minutes of searching, I realized that once you activated the master switch, you had to manually adjust your speed with the little up and down arrows.

Manual. Hmmmm. Okay, I can deal with that. I drive a manual transmission car.

My warm up went okay, but then it was time for me to kick it up to a run.

Do you know that to go from a 20 minute mile to a 12 minute mile, you have to hit that little button at least 20 times? When I say at least 20 times, it's because I've learned that, when you're really tired from running, the little button becomes less responsive as you shift to a lower speed. Maybe I was just beat and my hand-eye coordination was off, but I swear I had to hit the down arrow 50 times to get to an acceptable pace that would keep my from falling off the back of the belt.

20 minutes into my 50 minute workout and I was done.

I was pooped.

Finished.

Bummed.

I hadn't had a really bad work out at this point.

I did get back on the horse. I had a great run the next morning before the Christmas festivities could start. I learned my lesson.

I didn't get anymore treadmill or swim time before we traveled back to Iowa.

I've been actively persuing my running training while sadly neglecting my swimming.

Maybe it's because I feel lost without the structure of my swim lessons (which thankfully start back up in a couple of days). Maybe it's because I have an awesome, one touch speed treadmill waiting for me just across the hall from my bedroom. I don't know. I think I'm just in the throes of the winter blahs.

I need to add spinning into the training mix in the next week or so. I'm trying to figure out how to fit it all in without feeling like I've given my life over to the sport. Or maybe that's the point of this whole exercise.

Running this past Sunday was a good/bad experience.

Physically, it was great. I moved sucessfully to the next step in the program and increased my speed a bit. It was the longest walk/run workout to date. I should have been thrilled with my progress considering that I was the one in gym class to do just about anything to get out of the mile run fitness test.

But I wasn't thrilled.

Doubt set in.

I questioned myself for the first time since setting out on this journey. What the hell am I doing? Am I completely insane? I am not an athlete. I am a squishy couch potato who may very well drown in June.

I pushed through my running alternating between these thoughts and my mantra:

I am pain.

I am endurance.

I am defiance.

I will not fail.

Merrily we roll along

So I was on a roll yesterday.

I had gotten to the store, found a bike helmet that I liked and seemed to fit well. Waited in line to check out and realized that my wallet was still in my back pack. My back pack was currently sitting in my front hall. So I politely asked the young man at the register to hold my items and that I would be back. Maybe after finding out that swim lessons had been cancelled, I should have just gone back to bed.

I treked home, grabbed my wallet, and treked back. I now had a helmet.

And no, for those of you who know me, the helmet is not red. Though now that I think about it, maybe I should have bought a red one. They say that red cars get pulled over for speeding more often, so apparently red = speed. I really could use all of the help that I could get.

I proudly announced to my husband that we are going to go for a bike ride on Sunday. He loves to ride, doing so most work days when the weather permits. He completed his first RAGBRAI this past summer. All I've ever needed to do was tell him when.

"We can go in the morning before the chimney guys get here," was his reply.

"But it's supposed to get down to the 40s tonight." I refrained (I hope) from whining.

"So?"

The whole goal was to push myself outside of my comfort zone, so I agreed.

This morning I climbed out of bed, ate my banana and drank a bit of my coffee. I sized my bike helmet according the manual that came with it. (Whoever thought you'd need a manual for something you wear on your head?!?)

My husband was waiting with both bikes out in the garage. He had his helmet on and was standing next to his bike.

"Aren't we going to drive to the path?" I asked.

"Why would we do that?"

"Because I'm not quite ready to trying conquering hills just yet."

"It's mostly flat. The only real hill is the one back up to the house."

Let me tell you about the hill back up to our house.

In the winter, when it's been icy and snowy for weeks on end, I have to make sure that I have enough speed going in order for my car to climb the hill. There were several instances this past winter where I turned onto the hill from another street half way up and ended up having to reverse back down to the bottom so I could make it home.

This was the hill I was trying to avoid.

There was no arguing. It was pointless, because I wasn't going to win.

"Fine, let's go," I said with a sigh.

I went to climb onto the bike when I realized that there were no pedals. Kind of a problem for riding. I started to feel that maybe I wasn't meant to do this after all. After a five minute search of the garage though, pedals were found and we were off.

As we pedaled toward downtown and the bike path, I played with the gears, trying to figure out which lever did what. About 3/4 of the way to the path I realized, with horror, that I hadn't really been pedaling much and were only 2/3s of the way through the route. That means lots of climbing on the return trip. Just what I had been trying to avoid.

We made it to the path and did a loop around Cedar Lake. Someone had known that I was coming apparently and had spray painted encouragement on the path: "2 miles/Hooray!" and "Finish Line". Okay, so it's probably left over from a 5k run or something, but I'm going to believe that someone was cheering me on.

The trip home felt shorter, though I wanted to cry as we hit every single stop light on the empty road home. The long hill up Grand Avenue ate at me. As much as I tried not to, I had to stop about half way up. I had walked this hill many times and it never seemed bad. On a bike, it felt like a beast. How was I going to make it back up the hill to my house?

We stopped for a minute and then continued on. My husband encouraging all along the way. Once it leveled out, it was only a short distance through the park and then to the beast.

I had failed the hill a few months ago after a shorter ride than the one that we had just taken. I didn't know if I could do it. But we looped the parking lot of the park for a few minutes and discussed strategy. I knew the gears better and was way more determined this time.

We hit the hill and I began downshifting. A quarter of the way up it and I maxed out. It was as easy as it was going to get. I looked towards the top and saw how far I had to go and started to panic. Pete talked me through it. I stopped looking towards the end and kept my focus on what was immediately in front of me.

Suddenly the pedals began to spin.

I had reached the top.