Bucket List

I started reading Swim Bike Mom's blog. She's a lawyer, wife, mom, triathlon goddess. She is also an Athena. She started training while still a bigger girl. She was a marathoner and triathlete while still in the double digit sizes. We didn't let her size dictate that she couldn't do these things. How inspiring is that!?!  And yes along the way she has slimmed down. 

Reading her story got me thinking about triathlons. Ive wanted to do a tri since the first time i saw Ironman Kona on tv but I  always assumed that it would be when was thin and fitness goddess but she believes anyone can do it no matter where their starting point is. 

I'm 2.5 years away from being 30 and I thought it would be a good idea to have a Fitness Bucket List. So after talking with dad and him tell me my goals whereby completely crazy. 

So here we go!

1. 2014 MS 150

2. 2014  Rock n Roll San Antonio half Marathon

3. 2015 Big Deal Marathon

4. 2015 70.3 Austin Ironman 

Let the training begin!

Killer wind

Since I ended up doing my long ride on Sunday but still wanted to ride Monday, I decided to do a short 8 mile ride geared toward speed. 

Trying to make sure my calories, calories were good I sucked down a Power Bar apple squeeze before heading out. 

The plan was a two mile warm up, two mile tempo, one mile recovery, two mile tempo, two mile cool down.

Two slight problems with this. My goal was to keep a 15 mph pace during tempo, problem was that 15 mph is still slow. I need to keep around a 17 mph tempo. Which is challenging when all you have is a GPS app telling you skewed paces every 1/4 mile. I'm thinking a tempo ride with dad would be good. He knows what true tempo training is. 

Problem two was head winds! Good grief, first tempo interval was nothing but head wind. After a mile of pushing my pace I was done! I slowed my pace and on the way home picked up some speed thanks to the now tailwind. However, by the time I was still a good1.5 mile away from my car my legs just shut down. My goal at that point was just to keep peddling consistently without taking "cruising" breaks. 

It was a rough ride overall but I finished it. It's rides like that get your body and mind ready for tough situations on actual ride day. Today is a 15 miler. Nothing to exciting but to get as many miles in this week as possible. 

"Calories, Calories"

One of my favorite movies is Steel Magnolias. I love the small town southern-ness of it all. My favorite scene is  when Dolly Parton's charter is eating a piece of wedding cake  at Shelby's wedding, when some chick reminds her, "Calories, calories."

S, the roommate, and I have been riding for about a month now. We started off with a measly 4 miles, not even half way through I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest. However, the next day we did 7 miles and a week after our first ride we were up to 10 miles.

Which is one of the reasons why I love riding. Most beginner running plans have you start off with making gains by 1 min, not miles. For fluffy girls it is a lot more encouraging to see double digit miles rather, "Yahoo I ran 2 minutes straight!"

S has really been the driving force in Project 150. She was the one who thought to ride 150 and to do a ride in September. I did however, know we need a goal sooner than September. So after some googling I found a ride in late July in our area. S and I agreed that we would do the 21 mile course. I knew that by late July we would actually be able to ride longer than 21 miles, however it's S' first ride and it's JULY in TEXAS!

While we were discussing our riding schedule I mentioned to S, "You know we should be able to do the 63 mile course in September." She was a bit skeptical. She had just upgraded from her Target hybrid and was still getting used to her road bike but I told her all we would have to do is add 3.5 miles per long ride and we would be ready.

So that has been the plan, which meant an 18.5 miler was on tap for this weekend. I wasn't sure how I was going to make it through the ride saying after our 15 mile rides both S and I have been exhausted. The only thing I could think of was; calories, calories.

I called the endurance guru, my dad. Dad has mainly been a runner, running in several marathons. He is also who got me into cycling and has ridden a several rides.  I asked him when we needed to start worrying about nutrition since we are starting to get up in our milage. He reminded me that on rides there will be stops every 6-10 miles and that we should start training with that in mind. Well darn. All we had been taking with us was water...which I usually came back with my Camelbak still pretty full. What can I say I don't like water.

The plan was to stop every 6 miles to fuel up...and for me to drinking water every other song on the iPod. This would be the first time I had done this on a training ride. I ate a bigger breakfast than I had on previous training mornings and loaded up with fueling goodies.

I packed my Camel for while I was in the saddle, the water bottle for when I stopped, half a bagel, and a Poweraid apple squeeze (which was my favorite). 

I got to my favorite park a little after 9am, later than our normal start times, and the temperature was already 86 degrees. When mile 6 came around I hopped off Beca and quickly realized how the heat of my late start had taken its toll. I sat, ate a few chunks of bagel, sipped on, and let my heart rate come down. 

After a couple of minutes I was ready to go again. I made three stops total and could feel the difference that fueling up was making. My legs felt fresh after the calories, calories and it gave my hands and tush a chance to get the blood flowing again. Turns out nutrition was the missing link to our rides!

Wonder if bring a slice of cake would be a good idea for our next ride?

Belle

Let me tell you a story...

Once upon a time there was a young girl who grew up over weight, that by the time she was in college she weighted 225 lbs. on her petite 5'4" frame.

Finally one day she was tired of being overweight and decided to do something about it. After a year and half of hard work she finally hit her goal weight.

Hitting goal, 145 lbs.

She was so inspired and in love with fitness that she wanted to help others, so became a Certified Personal Trainer.

I was hired at a big corporate gym!

 Then one day things started to crumble and the weight crept back on. The girl was left feeling like a failure and humiliate because this one time persona trainer had put back nearly all of the weight. 

One day the girl's  roommate said, "I wanna ride the 2014 MS 150!"

The girl at one point been a cyclist, riding in a couple of local rides, and being a cycle class fanatic. 

First ride with dad, who got me into cycling. 

So the girl in her quest to go from flab back to fab is training to ride the 180 miles from Houston to Austin raising money for multiple sclerosis research. 

Let the training begin!

Family Affair

One of the things I love about where I live is there are several places were I can run. If I go outside my front door I'm on a marked side walk that loops around a neighborhood for a total of 2 miles. If I drive 5 minutes I'm close to a few paths and an entrance to the big preserve in the area, which is where I did my long run on Sunday. Once again it was a beautiful coolish day and once again I pushed through the run. However, I noticed that my wall came later in the run...progress!

I looked at the calendar and I'm on track to finish training mid-March...which means a St. Pattys Day run!

I'm excited at the prospects of dressing up in a ridiculous green costume for my first run! I called my dad to see if he'd be up celebrating our ancestry via a 5K. He was. My stepmom who has watched my dad run many marathons, even a 50K trail run, seemed adamant against anything other than a power walk said she would join us. Then I got a call from my stepmom yesterday..."Guess who is going to join the run!" The youngest stepbrophes.

Suddenly this has turned into a family affair! My stepmom joked, "We better get a good dinner out of this!" I reminded her that it's a morning run so maybe a brunch...sayings it's St. Patty's Day I wonder if  we could find some green Mimosas?

Pump you up

After my many failed attempts at trying to become a morning workout-er I have come to the conclusion that thus I am not! Monday morning I had set my alarm for 6:30 with every intention of attacking my long. However, as per usual I reset my alarm for 8:30 and fell back to sleep.

This morning I woke early enough to get my run in. Some how I always find myself on the couch sipping coffee and lounging till it is time to get ready for the day. When I was in college my typical routine was school, work, home, workout...at 8:30...not getting home till 9:45. After a long day I needed some down time to veg before attacking the gym. I'm just not a morning workout person...and I'm ok with that. At the end of the day all that matters is that you get your workout in. No matter what is going on in your life you've got to find time to squeeze in a workout...even if your workout is strapping the kido in the stroller and going around the block. Or if you're like a crazy friend of mine whose family opened a restaurant and swings by the gym at 1 am on his way home!

As I lounged on the couch this morning I a read an article via Runner's World about building your base, long slow runs that allow you to build up your milage. I'm in like the pre-pre stages of that, lol. But I enjoyed reading it because it reminded me that someday I'll be in doing a base building plan. I also ready one of my favorite blogs, Meals and Miles. I love reading other people successes and the things they overcome as they strive for their running goals.

Between the Runner's World article and Meghann's blog I am pumped up for tonight's run! I'm hoping to avoid the dreadmill however when I checked the weather this beast is making its way through town.

There is a 80% chance of thunderstorms most of the day. Luckily it goes down to a 30% chance by the time I'll be ready to run. A little drizzle is nothing...let's hope it's just a drizzle by 7:30! From what I can tell I've got my normal 5 min warm up, then something new; 1 min run, 1 min walk, 5 min run, 1 min walk, 1 min run, 5 min cool down. Whether I'm outside or on the treadmill I'm ready to attack this run!

Find what time of the day works best for you to workout and make it work. Also find people who have similar goals and that inspire you...that Pump you up!

Exciting news coming to SSB tomorrow! I wouldn't miss it if I were you!

Till then, 

Belle

A real runner?

I had originally planned on doing my long run last Friday but (yup a but) Wednesday I had hopped on a cycle bike at the gym and my knee had not been happy with that decision. So I let my knee rest the remainder of the week. Sunday my knee felt that it could handle a kettle bell workout, which was pretty awesome!

So last night after watching the Blurs most of the day and training a client I hoped on a treadmill...and talked to a good friend on the phone for like 10 minutes. He is doing some graphic design (Wait...what...why!?! For that you are going to have to read on Thursday!) for me and now lives in NYC so we had to squeeze in a phone call to discuss the direction things were going. We were almost done when I realized I was one of THOSE ppl. Yea the ones that sits on a machine and talks on the phone the whole time. However, I've been a gym goer for three years and it's the only time I've every done that! I did however apologize to the lady next to me...

Anyways we wrapped things up and I started my MiCoah app for my long run...which was a whopping 12 minutes long! OMG right!?! I knew this wasn't going to be a fun run because 1. I was running on the dreadmill 2. I never can figure out the right speed on those stupid things. Ok partly because I never run on them to figure out what speed I need. 3. For whatever reason it was really hot in the gym. So I got my game face on...which according to some co-workers I really do make a mean looking face when I'm in a tough workout, lol! I picked my favorite band, August Burns Red to scream at me to keep going...which they did.

 About 4 minutes into the run I knew I was going too fast and wouldn't make it through the workout...stupid machine! So I bumped the speed down a bit and I consecrated on breathing deeply since my breathing was not sounding good. As my breathing got better was when I hit the wall. While there really is physical wall that people hit, all that lactic acid science stuff, I think my wall is more mental. My eyes kept drifting to the red stop button and at one point rested on it. Once again I knew that if I didn't push through I wouldn't run again. I looked at the time left...a little over half way...WHAT!?! I turned up the music and got mean. I thought about anything else but what I was physically feeling. I thought about the fact that this would be easier outside so just push through this one workout. I thought about finishing and then adding miles...which might seem odd. All I want to do is to be able to run 3 miles and the only way to do that was to finish this tiny 12 minute run. Finally I made it!

Later as I was getting in my car I thought to myself, "Well that wasn't too bad. Why was I such a pansy?" It's funny how soon after I had pushed out the pain I had just been in and thought to myself "Can't wait till the next run." I wonder...does this mean I'm a real runner?