The past few weeks I have had the honor of writing while JE practices his guitar. In the beginning of October we dined with Boyd and Debbie. Boyd is a great guitarist who has been in several bands and who played for the USO. Boyd handed JE a James Taylor book and told JE to learn some songs they could play together. Tonight Boyd and Debbie came to our house for dinner. After dinner, the boys played guitar. It was awesome. Good food, good friend, and music. We definitely need to make this a tradition.
This week's training has felt really scattered and sporadic. I just finally sat down with my training guides. I set some goals and built a little schedule. By the end of next month, I will be running/jogging 45 minutes straight. I will do this by continuing to run every other day upping my time/distance/speed. By the end of next month I will be swimming 450 yards. I will do this by working on keeping an even pace, a solid stroke and steady kick. I train MWF in running one week and switch it for swimming the next. What can I say about my cycling? I ride further than my training books tell me, it's just my commute. I know I should be faster, but part of that is the bike. There are times when I do scoot a fair pace.
My Week Schedule
Monday, Wednesday, Friday
Warm up/walk 10 min, Run 20 min, Cool down 10 min
Cycle to and from work 7-10 miles each way
10 push-ups, 20 crunch sit ups, 10 ball squats, and 10 lunges, each leg. Keep good form do ONE set!
Tuesday Thursday
Warm up/easy swim Freestyle 250 yards (10 laps) Cool down (4 laps)
Cycle commute
10-15 minutes basic flow yoga, 10 dips and 15 crunch sit ups on the big ball – do ONE set!
Saturday
Early in the morning, a nice little 25-35 mile ride
Foodwise: Intake 2281 however a huge portion of that came from candy. What is my deal? I don't even like candy! I need some re-dedication, no more empty candy calories! Output: not much
Showing posts with label triathlon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label triathlon. Show all posts
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Day 13: Tunnels
Technically the pool wasn't open this morning as we turned the key in the lock. There were no lights to illuminate our swim practice, and the sun wasn't up yet.
Technically, after only four hours of sleep, I could have been justified staying in bed that extra hour to sleep (justified by whom?). I actually tried to stay in bed, but my brain was summoning my body into motion. No sense fighting inert will power. Besides, I have a race to run--in something like 135 days! Yikes!
The King of Sharks fell in love with a mortal woman. He changed himself into a man and married the woman. Nanave was the son of the King of Sharks and that mortal woman. As a young man, Nanave swam in the waterfall beside his mother's hut where he would disappear for hours. He often asked the local fisherman where they were headed to fish that day. Nanave would disappear into the waterfall. Eventually the local fisherman were unable to catch any fish and decided they had a bad god among them. A tricky little test proved that Nanave was that bad god. He was chased to the waterfall where he disappeard. Nanave's father, the King of Sharks, had created a tunnel from the waterfall into the sea.
If I had a tunnel running from my pool to the sea, could I get there? Not in one breath. Swimming today was great. I'm working on slowing my stroke and making it more effective. I'm also working on kicking.
When bowling, there is a four-step pattern. Swimming has the same sort of thing-6 kicks to one stroke and a breath on every third stroke. This and keeping my head slightly down, my tail up, and my arms reaching to roll from the waist. I want this to become mechanical, ingrained in my muscle memory. With my bike still in the shop and my Achilles tendons still tender, swimming and yoga are all I've got for the present.
Foodwise: Intake 2623 calories. JE showed up at my work this morning with a loaf of Boudin Sourdough bread still warm from the oven. I think it must have been a bit torturous for a couple of my coworkers who are on low carb diets. In fact, K. had been making verbal lists of the foods he wanted most only an hour previously. Warm sourdough with a dollop of butter topped the list. Poor guy!
Output: 849 in the pool and on the mat.
Technically, after only four hours of sleep, I could have been justified staying in bed that extra hour to sleep (justified by whom?). I actually tried to stay in bed, but my brain was summoning my body into motion. No sense fighting inert will power. Besides, I have a race to run--in something like 135 days! Yikes!
The King of Sharks fell in love with a mortal woman. He changed himself into a man and married the woman. Nanave was the son of the King of Sharks and that mortal woman. As a young man, Nanave swam in the waterfall beside his mother's hut where he would disappear for hours. He often asked the local fisherman where they were headed to fish that day. Nanave would disappear into the waterfall. Eventually the local fisherman were unable to catch any fish and decided they had a bad god among them. A tricky little test proved that Nanave was that bad god. He was chased to the waterfall where he disappeard. Nanave's father, the King of Sharks, had created a tunnel from the waterfall into the sea.
If I had a tunnel running from my pool to the sea, could I get there? Not in one breath. Swimming today was great. I'm working on slowing my stroke and making it more effective. I'm also working on kicking.
When bowling, there is a four-step pattern. Swimming has the same sort of thing-6 kicks to one stroke and a breath on every third stroke. This and keeping my head slightly down, my tail up, and my arms reaching to roll from the waist. I want this to become mechanical, ingrained in my muscle memory. With my bike still in the shop and my Achilles tendons still tender, swimming and yoga are all I've got for the present.
Foodwise: Intake 2623 calories. JE showed up at my work this morning with a loaf of Boudin Sourdough bread still warm from the oven. I think it must have been a bit torturous for a couple of my coworkers who are on low carb diets. In fact, K. had been making verbal lists of the foods he wanted most only an hour previously. Warm sourdough with a dollop of butter topped the list. Poor guy!
Output: 849 in the pool and on the mat.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Day Four: Weigh in
From January through April, 1998 I lived in Arctic Russia as a conversational English instructor. Before I left, I was sick on the warnings of others. I'd been told on numerous occasions and by several people to be careful of everything I could possibly eat, because it would make me really sick. Oh, and don't drink the water.
The first night I arrived, the family I stayed with had a huge banquet, both to celebrate my arrival and as a birthday party for Tatiana Ivanevna, my "host-sister." All things Russian arrayed the table before me. Fatty layered gelatin with a layer of shredded meat, beet and pea salads pink with mayonnaise, garlicky shredded carrots with raisins, relish plates of mini toasts and caviar, and the prize: delicately sliced reindeer tongue. Every square inch of table was covered with carefully prepared and beautifully presented dishes. Between the warnings of friend and a horrible case of nauseated jet-lag, the meal was wasted on me.
For two solid weeks, I couldn't eat anything. I was certain anything I put in my body was going to poison me. I drank water boiled and placed by the window where the -50 degree weather outside infiltrated even that thick paned glass. It was such a small pitcher, and hot drinks have never had the same power to quench. My skinny jeans got baggy. At around 160 pounds, I was a walking skeleton. I was faint, hungry and cold!
One day the dam broke. I was so thirsty, I stuck my head under the faucet and drank and drank and drank. Tatiana Ivanevna walked in, saw me and just laughed, as only Russians can laugh. It was such good water, sweet and cold! It wasn't just the water either. Reindeer sausages, soups, that crazy black bread I've been looking for ever since, butter, beets, potatoes, cabbage, a whole chicken skin stuffed with its own meat and other savory fillings and baked (an unnerving dish for the uninitiated with it's uncanny resemblance of a headless, baked baby). In the post office down the street, a woman sold piroghi filled with meat, potato, or an almost burned cabbage. The borscht, cheese, the sweet white bread, the black current jam, peach tea sweetened with condensed milk... Three months later, at the end of my stay another feast lay before me. This one wasn't wasted.
Today I ran more of my 2 miles than I would have though possible, this early on. Rest days are great for allowing all that good glycogen to build up in your muscles and allow you to feel strong. I think I was also propelled by this morning's weigh in. 224.5 pounds. That is a 5.5 pound loss from when I weighed myself a week and a half ago. It's really fast, but I'll take it, even if it's just dehydration!
My bike ride was fun, too. It was a great day for ducks, cool and wet. After 25.1 miles, I was coated with grit and road grease. Yuck! But wet and cold are circumstances, misery is a choice. I had a great ride.
I rode back to JE's work and he paid the guys who do the custom detailing to pressure wash my bike. (Why were they out washing cars in the rain?) He took an early lunch and we went to Pho Ba Co in Irvine. Good pho, so warming.
I picked up the triathletes bible today. Gotta admit, I'm freaked out about this. That pep talk I gave myself yesterday? Tonight it feels like bunk. But I will prevail, I usually do.
The first night I arrived, the family I stayed with had a huge banquet, both to celebrate my arrival and as a birthday party for Tatiana Ivanevna, my "host-sister." All things Russian arrayed the table before me. Fatty layered gelatin with a layer of shredded meat, beet and pea salads pink with mayonnaise, garlicky shredded carrots with raisins, relish plates of mini toasts and caviar, and the prize: delicately sliced reindeer tongue. Every square inch of table was covered with carefully prepared and beautifully presented dishes. Between the warnings of friend and a horrible case of nauseated jet-lag, the meal was wasted on me.
For two solid weeks, I couldn't eat anything. I was certain anything I put in my body was going to poison me. I drank water boiled and placed by the window where the -50 degree weather outside infiltrated even that thick paned glass. It was such a small pitcher, and hot drinks have never had the same power to quench. My skinny jeans got baggy. At around 160 pounds, I was a walking skeleton. I was faint, hungry and cold!
One day the dam broke. I was so thirsty, I stuck my head under the faucet and drank and drank and drank. Tatiana Ivanevna walked in, saw me and just laughed, as only Russians can laugh. It was such good water, sweet and cold! It wasn't just the water either. Reindeer sausages, soups, that crazy black bread I've been looking for ever since, butter, beets, potatoes, cabbage, a whole chicken skin stuffed with its own meat and other savory fillings and baked (an unnerving dish for the uninitiated with it's uncanny resemblance of a headless, baked baby). In the post office down the street, a woman sold piroghi filled with meat, potato, or an almost burned cabbage. The borscht, cheese, the sweet white bread, the black current jam, peach tea sweetened with condensed milk... Three months later, at the end of my stay another feast lay before me. This one wasn't wasted.
Today I ran more of my 2 miles than I would have though possible, this early on. Rest days are great for allowing all that good glycogen to build up in your muscles and allow you to feel strong. I think I was also propelled by this morning's weigh in. 224.5 pounds. That is a 5.5 pound loss from when I weighed myself a week and a half ago. It's really fast, but I'll take it, even if it's just dehydration!
My bike ride was fun, too. It was a great day for ducks, cool and wet. After 25.1 miles, I was coated with grit and road grease. Yuck! But wet and cold are circumstances, misery is a choice. I had a great ride.
I rode back to JE's work and he paid the guys who do the custom detailing to pressure wash my bike. (Why were they out washing cars in the rain?) He took an early lunch and we went to Pho Ba Co in Irvine. Good pho, so warming.
I picked up the triathletes bible today. Gotta admit, I'm freaked out about this. That pep talk I gave myself yesterday? Tonight it feels like bunk. But I will prevail, I usually do.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Day Two: Swimming
In the summer, Mom and Dad would drop my sisters and I off at the local pool. We swam for hours, play mermaid tea party in the deep end, have dolphin races where we couldn't separate our feet the distance of the pool, and lie flat on the bottom and watch people swim over. My favorite way to move through water has always been close to the bottom stealth swimming. I could travel so quick that way, which I am sure was a huge frustration to swim instructors trying to make sure their 9 year old instructies didn't disappear and drown (where'd she go?!?). I love the solitude and peace underwater, with hardly a sound but the tiny clink of my earrings swiveling on their hooks. And when the sun is out, I love swimming through the reflected rainbows.
The community where I live has several pools, three of which my condo overlooks. I waited a while after my run for the rowdy (rather be in Glamis) all male party to vacate the area, then headed over. I was solo in the big pool. A family with 3 girls played in the shallow kiddie pool nearby.
I've been reading about swimming, visualizing myself moving through water with perfect body rolls and outstretched arms,legs kicking powerfully at that invisible soccer ball--6 kicks to one stroke. One article described how to lay on the water and stretch my arms above my head, swing one arm around to take a stroke not moving the other arm until the one in motion taps the other. Laying on the water was fine, no problems there. However, making my arm stay in wait for the other to finish it's revolution was like trying to move my pinkie without my ring finger! I am a born windmill! I just can't seem to coordinate the lower half, my kicking is sporadic, at best.
I now understand what Josh and Ethan meant when they said, "If you feel like you're drowning, just roll over and do the back stroke." Running has gotten easier because of the perfect rhythm in my breath and heart, my built in stereo. But swimming is a whole new animal! Eventually I will get the rhythm of it and find my breath at the moment I need it, but today, this first real day of swimming, it was overwhelming. I kept finding myself rolling over to back stroke, breathing really hard. I don't think I've encountered an activity more wholly physically demanding. At one point I had just rolled onto my back and was finishing a lap when I noticed an osprey flying high over head. Osprey aren't natural gliders, they flutter flap occasionally to keep their place in the sky.
A day without chocolate, can it be? Yup, I think so! Smokes!
We made empanadas. I tried a traditional recipe and then tried to make it a bit healthier by adding whole wheat flour and pumpkin and removing some of the butter. Not quite a complete failure, but definitely not a recipe for sharing, yet!
Total calories: 2374 Expenditure of calories in exercise (according to mynetdiary.com which I think is really high in their estimates) 1095 calories.
The community where I live has several pools, three of which my condo overlooks. I waited a while after my run for the rowdy (rather be in Glamis) all male party to vacate the area, then headed over. I was solo in the big pool. A family with 3 girls played in the shallow kiddie pool nearby.
I've been reading about swimming, visualizing myself moving through water with perfect body rolls and outstretched arms,legs kicking powerfully at that invisible soccer ball--6 kicks to one stroke. One article described how to lay on the water and stretch my arms above my head, swing one arm around to take a stroke not moving the other arm until the one in motion taps the other. Laying on the water was fine, no problems there. However, making my arm stay in wait for the other to finish it's revolution was like trying to move my pinkie without my ring finger! I am a born windmill! I just can't seem to coordinate the lower half, my kicking is sporadic, at best.
I now understand what Josh and Ethan meant when they said, "If you feel like you're drowning, just roll over and do the back stroke." Running has gotten easier because of the perfect rhythm in my breath and heart, my built in stereo. But swimming is a whole new animal! Eventually I will get the rhythm of it and find my breath at the moment I need it, but today, this first real day of swimming, it was overwhelming. I kept finding myself rolling over to back stroke, breathing really hard. I don't think I've encountered an activity more wholly physically demanding. At one point I had just rolled onto my back and was finishing a lap when I noticed an osprey flying high over head. Osprey aren't natural gliders, they flutter flap occasionally to keep their place in the sky.
A day without chocolate, can it be? Yup, I think so! Smokes!
We made empanadas. I tried a traditional recipe and then tried to make it a bit healthier by adding whole wheat flour and pumpkin and removing some of the butter. Not quite a complete failure, but definitely not a recipe for sharing, yet!
Total calories: 2374 Expenditure of calories in exercise (according to mynetdiary.com which I think is really high in their estimates) 1095 calories.
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