RunningJayhawk's Mentor Nest - FULL! (Page 10)

Good morning everyone! I have another weight workout planned for this evening then a rest day tomorrow. I should be able to pick my bike up from REI either today or tomorrow, I'm so excited! My husband and I are planning to go for a nice ride together this weekend now that we both have bikes.

Barb - enjoy your well deserved rest day!

Missy - have a great swim!!

Hey there everyone.

Today is a bike day, but the weather's looking crummy this morning. I might switch it up and do a run this afternoon instead if it's still like this.

Tomorrow will be an off day from training but an INSANE day (and night) for me. For some crazy reason I had the bright idea to do an "All-Nighter" study session with my Advanced Placement Government class to help prepare them for their AP test on Monday. So yes, I will be up all night tomorrow until 7am Saturday. I'll have a chance to get about 3 hours to sleep prior to the all-nighter. I'm a little concerned about having to stay awake. Not much of a caffeine person, so any suggestions are appreciated! Hopefully I'll be able to get a little sleep afterwards and my training for Saturday and Sunday won't be affected.

Hope you all enjoy what's on tap for you today.

today is a swim day for me, just a 12-minute swim. I'm going to try and concentrate on my form (I watched some videos to get a better idea of the proper way).  I also plan on doing some strength training tonight. 

Happy Thursday!

I'm planning on swimming a short bit after work then doing the single leg drills I skipped yesterday.  Just couldn't get myself moving in the morning...

I'm having to be Mean Librarian today and kick kids out for breaking the rules.  Hate that!

Edited by lovesreading 2009-04-30 5:30 PM

Hello everyone,

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thursday.  The wonderful week of Texas standardized testing is over for us and that is great news.  Now as a teacher you just wait for the results in a few weeks...praying the whole time your students did fine.  Now the focus shifts the the Advanced Placement Test...here is hoping my freshmen take the test more seriously then they do my class sometimes.

Looks like everyone's workouts are going good.  I had a nice bike ride today.  I am feeling really good about my workouts this week...I have really pushed and my body feels good, too.

Tomorrow is a day off, but I will be helping Tif with her all night study session...it is going to be a long day.

Like you, I loooooooooove swimming when it's raining out. The pool that I go to over by UIC has a tin roof and it echos throughout the pool deck. It's quite soothing!! I may bust out a yoga video at home tonight to help destress from my crazy day. Have you ever done any meditation work? I saw that Yoga Now Chicago offers a meditation class and I've got a 20-class pass there...I wonder if something like this could be beneficial for me as I have a tendency to turn into mental mush before my "A" races.




I'm so excited that you'll be able to ride with your hubby this weekend. Hopefully the weather is nice for you, Margot!! Be sure to report back and let us know how it goes. Enjoy the rest day and have fun pumping iron!




It always takes me some time to get the hang of swimming again when I've been out of the pool for a while. Hopefully it all comes back to you quickly!

Also, you may want to give the bossman a heads up that you're training for a race. I pretty much told my team that on Tues/Thurs I may be slightly late due to masters swim and that Wednesdays after work I have to run at 5, but will be coming back to the office to catch up on emails and what not. They've even offered to let me take a long lunch to get a run or weights in if needs be. They've been really cool and understanding about it all so far.

Have a great time at the baseball game--what a great way to get training in! And have fun at the race this weekend, too!!



Oh man! A friend of mine is doing something similar for her US History AP group and I don't envy either of you!! Hopefully the review goes well and you're able to give them the last bit of confidence they need before heading into the exam. Just get lots of rest and hydrate and you should be ready to rock and roll for your rest.



Have fun, little fishy! Let us know how it goes over.




Tsk...tsk...on skipping the SLD's!! What'd the kids do to break the rules?!




Great job with the bike ride...and I'm sure your students will be just fine. And what a nice gesture helping her out! Keep the coffee brewing!!

Edited by RunningJayhawk 2009-04-30 8:08 PM

I got in my run after work and it went fine.  Came home to dinner on the table.  Oh how I love my husband.  I iced my shin while eating and did some extra stretching after before doing the yoga for runners.  My shin's still bugging me, but it feels better than yesterday.  I've got a 13 mile run scheduled this weekend that I hope I can get through.

My bike should come back from the shop tomorrow or Saturday.  I'm excited to see how much of s difference it'll make.

Overall, I'm happy with how April went training-wise.  My biggest mileage month to date, 120+ miles.  I'm feeling pretty good about my first half-marathon coming up the end of May.  And hopefully as my running decreases after the half, my shin will start feeling back to normal.  At least it's fine with swimming and biking; gotta love cross-training, one of the reason I wanted to do a triathlon. 

RoadRhino, first off I feel for you.  I haven't pulled an all night study session since...well for a while but I have worked many a night shift.  If you are not into caffeine then I suggest sun flower seeds, water and once in a while chocolate ( I know, caffeine but hey you gotta live). Eat the Sunflower seeds one at a time and it stimulates your brain to stay awake.  I LOVE coffee but find after a while it doesn't help.  Doing something like eating sunflowers seeds helps keep me alert.  Good luck and try to get some rest afterwards you will deserve it.

Cheers,

Alan

 

Edited by boomer99 2009-05-01 11:24 AM

I swam after work the whole 15 minutes the pool was still open.  I LOVE swimplan.com!!  I thought I'd try to gather the data I need to set my workout level:  5min swim distance/time, 100yd pace, 25yd stroke count.

All I established was that I can't count and this lifeguard couldn't time.  I'm going back tomorrow to do a real 30 minute workout and get these numbers.  Next time I'm going to watch the pace clock and ask the guard to count my laps.

My shoulder hardly bugged me.  Yay!

My single leg drills were fun.  Thanks for the tips.  The heel down one helped hugely.  Much less clunking.  My right leg can go way faster smoother than the left.  I wonder why?

Now it's midnight and I'm revved up.  Too bad I can't help with the all-nighter.  I'll be thinking of you guys (as I relax in bed, reading....)



We have a no food/drink rule.  I told a couple of teens to take their pop outside and one chugged his behind my back as I warned his buddy.  Disrespect - out he went.

Told another she had to keep her shoes on inside.  She slipped them back off before I was 2 steps away.  Out she went.

One of the drink boys came back and asked why I'd kicked his buddy out.  I told him.  Then I told him that our video showed him doing the exact same thing to me.  Back out he went.

One mom cussed another repeatedly for shushing (politely) the first mom's squabbling children.  Out they went.

Must have been something in the air tonight.  I work in a small town, usually it's quiet and the teens are pretty decent  Usually, I can catch them being good.  Tonight, oh my.

------------------

My day off is tomorrow :-)  gotta' shovel out the house... and squeeze some swimming and running.  My kindergartner gets to go all day tomorrow like a first grader and wow! is she excited.

Edited by lovesreading 2009-04-30 10:55 PM

April's totals:
Bike:	5h 24m 34s  - 79.74 Mi
Run:	2h 59m 50s  - 15.85 Mi
Swim:	2h 28m  - 6437.45 Yd

This was my first full month logging my exercise (and includes my first tri!)

I had a great swim this evening!  I made it to a swim class at my gym, and it was a different teacher than the Wednesday class I tried to go to last week.  Anyways, the guy teaching tonight was really good, so I'll definitely come back to his classes.  He teaches the class 3 times a week, so it should be easy to work into my schedule!

Angela - I agree that you should probably mention it to your boss that you're training, and let him know that you're still on top of your work.  If I ever leave earlier than usual to go to a practice/class/group workout, I'll make sure to let my boss know that I'd come in early that day and gotten my work done, etc etc.  Now whenever I leave work (even if I'm leaving at my usual time) my boss and/or coworkers just assume I'm always headed to some sort of workout appointment. 

Oh, and funny semi-related story.  My yoga teacher once said that one of her students has her class scheduled into their Microsoft Outlook calender at work as "Off Site Meeting with Allison".  So whenever they leave to go to yoga class, people at work know they're at a "meeting".  That's kind of a sneaky way to do it, but it was a funny story

Tif & Nik - Good luck with the all nighter tomorrow!  Hopefully you guys are resting up tonight!!  Sorry, I don't have any non-caffeine suggestions

Barb - that's nice you can hear the rain from the pool!  At my gym, the pool is 2 levels below ground, so you can't hear anything.  As for meditation, I tried it once, and I couldnt' get into it.  I have a hard time sitting still for long periods of time (I have a hard time at movies, even), so all I could think about the whole time was that my leg was falling asleep and I wanted to move around.  I think that's why I like yoga so much. . . It's calming and meditative, but you get to move around too!

Good job everyone on your training!  We're totally rocking our workouts!! . . . Speaking of which, here's my April:

April's totals:
Bike:	5h 35m  - 47.25 Mi
Run:	2h 20m  - 6.65 Mi
Swim:	3h 56m  - 5000 M
Strength:	9h 40m
Yoga:	3h 00m

I had an indoor tri on 3/21, and I lost my motivation for training around that time since my next race wasn't until the end of June.  My recovery/rest week turned into 3 weeks, including 4 days for the Easter holiday where I didn't work out at all.  That's when I decided to register for Galena to get my butt back in gear, and I suddenly found motivation to start training again!  Funny how that works

Hey all! TGIF!!!!!  I'm so excited for the weekend.

Last night my swim went pretty good!  I focused on my form and tried the bilateral breathing and felt comfortable with it.   I have a hard time counting my laps as well.  I try really hard to focus but I'm focusing on so many things with my form and breathing that I forgot to count!

Today is an off day for me. I have a 40 minute bike ride and 20 minute run this weekend.  My husband and I are going to Kelleys Island this weekend.  I live in Sandusky, OH (right on Lake Erie) and Kelleys Island is about a 30 minute boat ride. It's one of my favorite places in the world! so I plan on doing some relaxing.  It's also a great place to run and ride bikes so it's perfect! I just have to stay motivated and not fall too far into vacation mode. haha.

I might not be on the computer much this weekend, so have a good one!

Good morning!

I'm glad it's Friday!!  I have a bike workout planned tonight, and Barb, I think I'm going to head south like you suggested and explore Northerly Island, Soldier Field/ McCormick Place, and maybe head down as far as Hyde Park.  It'll be my first time riding in my new clipless pedal system since I had them installed!  I'm excited, it'll be a good ride & a learning experience for me.

I'm also looking forward to seeing Janeane Garofalo tonight!  She's hilarious, and I almost forgot about the show until my friend reminded me yesterday that we were going to that (we bought the tickets ages ago, and I totally forgot it was coming up).  What a cool surprise!


Erin - Would it help your counting if you pre-planned what you were going to work on?  I'll sometimes write down my plan, and just follow it, and that way you already know how many you're going to do. 

So, for example, if you have a 500m/yd work out. . . You could break it up into 10x50's, and concentrate on a different thing for each fifty.  So it could be 1- warm up, 2- bilateral breathing 3- torso rotation 4- hand entry  etc etc.  That way, you really only have to count to 10, and you know which one you're on based on what you were concentrating on in your last set.  I know it's easier for me to keep track of it that way.

Good morning everyone!

Today is an off day for me, which I'm so happy about. This has been my first week getting back into a consistent routine after being hurt and I'm exhausted!

I should be able to finally go pick up my bike tonight, I'm so excited to have it! We're planning to ride 10-20 miles tomorrow but it might rain so right now it's up in the air as to whether or not we'll go. I don't think rain would be the ideal weather for the first time taking the bike out and using my new shoe/clip system.

Hi All,

I have a half marathon on Sunday. Should be 60 degrees with showers!! I have not completed a half marathon in two years. Hoping to improve my time by about 30 minutes. I have a time in my head but will be happy to just complete the course. Next weekend is my first sprint tri of the season. I can't believe I will have to be getting in the cold water regardless of wearing the wetsuit. Tomorrow--Sat. is a rest day!! Hope everyone has a great race/traning weekend.

-So, for example, if you have a 500m/yd work out. . . You could break it up into 10x50's, and concentrate on a different thing for each fifty.  So it could be 1- warm up, 2- bilateral breathing 3- torso rotation 4- hand entry  etc etc.  That way, you really only have to count to 10, and you know which one you're on based on what you were concentrating on in your last set.  I know it's easier for me to keep track of it that way.


what a great idea! thank you!

5:30am...almost there. Slightly delirious, but I see the end of the tunnel! The study session has been a success. Woo hoo. Run day for me later...but I'm going to get some sleep first!

Hope you all have a good day.

Friday turned into a rest day for me.  I'd planned to exercise during the afternoon with all 4 kids at school or daycare, but it was too seductively quiet in the house.  I just had to curl up and read and relax and savor the quiet cleanness of it.  I usually don't get that until post 11pm when everyone else is asleep.  I'll exercise on Monday, my regular rest day, instead.

I ran a few minutes (13)  this morning before work and plan to run again after - 30-45min.

I'm hoping to set up a ride with a friend tomorrow morning and/or maybe swim...