Sesh's Group - FULL! (Page 12)

The season definitely has an effect.  Changes in weather can make me tired too. The killer is going from a schedule of going to bed at 2am to my school schedule of getting up at 4:30 am.  My body really doesn't like it when I don't get 8 hours (or more) of sleep.

The big list o responses:

BM great job on your first tri - smokin run there. Bottle cages are notorious for breaking, welcome to the fold! I can't imagine what a panic attack right at the start would be like - big time kudos for busting through it and finishing.

Weight Loss: been there, doing it - again. The two things that help me the most - Log everything you eat, and get rid of all the junk food in the house and replace it with fruit and other yummy nutritious treats. If i get a hankering for something sweet I grab a piece of fruit (apple, orange, pear), fyi organic ones may not necessarily be better for you, but they taste 100% better. Also, raw almonds - a handful does the trick everytime.

Seren: I hate running too, but I'm slowly growing to like it, i'm dreadfully slow too. Fun fun...

Sdalessio: Low glycemic foods are your friend. Lots of sites online that list them. And there are lots of tasty ones - including most fruit.

Waking up -  Impossible this time of year. Uggh. I dunno if it's worse here, but the PacNW sucks your soul every winter and spits it back out as rain. Today is particularly dreadful.

Pushups - did my test yesterday, a pathetic 5 knee pushups, my upper body strength is non-existent. I will persevere!

Kiri - I only got 8 on my initial test because my daughter decided the half one I did before I collapsed counted.  We can work our way out of pathetic-ness together!

The only reason I have been able to drag myself out of bed at 5 am is the January peach challenge.  I know I will be working late, so it's my only time for workouts.  I have this minor competitive thing that won't let me miss a day if it means I won't be doing as well as everyone else.  In December, doing the trainer challenge, I dragged myself out of bed when I was sick to get a ride.  My husband says I'm OCD, but I've learned to use it to my advantage.

I will be happier when the days get longer.  Getting up in the dark stinks.

hmmm, someone is not very good at post padding. 

I am right there with you.  I really struggle with driving in the dark.  I have issues with glare/headlights and I generally just feel tired when it is dark.  I avoid driving at night-to the point that I will spend the night at someone's house.  I can't do much about my school commute.  I make sure to leave early.  It takes significantly longer to drive if I leave after 6am.  If I leave by six it is a 20 minute commute.  If I leave at six thirty the commute can take an hour or more.  Yea for traffic.

Great race report!  I think everyone gets a little overwhelmed on their first OW swim, it takes a lot to push through it.

That run was speedy!  I always run faster (not as fast as you!) during a race than I do in training (It always hurts BAD)

BeginnerMan - 2008-12-24 8:03 AM re: the lap question......  I think im going to invest in the sportcount lap timer http://www.sportcount.com/productsNew.php?category=SportCount thing is 35 bucks and people love it. that way i wont even have to think about it and i can fully concentrate on my stroke and form-unless of course i go off in my daze again......

I got a Sportcount lap counter!  I did my swim this morning with it..  man, it's NICE!  I swam a good bit faster than I thought I did and I didn't have to count!!!  I've been showing it off all day at work!  Nobody here swims, and they could care less about it, but I think it is cool!!

http://www.asiorders.com/view_user_event.asp?EVENTID=40225&BIB=2022&S=230&PWD=

Those are the pics from my race last weekend.  Kinda obvious I was getting brutalized by the hills.  I have no idea why that random pic of that lady is in there.

Marmadaddy posted this in the tri talk forum, and I thought I'd share it in case y'all miss it:

We are one week into the New Year.

Did you resolve to do a triathlon in 2009? Lose weight? Exercise consistently? The resolve that drove many just one week ago to declare this a year of increased exercise and  better eating habits, maybe even to declare that this is the year they complete a triathlon is waning.  Maybe that's the case with you.

You know what? It happens to all of us. It's normal. Anyone who's ever done a triathlon, from the person who did one Sprint to multiple Ironman finishers have all gone through the exact same thing. The idea of suiting up to go run in the cold, or drive to the gym, or have an apple instead of the cookies just seems...bleh.  I'll say it again: it happens to all of us. We all feel that way at times.

There are different ways of dealing with it. There's a phrase that's worked for me: "Screw lack of motivation. I'm going to do it anyway." You'll get past this. By doing your workout or following your nutrition plan now, when you just don't feel like it, you'll get in the habit of doing it regularly. That's what you need to learn now. Don't pay attention to the voice that says "it's only one mile, it's not worth doing"  or "I'll never be able to do a triathlon anyway".

You're in the period where how long you swim, bike, walk or run isn't important. What's important is that you just swim, bike, walk or run.

Picture yourself not at the finish line of a race, but at the starting line. Imagine having done the work to deserve your place at that starting line. Now do it.

Do something today to create the person you want to be tomorrow.

Go do your workout. 

Happy Hump Day!!!! 

Thanks again group for all of the helpful advice and words of encouragement.  I think water may be an issue (not drinking enough) so I'm going to try and get better about that.  That's the main reason I made it one of my resolutions.

On another note my husband and I have finished signing up for most of our events for the year.  Whew - our little fingers were typing away last night and today.  Don't know why but most stuff seemed to open at the same time.  Good so I don't forget but bad on the checkbook.

So my official list through August.
- Feb. 1 Capital Hospice 12K
- Mar. 22 Shamrock Half Marathon
- Apr. 5 Cherry Blossom 10 miler
- Apr. 18 Rumpass in Bumpass International Tri
- Apr. 26 Worldgate Sprint Tri
- May 17 Marine Corp Half Marathon
- May 23/24 Jim McDonnell practice swim or 1 mile swim race
- June 7 Mooseman Half Ironman Tri
- June 28 Montclair Sprint Tri
- July 27 Hagerstown Sprint Tri

We are also planning on some bike century (full or metric) plus I need one more fall tri and half/full marathon.

Back to the pool tonight to meet the new swim coach and start to get back into the groove.

All,

I have not posted in a while so I thought I would finally wish everyone a Happy 2009.  I am personally looking forward to 2009 and putting the injury riddled 2008 behind me.

I wanted to weigh in on the dieting (no pun intended).  Last year at this time I did a program called Body For Life.  They basically had you eat equal amounts of carbs and protein and very limited amount of fat.  However, I ate six small meals a day.  It really worked, I lost 13 lbs in 10 weeks (went from 176 down to 163) and increased my muscle mass significantly.  The downside to the full program is that you work out three times a week and put on a lot of muscle.  I felt too big in the upper body last year and I will modify the program slightly to focus more on eating right and doing a lot of cardio.  However, any program takes time to see results and you just have to stick with it.

Below is my revised race schedule for 2009.  I will post my ST/LT goals later:

5/30 - Greater Lafayette (Indiana) 5K (my first road race)

6/6 - Lafayette (Indiana) YMCA Triathlon 500m/10miles/5K (I volunteered last year in the pouring rain)

6/27 - Beat the Heat 10K (Indianapolis, IN, my first ever 10K)

7/18 - Tri Del Sol Triathlon (Middleville, MI) .5k/18 miles/4.5mile

8/22 - Three Rivers Triathlon (Three Rivers, MI) OLY (My first ever Olympic triathlon)

10/17 - Indianapolis Half Marathon (My first ever HM)

Should be a great 2009 with some races to visit family and friends in Michigan.

I will be using the 20 week OLY training plan, run specific, to get ready for my first Olympic.  I will start that sometime in March.  Until that time, I will be in the prep and base mode of training and just getting ready.  I am not looking forward to the trainer time with the bike, if anyone has any good trainer workouts, please let me know.

 I finished week 2, day 1 of the pushup challenge yesterday and I am shocked how quickly I am improving.  I finished my pushups yesterday with a max set of 16, one more than my initial test.  At that was after four set of pushups totaling 48 pushups.  I definitely see improvement in only one short week.

Take care

I want you all to know that I wrote this big long post about why I didn't run this morning, but before I could hit submit one of our servers crashed and I lost the connection.  Now, 4 hours later, I finally got back onto the internet.  That's just the way the past 24 hours has been going. 

<sigh>

I did do my pushups this morning - week 1, day  2.  (1...ow...2...ow...3...)

Looks like a nice race, I have my first Half this weekend, I'm so unprepared, but I'm treating it as a long slow run

I hate when a server crashes just as your are finishing some big long email or such!

I'm feeling very lazy right now.  It is cold and rainy here.  I may bail on the pool tonight and have fun on the Wii.  I can get in some strength training and yoga work.  I start my training plan when I return from vacation so I am going to enjoy this last little bit of downtime.  Plus I have a 5m tempo run tomorrow AM.

I did complete week 1 day 2 of my push up and sit up challenge.  Too soon to tell if its getting better.

You gonna do the Mardis Gras Marathon/Half-Marathon?

Now that is a fun race.

Having the finance department's server go down in the middle of trying to close the books for the year is really bad.  Nothing like having a bunch of stressed out accountants with huge to-do lists staring at locked up computers for 4 hours.  Can't say I'm in a great mood.  This is after a night with zero sleep thanks to a sick 5 year old.  (Then, after being up all night crying because his throat hurts and insisting that I stay with him, he sleeps a few hours, gets up at 7:30, and says he wants to go to school.  So I didn't even get to take a sick day to stay home with him.  I was hoping to get a nap.)

Of course, today is a run day.  15 minutes.  Since I didn't get to go to sleep until 4:15, I didn't get out there at 5 am.  Plus it was pouring rain.  So that run is still hanging over me.  And my boss just said we don't have to work too late tonight, so I will get home in time for a run before bed, if I can talk myself into it.

Sorry about the crummy day and night.  Hope you son is feeling better and the servers are cooperating again.  Are in the finance dept or the IT dept?  Not sure which would be worse in that case. 

Those are the kind of days that call for a glass of wine.  At least 15 min can go by pretty quick and you can think about red or white the whole time.  :-)

I'm in finance.  It was still raining when I left work, so I gave up on the run and swapped it for tomorrow's trainer ride.  I'll run in the morning, after a (hopefully) good night's sleep.  The rain is supposed to stop by then. 

Have a great night everyone!