Mamma Amy Knows Best - Mentor Group Year One - CLOSED (Page 20)

The TriMania (I have no affiliation) is a Triathlon Expo being held at MIT's athletic facility. It is free to get in and there will be vendors, free seminars plus clinics you can pay for such as Total Immersion, Chi Running and others. There is also a swim, bike, run team competition and I guess Carfrae will be assigned to a team to help compete. I need a winter Tri fix, should be fun!

3 more weeks people. lets set some goals and see if we can hit them. I going for 2 pounds a week so my goal for April1 will be 168. Anyone else with me?

If i could just see the 170's (pounds) again, i'd be happy. Finally feel like i'm back on track. Started the week off with a 45min 5.1 mile run. I never ever run that long, my GF was on her way out the door to find me when I got home. Swimming is touch and go still , but making progress.

Congrats on the long(est) run! Nice work. Keep it up.

It's the weekend!!! Well almost - Friday anyway.

This is a build week for me so I have a long run, long swim and long bike on the calendar. Woo hoo! Here's hoping everyone has a good weekend of training (sandwiched between March Madness and of course St. Paddy's day).

We got this Jen!!! - you are going to see 170's and I am going for 160's by April 1 - lets keep it going.

Hey Amy - how long is long on these long swim, bike, runs? I just thought it would be really cool to hear some of the numbers you are putting in. It will give me some inspiration when I go out for my mini swim, bike, runs.

May head over to South Boston  for the St. Paddy's Day parade, I have a couple of friends that live on the route so I can keep warm.

Hey everyone - what ya got going on for the weekend?

Cut back week in my half marathon training. Yeah! I have a 4 mile race this evening, with a free beer at the finish line and a concert. Massage tomorrow morning. And if the massage doesn't make me too sleepy, I'll get in a short run, lift weights and a short swim.

I overdid it on Monday and Tuesday this week, so I've missed a couple of workouts. And skipping workouts is why I'm still sticking to sprint tris. I'm just not disciplined enough to step it up yet. Still doing better than all those lazy SOBs sitting on the couch, right?

WOW! 10 mile run, swim and 4.5 hours on the bike. I couldn't even think of being 4.5 hours on a bike right now. That is a real reality check for me. I haven't really been riding too much this winter and a friend of mine asked me to do a 2 day 150 mile MS charity race this June 22nd. I better get on my horse, oops I mean my bike.

Amy - that is awesome! If you could let us know some of the big numbers as craziness kicks in it would be very cool. Thanks

In at 173 down a pound but I will take after my big 4 pound loss last week. I am kinda cheating here today because I am weighing before my corn beef and cabbage dinner.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day everyone!

Happy Tuesday everyone. So here's the weekend update. There was a road closure on my long bike ride which required some creativity but I managed to eek out a total 4 hour ride with my group Sunday.

This weekend I have my first tri of the season. And like a doofus for my first race of the season I have a 70.3. Hits in Ocala, Florida. I am clearly not the best at scheduling these things as you can tell. A smarter person than I would have signed up for a sprint or olympic distance to start the tri season ... oops. Oh well. But I'm excited actually to see how the training is paying off. Also I like racing.

So this week is a lighter week of training for me. While I'm resting I can obessively check the weather because of course at the moment there is a 60% chance of rain on race day ... that will be an adventure for sure if that happens.

Have a great day!

Just two more weeks!!!

Everyone is doing great - lets get some serious weight loss during this final push.

In at 171, so close. I want to see 16something next Sunday.

Went to Tri Mania expo yesterday and Mirinda Carfrae was awesome. She was pretty funny when someone asked about peeing on her bike and she said usually on the downhill and after she drinks her bottle, one time she forgot and it didn't taste too good. Very cool though, she doesn't have a special diet, she believes we work hard and should be able to eat what we want but in moderation and no fast food. She added she does have a weakness for Ben and Jerry's ice cream, any flavor.

James no change in weight for me. Sorry for missing last week.

This weeks progress was really made by staying on track for my half marathon training with my 8 mile long run on Saturday. Next Saturday I move to 10.

Also on Saturday this week I picked up my new Fuji Cross 2.0 from performance bike. The plan for this bike is to use it for commuting 2 or three times per week. It's 27 miles each way so with traffic 20 of that on bike trails (with lots of road crossings) I'm planning on two hours each way. That will nail down my bike training except for long rides that will need to happen on the weekends and I do those on my Cervelo.

Anxiously awaiting some nicer weather here in the upper midwest to get in some real outdoor training. Running 8 miles on an indoor track tends to make one stir crazy for outside.

Have a good training week all.

Amy,

I just read this post. Good for you. Certainly with your experience the 1/2 iron HITS is going to be a blast for you. I've heard nothing but positive reviews from folks who have participated in the HITS races. Give us all a post race report to let us know how much fun you had.

Training always returns dividends.

Okay I'm back!

Very brief race report. Results first 5:57.

I'm very happy with the time. It's an hour faster than my other complete 70.3, This is my third race at that distance but the middle one the swim was cancelled so the times aren't apples to apples.

Conditions were not ideal. Short heavy rain storm right before the start caused the swim to be delayed 10 minutes (no biggie). I got a less than ideal start to the swim as I had a little panic anxiety about 25-50 yards in. I bobbed around and finally saw a friend and asked her to swim with me. Then luckily the anxiety passed and I just swam the rest of the race. The lake was cool but clear lake water. Nice spot for a swim. Shallow. There were people walking at the last turn buoy (that was odd to swim next to walkers). There was another round of rain during the swim. That was wild - I've never swum in heavy rain but it didn't seem to matter. 39 minutes including the run up to the mat and my self-imposed panic delay. I'll take it.

It was raining as I got on the bike and everything was wet. But it wasn't as cool (temperature wise) as it might have been. I hopped on the bike and headed out. Started a little on the conservative side because slipping and falling would make a bad day but sped up as my confidence grew. There was light rain at the start but by the end the roads were dry. Also the roads were not super smooth - I think it's called chip seal surface. Anyway super bumpy but didn't seem slippery. The roads were open to traffic and this was a mess in my opinion.  I had some trouble with my hydration system that I had to work through on the go but I did get it working. I do need to practice refilling it on the go because although I can do it I have to slow down a lot while I do. I only had 2.5 of my three bottles of Infinit but I also took my 2 GUs so calories were okay ... hydration I was hoping I was okay. Blah blah blah I felt good the whole ride and came in at 2:53.Woot Woot!

I headed out onto the run. It was a 2 loop run and part of it is a section of trail. I am not a trail runner. Luckily I fell in step with a super chatty fellow runner who kept a pretty consistant 10 minute mile. It was great. He just chatted and chatted and I held on to this pace for dear life. My hydration shortcoming on the bike was coming back to haunt me. This was the first time I hadn't carried my own water on a 70.3 run and it was a bad choice. The water stops were pretty far apart (there were 3 so every 2 miles) and there were only 2 people at each one. Also I came across 2 water stops when they were out of water. Not optimal on a hot day. But I tried to hold on and finished the run in 2:20 not as fast as I would have hoped but just fast enough to come in under 6 hours. Whew. That was lucky.

So this is my first Hits race. But my third 70.3 and my races have all (by chance) been off-brand. That is to say no race I've done yet is an Ironman brand race. This was also the largest 70.3 I've done. I think there were 500 half participants. But I was not impressed by Hits and probably won't do another of their races. I'll provide more details if you want but I don't want to be a debby downer and when I started to write it out it was kind of ranting so I want to be careful that I am not too harsh because I too had heard good things about their races.

Happy Monday everyone - I'm off to stretch and restock the fridge.