Slornow and Wannabefaster's Winter Mentor Group-CLOSED (Page 35)

No LBS ride today so i went out on my own.  Totally new route, 31 miles.

The good - mostly rural so more cows and horses than cars.  It was crisp to start but not really cold.  The sun tried its best to break through the clouds but no go.  Still a nice opening to the day.

The bad - more hills than i would have liked.

The ugly - the last six miles was a steady incline into a 7 mph headwind.  It wasn't bad enough that I was tired but my feet were turning into frozen stumps.

As for the Superbowl eats.  I know the menu as well.  Too many good things.  Hot artichoke dip, kosher pigs in a blanket, cayane onion strings, homemade chicken tenders, shrimp fried rice plus the usual assortment of cut up fruit and veggies.  As far as alcohol we are not big drinkers so maybe a few bottles of champagne.  I won't pretend I will try to be good.

Nice ride this morning ... 1 hour 45 minutes/33 miles same old route ... lots of hills!

Superbowl? What is the Superbowl? All I am going to watch are the commercials if I watch it at all. The 49ers deserve this one ... any other outcome and I will be disappointed. Maybe I am even going for a slow nice/steady run later. 

No Superbowl party ... no good/bad/ugly food ... maybe a beer later but that is a BIG maybe. 

What is Superbowl?

I kid. I don't watch that kind of football, so won't be having any Superbowl snacks.

I should be back on track this week. Sprint Tri this weekend.

I'm doing a squat challenge for the month elsewhere. 100 per day for the month of February.  Oh, my QUADs.

Packing the bike today for a lunch time ride.

ETA: I'm going to start tracking my food today. I totally fell of the good eating wagon since the couple's weekend.

Yum, pulled pork. I want to go to your house for Superbowl.

We were invited to a coworker's house for Superbowl, but they have a toddler and I didn't want to risk exposing her to flu no matter how good I felt so we stayed home. Unfortunately, no cable. Fortunately, we don't care much for football so we're watching some episodes of Haven on Amazon Prime

I submit to you our "Superbowl (Haven) Feast!"

Potato Gnocchi with Tofurkey Sausage & Mushroom Sauce. Non Alcoholic Warsteiner & Grape Gatorade 2	Homemade Hummus from the Vitamix. Cucumbers and Green Peppers

Nate-non alcoholic Warstiener...thats just wrong! What's the book on the table?

Mary-nice training. You'll go way beyond your goal.

My Feb. goal is going to be better snacks through more fruits and veggies as snacks instead of cookies, candy etc. Went to the store tonight and bought apples and baby carrots for the week. I want it to be reasonable, and achievable, so as my bad snacking time is after dinner in the evening I am restricting myself to healthy snacks 5 of 7 nights a week.....starting tomorrow. 

x2!

All right, I'll submit my food: 

Dinner-spaghetti with meat sauce and garlic bread, and a Magic Hat #9 to wash it down

I ate a few TGIF cheese sticks afterward, then had a few Chips Ahoy for dessert.  

I liked the Beyonce halftime show a lot more than the game, I stopped watching when the power went out. Football just isn't my thing. Tomorrow's my rest day, so not a lot on tap. Then it's back in the pool Tuesday morning!

The only time I'm allowing myself to break my no alcohol rule before Ironman this year is my birthday, and I already did that In the meantime, the best tasting non-alcoholic brew is Warsteiner's. I'm actually pretty impressed by how good it is!

The book is Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life by Brendan Brazier. I've been trying to get some guidance on nutrition lately and he's been very successful at it with Ultra Marathons and Iron Distance Triathlons. I haven't implemented anything in the book yet. A lot of what he suggests is expensive as heck!

I went ahead and did my scheduled hour long run today just because I felt so good. I could definitely tell I was getting over the flu though. My pace wasn't horrible for my Z2 HR, but it wasn't as good as previous weeks'. My stomach also was angry at me about halfway through.

I'm going to skip my swim tomorrow since that's more intense, but I'll do my Z1 Spin in the evening.

Hope everyone who celebrates it had a good Superbowl, I'm off to bed.

Goodnight all!!

I have a few pages to catch up on here but I just wanted to check in with the group. My Doctor's appointment went well last week and I'll have to follow up with some bloodwork but can't get it until Friday. I got a referral to a nutritionist (only choice with my insurance right now) but the first appointment they had wasn't until the end of March. In the mean time I have a plan to get back on track this week and try to get my energy back.

Hope everyone is doing well!!!!

Nicole take it easy when you start back up.  Do try to do too much too soon like I did last year and compound the problem.

I did my run today.  Had to slow down just before the 2 mile mark with a side stitch but walked that out and still did OK.  Trying really hard to keep on track (no pun intended) with my run regimne.

Normally I would have done the NuStep or alternate exercise for my warmup but with my goal of 400 miles on the bike this month I did 20 minutes on the bike instead.  Not a lot of miles but every little bit helps. Up over 80 miles already.

I also threw in 30 minutes of upper body work.  I don't know if its real or psychological but I think it is helping me on my hill climbs.

Everybody have a great week!

Thanks. Finally caught up on the thread.

As far as goals go for this month mine is pretty vague-get back on track. I'm going week by week right now. I love the idea of setting them each month though and if things go well this month I can have a more specific goal next month.

Nicole: Good luck getting it all figured out!

Awesome training, guys.

I'm slowly getting back on track after a dismal week. Got in an 11 mile bike ride yesterday. Horrible because my tires were low on air and I couldn't figure out how to use my tire pump. Hills were painful! Looked like a drunken sailor the way I was wobbling around trying to get thru some of them. I never want to do hills with low tire pressure again. EVER.

Got up this morning before 5am and got my 5 mile run done, bike's packed for a lunch ride. Husband showed me how to work the pump, so no problem there. I also finally figured out where the gear changers are on my road bike. Had no clue! Youtubed some videos on gear changing basics and will practice that today.

I have a sprint tri this Sunday. 750m swim, 12 mile bike, and 3 mile run. Should be fun.

Have a great evening!

Oh, my kids and I volunteered at a water station for this past weekend's Xterra Trail Run. They were so awesome and had a ton of fun. Great team work! Their favorite part was walking around the trails and exploring before and after the run. They got free shirts:

Blanda-great picture of the kids. Sounds like a fun day. Don't be intimidated by the road bike...it will be second nature in no time.

Dave-Wow! I can't imagine doing those climbs much less the soreness that results from that type of activity. Quite an accomplishment.

My schedule this week is a bit of a mess. I will be on the road out of town Wed and Thurs before returning home Friday afternoon. Hoping to hit the treadmill those days but just depends on what the day brings.

Today was a swim and then an easy spin this evening. Tomorrow is swim only. Looks like an easy week until the weekend. Keep up the good work everyone!

Dave I am jealous.  My son and I used to do a lot of free climbing but that looks like a blast!

After the hard weekend and my run this morning I was feeling a bit beat up so I decided to hit the pool for an easy recovery swim that would make me feel better, and it did.  I did 2200 yards 200 x 11 in just under 35 minutes.  But I had something interesting happen.  I have heard about it several times but new to me.

I guy gets in the lane next to me.  I would guess 10 years younger than I am.  He has fins on.  I was doing my own thing and not paying a whole lot of attention to him but I did notice that when we were at the same spot he would speed up.  Now I couldn't care less because I was swimming to relax, not race. 

So I am almost done and I am staring my last 200 and he pushes off with me and is clearly trying very hard to beat me.  That lasted about 40 yards until he ran out of gas.  I just kept on doing my 200. 

Does this happen to anyone very often?  Do you do it?

Cuties Blanda!

That looks awesome Dave - I definitely don't have the nerve for ice climbing!!

I went to the pool today continuing my sprint try training plan.  I'm beginning week 5 and I can't believe how fast time is flying!

DH's is getting his new ACL tomorrow so my week is a little up in the air but no reason why I can't sneak out a bit for bike, swim or elliptical!

As Dori says in Finding Nemo.....Just keep swimming, just keep swimming....

Blanda:  Looking at your kids makes me feel very verklempt!!

Dave:  That is truly amazing!  Is is scary or does the excitement of the climb take over?

Stuart:  I have to admit, there are times where I may be "that guy" at the pool.  I don't purposefully push off at the same time and make it blatantly obvious, but I do sometimes race others in the pool.  Sad thing is that I doubt the faster swimmer even knows it's happening.  But when I swim near someone with a pace similar to mine, the race is on and I will pursue or fight to stay ahead.  Sometimes I think of the movie Top Gun with the "Iceman", who will wear his opponent down.......Jim

Blanda - your kids are adorable.

Dave - nice pics!  I used to do a lot of rock climbing, but never climbed on ice.  That stuff is cold!

Stuart - yes, people have done this to me, and I'm not at all fast.  It doesn't really bother me.  I give them the benefit of the doubt and tell myself that they are using me as a rabbit to improve the quality of their workout.