chichitao's group - FULL! (Page 49)

So, has anyone thought about what they're goals are for this winter and next year?  I think I am getting the itch again and am looking at possibly doing more olympic distance and less sprints.

Next year the big focus and a lot of our race budget will be going towards my husband doing IM Canada.  That being said, I am already signed up for 2 races next year, a half in February and a full in May.  I'd love to try and qualify for Boston, but think it is highly unlikely on my first full.  I may be doing a sprint early in the season, with some of my running friends wanting to give the sport a try(this one is a pool swim again...ugh) and then there is another local OW sprint that I will do in the summer. Then in October next year a group of us are talking about hitting Portland for their Marathon.

I'm sure I'll get talked into doing a few other races along the way. 

Over the winter, I'm going to focus on losing some more weight/inches and of course running/biking and core training.

That is super cool that your hubby is doing IM Canada!  It's really awesome that you have a SO that you can train with and, in this case, push to do his best.


This winter I'm totally focusing on my bike and run.  I won't even touch the swim until spring.  That's when I'll have more time in the afternoons to do it anyway.  I'm planning on quitting my job in March, since that's when the firm moves and makes it way too inconvenient to drive back and forth to school/work.    So then I will have MUCHO more free time to swim.  And I've never been MORE excited to be out of work!  4 months to go...

We haven't determined for sure if we'll be able to do a HIM (money issues, time issues, etc), but if we do, it'll either be Racine or Door County in July, or Benton Harbor in August.  However, I am FOR SURE doing a half-mary in May in Green Bay.  It will be Ryan's first full mary and my first half mary so our families are both coming to watch!  I'm nervous and excited all at the same time!  If I can get up to 7ish miles by the end of the year, I should be more than prepared to start my training plan in January.

We will hopefully be buying a treadmill soon too because I'm a big sissy!

My goal for the winter is to just stay active until January.  Then there is a group of teachers that want to do a full mary relay and I am going to do it with them so I am thinking the plan is to start trainging in January or February.  The race is the beginning of April.  I am still trying to get pregnant so that may throw a kink into my plans, but I have asked the girls that I would do it with if they would care what our time was and if I do I might have to walk some of it, but as long as I am staying active and don't quit running I should be good whenever I do get pregnant!
As far as tri's go I want to see what the rest of this winter brings!

Hope everyone is doing well - I have been taken out by a nasty flu/cold the last 1-1/2 weeks.  I decided to just take a week off and not really push myself at all.  I did have a race today that kind of got me back in the swing of things.  We did this Hot Chocolate 5K/15K.  I was kind of regretting picking the 15K but ended up doing ok.  I finished in 1:16:04 an averaged an 8:03/mile.  I did really crash at about mile 7 as the last week caught up to me but I just slowed my pace and continued on.  Felt good to be back running again.  I am hoping this lights some fire under my butt to get back in a regular routine.

RACING

I have three "race goals" for nexy year:

1. Galena Triathlon - Last year this was my first tri and it kicked my butt.  I finished 2:00:00.  I plan to kick its but this year and shoot for 1:40:00
2. Racine 70.3 Ironman - I am shooting for a sub 6 hour 70.3 Ironman.
3. Marathon - Not sure which one I am going to do but I will complete a sub 4 hour marathon next year.  My current PR is 4:26 but I know I can go sub 4 now.

NUTRITION -I am striving to change my bad habits and make 2011 a great nutrition year.

INJURY FREE - Self explanitory

I don't wish to be sick, but if I were I wish I could still run an 8min/mi!!  Great job under the circumstances. 

Sandra - how was your race? 

My bike ride was great.  Ended up being 64mi and it was about a flat a course as we could hope for around here.  Garmin showed 2000ft of climbing, so not bad at all.  I hung with my buddy and we did it in just over 4hrs of ride time and close to 5hrs including the 5 rest stops.  It was nice being able to ride with him and have someone to chat with.  Helped the time go by much faster.  Really enjoyed the back roads and country scenery.  It was brutal cold (for us southern folk) and 37 degrees at the start.  I am slowly building up but I just don't have much cold weather bike gear.  My feet were the coldest part and my toes were completely numb only 5mi into the ride.  Luckily they had a space heater at the first rest stop and got most of the feeling back.  Wasn't too bad after that.  I need to invest in some shoe covers/booties and some kind of head/face cover.  It was sunny the whole way and near 70 degrees by the finish.  I carried a small backpack with me on the ride just to hold all the clothes I was shedding throughout. 

The after party was also the best I had ever been a part of.  All you can eat brats and unlimited beer.  Had some music going as well.  It was really a lot of fun and a ride I will be signing up for every year. 

Hope you all had a great weekend and I'll catch with everyone this week.

<-----------Frustrated.

Had an awesome few days of workouts (including a kick-butt 6 miler yesterday), and I was feeling GREAT about myself.  Weigh myself this morning, only lost 1.6 pounds this week, which is still good, but when I tried on the dress, NO DIFFERENCE in my hips/butt/thighs.  Still too tight.  But now, the top of the dress is way too big on me.  Basically, my stomach, waist, boobs, and arms are gone now, but nothing has left my rear.  Now I'm getting nervous because there are only 20 days left 'til the wedding!  And the freak out begins...

On a bright note, that's still 6.3 pounds lost in the last 3 weeks, which I'm really proud of.  I'm at 161.6, which puts me at 18.4 pounds lost since I started with you guys in April!  That number makes me happy overall. 

All this has reminded me of an interesting thing that happened to me a few years ago.  When I turned 21, I qualified for a discounted life insurance policy, dependent of course on a physical.  However, my weight at the time was like 165, which is honestly what I had been sitting at for a long time, and never felt SUPER uncomfortable at.  They refused to give the policy to me though because, according to the sucky way of determining BMI, I was overweight.  They said I had to weigh 149 or under to hit the "normal" BMI range!  I haven't weighed that since I was a freshman in HS.  Now, I'm seriously wondering if I could hit that in the next few months...  I don't know that I can, but I guess we'll see!

T1, really glad you had such a great day and that you managed to find the feeling in your feet again:-)

Meggan, glad you had an awesome trip away...I'm sure this was just what you needed to regroup and meet the next 2 weeks and your race with renewed energy!!  I'm so excited for you.

Erica, I wish there was a magic answer for your dilema, I have the same body type as you, so completely understand your frustration.  Don't lose hope, you have done amazing so far.

T2, glad you are feeling better and great job on your race!

I had an amazing day with my 100km relay team race, it went by so fast and felt great the whole day.  We had 2 teams entered and had the support of others that weren't racing as well along the way.  This race has been running for 30 years and we found out last week that this was the last one they were doing, so I'm really happy we got to participate, but sad that I only got to do this once.

I am planning on 10 tonight after Logan goes to bed.  I am really dreading it because I hate running at night now!  I think I will run 5 on Thursday and Friday, rest on Saturday, and probably an easy 2 on Sunday.  Just enough to keep my legs loose.  I think my total miles next week is 13.5, broken up to 4, 3, 3.5 and 3.  I am silently starting to freak out!!

Sounds like everyone is doing pretty good.  I was out of town the last few days at a conference for work and did not get a single workout in.  Was so excited to sleep in my own bed last night and my daughter woke up around 11 ish and would not go back to sleep.  So I finally got to bed around 1 am!  SO needless to say i did not work out this morning either.  My plan in is to do a run tomorrow and then sat. and sun. 

It is hard when you are away!  I also could not wait to sleep in my own bed after a few nights away.  Hope your daughter sleeps better tonight.  Logan was up at 5 am this morning.  I will not be a happy mama if he is up that early tomorrow because it will mean no run for me.

Happy Veterans and/or Remembrance Day!!

Whether you believe in war or not, take a moment to remember, honor, and thank those in our military.  And pray they all return home safely. 

She did sleep last night!!  We figured out that when my husband comes to bed that is waking her up because he is turning off the tv and the noise is gone.  So we put a sound machine in her room last night and it worked!  Months of trying to figure out what was triggering her!  Felt great this morning at 5 for my run!

Logan needs the noise machine too!  When he was a baby, both boys went to bed at the same time but then Joe ended up staying up a little later.  We needed the white noise to drown out Joe!  Now he just needs it!  We could not figure out why he was sleeping like crap at the beach this summer and then we realized.  I ended up buying one to leave there because I was tired of bringing it back and forth!  She will start to become dependent on it so keep that in mind.

Nothing too exciting planned for the weekend, tonight we have a get together with everyone who ran half/full marathons on 10/10/10, but I'm still not feeling too great.  I'm hoping to be okay for my easy 12km run on Sunday morning.

Sandra, hope you feel better. 

I got in an easy 2mi run this morning with no knee pain then had my PT session.  She said I can start increasing my mileage so I will probably look to do some 2.5mi and up it to 3mi by next Fri and next PT session. 

I am planning on doing a 40mi ride tomorrow morning.  I went and bought some cold weather gear, a beanie to go under my helmet and cover my ears and some insulated shoe covers.  It was supposed to be in the 40s but now they are predicting rain.  If so, I won't ride in that. 

Got a few dinners planned tonight and tomorrow night with friends, but other than that we've got nothing going on.  I am looking forward to just relaxing b/c I have a huge presentation coming up next Thur and have been swamped trying to get everything prepared.

Enjoy the weekend!

Glad you had a good run today Tim!  Hope it continues.

We also have dinner plans both nights.  Actually, I have plans both nights!  I am going out with my mom's group for a kids free dinner tonight!  Then tomorrow night we have friends and their 4 kids over here for dinner.  I am making homemade pasta and have one batch done!  I might be up late tonight!  No other plans other than a short easy run on Sunday.

Any last minute tips?  Any tips on how to survive taper?  This is probably the first time I have trained like this so I am going nuts!

I've never run the distance you're preparing to do, but just STICK TO YOUR TAPER as closely as you can.  I've heard that some people, before a marathon, feel like it's a waste to taper like that, but then it hurts them big time on race day.  Just stick to the plan, and you'll do great!  And don't stress.  You know you've done everything you can and that you're prepared for this!  I can't wait to hear about your results!

I had a rough eating weekend.  MIL and BIL were in town to visit, and are the pickiest people ever (along with Ryan), and they eat the unhealthiest foods ever.  We had pizza twice this weekend, plus Olive Garden once (gross), they had burgers at Red Robin for lunch Friday, Chinese food at a food court for lunch Sunday, and the breakfasts were pancakes and cinnamon rolls.  Whenever I'm with that side of the family, eating habits go out the window because my BIL only has about 7 or so meals that he'll actually eat, so I'm limited, too.  Frustrating for me because I love all kinds of food! 

But I still managed to be down to 159.8 this morning!  So I'm down 1.8 pounds from last week. 

But still not fitting in the dress like I need to, and with 13 days left to the wedding, I'm absolutely freaking out.  I need tips fast for toning that area to at least be somewhat slimmer before then.  Any tips?

Ditto. 

It is so easy to try and do a little too much (or even too little) this week, but stick to the program.  It is there for a reason.  If it didn't mean anything they would just tell you to stop running the week before the race.  Enjoy all the free time you now have with the shorter runs.  Focus on just running with a good clean form. 

And there really is no reason to be stressed.  You've been doing the HARD PART for months now!  Now is the time to relax, enjoy and reflect on all the hard work you've put in.  The race is just the icing on the cake.  It makes all the training worth while.

Now take it easy this week.  Try to eat as normal as possible and begin hydrating and drinking plenty of fluids starting today.  Up the carbs a little bit at each meal but don't go crazy with it.  No big carbo loading meal! 

Erica, way to go on the weight loss.  You are doing great.  I don't have any tips to trim a specific area but I would think with the 2+ lbs per week you are dropping would eventually hit those areas.  13 days left gives you another 4lbs or more weight loss if you keep this up.