cathyd's group - Closed (Page 6)

Thanks Jenny!

Babs, I forgot to include you in my heartfelt thanks...

I'd like to apologize to all of you for not being a very attentive or supportive mentor the past week.  We are having a bit of a crisis at home, and it's been quite stressful.  

Luckily this is a very supportive mentor group and I'm glad to see you all supporting each other with posts here and inspires... thanks everyone for the inspires you've sent me as well.  I'll try to get caught up with everyone's logs over the weekend.

Cathy

hey jeff ... divorce is one of the top five stressful life events ... and a tough one to deal with, especially when you have young kids.  I'm sure you've gotten lots of advice from people around you... mine is to try to take care of yourself and look out for the best interests of your children.  And venting to strangers on the internet always helps !!

2007 was a bad year for my husband.. he was diagnosed with diabetes, high blood pressure and has to have thyroid surgery....2008 is not looking much better now - he turns 50 in June and loses his job in July, so he is pretty stressed right now.  Life sucks sometimes.

You're doing well keeping up the training... looks like the swimming is coming along.  Good work.

I tried to post this before.  If this is a double, sorry. 

Check it out, I made the local paper.  The story is not quite accurate in all the details, but I think it is still pretty cool

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080110/NEWS0101/80109064/1010/Sports

Hey everyone, I am back.  I got out of the habit of working out over the holidays because I was spending a lot of time snowboarding during my vacation.  Then last Monday I lost my job.  The contract changed and I was no longer needed.  So my boss called me into the office and told me to go home.  Needless to say it was a stressful week for me.  But I have an offer for a new job.  Please cross your fingers and pray that it goes through.

But now I am back on track and working out.  It really does feel good to get out and workout. 

You are a real blabbermouth, aren't you.

Sorry I have been MIA.  I started my job this week and on Mon. they gave me another class (and another prep) for Thurs. nights.  I have been frantically trying to get 11 weeks of work put together for a class I have never taught before.

Jenny, don't worry.  A day skiing is definitely not a missed day from your plan. It could sub for a running day quite easily.  I used to be really murder on sticking to the plan, but the tris have taught me "it's all good."  Have fun.

I hear your warning about the running and biking. It makes me want to be a little more consistent with my biking right now.   A new colleague of mine is in our local bike club.  He is pushing hard for me to come out to their rides, but I am terrified to ride in a group, on open roads, with my tri bike.  The route I ride here is all bike route and all by myself.  I think  I am going to wait until I have health insurance because he said "Yeah, people crash sometimes." 

Sorry for my absense from the group, as you know we've had some issues going on at our house but things are settling down.  I'll try to catch up with everyone here.

Steve - we're glad you're back at training, it's easy to get sidetracked and can seem overwhelming to restart when you have a race coming up fast... May is not so far away, what can we all do to help you stay consistent and get back into the training plan for Columbia?

Lori - congrats X 3 - first on making the paper, second on your smoking fast 5K last weekend, and third on your birthday! And a new job.. you've been busy !! And you are an inspiration to the rest of us with your consistent training.

Jeff - your training consistency looks great and keep at the swimming... it comes together but takes time.  Sometimes your empty logs scare us but when you update them we see that you've been working hard where it matters. Good work.  Looks like you've got lots of races planned for this season.

Jenny - thanks for keeping the thread going.  Looks like your Black Bear training is going well - what plan are you using or did you design your own?  I still haven't ruled out BB - have you registered yet?

Natalie - glad you are feeling well again, now you need to ease back into it. Do you have a training plan in mind for Muskoka?

Barbara - fabulous.  Keep listening to the bod and take it easy. And I love reading your blog, it's so much more interesting than mine.

Monica - I can't say anything nice to you sitting in the sun on vacation when I'm getting ready to do a long run in the freezing cold !!  j/k   -  hope you're having lots of FUN !!

As for myself I've been back swimming for 2 weeks now and it's feeling good.  I really think I could have been a good swimmer when I  was younger but there was no opportunity for that where I grew up.  So now I have to try to become a good old swimmer and I think I can.  I really like swimming, it's the inconvenience of getting to the pool that I don't like.  I took almost a week off running for no particular reason other than I didn't feel like running, but did run the last couple days and will do a long run today.  I'm overdue to get on the bike so it'll be a trainer ride later - I can run in the cold but not bike. 

For anyone that asks my advice or opinion on anything please remember - Do as I say, not as I do !!   I give really good advice, but I don't necessarily do what I know I should do.

I think by now most of us have at least picked out an A race for the year, although some of us are not commited yet.   I have a couple weeks before I taper for the half marathon, then I need to decide what I'm doing in the spring - either Black Bear HIM or something closer, or depending on the outcome at the 1/2 marathon I may do another half or a full marathon in May instead of BB. I'm still hoping to get into Muskoka 70.3 in Sept.

What is your A race for this season? What training plan are you using/planning to use or are you designing your own?

To my new friends from BT: 

On March 1-4,  I will be in Moab, Utah for a Lance Armstrong cancer benefit (Livestrong.org).  Each of the four days will feature a 45-60 mile ride through some of Moab's beautiful landscape (last year average temps were 25-30 degress...burrrr).    I'm asking for your help with this most worthy of causes.

http://www.active.com/donate/livestrong08/jmiddlemas

I wouldn't impose on any of you if I didn't feel it was important.  thanks.   jeff

hello all, I am officially back from sunny cabo to frigid MA.   I am not thrilled to be back at work, but I suppose that just makes me appreciate vacations, right?   at least my husband's schedule changed and he is home this week.

anyway, my A race is cranberry, 8/24.   it will be my first oly.  right now my plan is to focus on running (my major weakness) for the next 12 weeks starting monday with one of the hal higdon plans, working in some swimming and biking too.  after that, I'll do the 16 week beginner oly program here on bt to take me up to cranberry.

the current plan is also to work in some local running races and sprint distance tris.  a woman I know locally (she runs the bootcamp I take) is putting together a training group for the danskin sprint (late july) - I'm interested, but I'm not sure how it will fit with the oly plan, plus I think I'd have to monkey with my work schedule as one of the workouts will be wed PMs.

how have you guys worked shorter distance, lower priority races into your plan for your A race?  do I just go easy the week before and after?  these would all be sprint distances.

hi Monica - I agree with jenny's advice.  You can work the sprints into your plan and use them as training bricks.  I found the recovery from a sprint was really quick, and didn't really taper other than a day off before the race.  I think doing a sprint or two would be a good idea as 8/24 is well into the season so it would be nice to have some fun races to do to break up the months of training.

Training with a group sounds like a great idea.  Most people seem to enjoy Masters swimming and group runs and bike rides.

thanks guys!   I've never trained with a group before, just my husband (who is faster than I am, of course).    I have fun at boot camp, but that's not the same.

I think I'd get super bored just training for one late race.

Hello ladies and gentlemen!

I have not posted in this thread for a while...  All is good, I had to back away from training for a couple of weeks after I recovered from my bronchitis. I needed to focus on my new job so that became my number one priority.

Now that things are much better on the work front, I can get back to training. I am still building my base training schedule, just trying to fit my workouts into my busy schedule. I signed up for all the races I wanted to participate in except for one and paid their fees already. That is a huge motivator to resume training. I have also joined one of the February challenge teams (running) to kick start my running abilities and also joined a running clinic.

I hope everyone is doing well!

Welcome back Nats.  Your logs are looking good and joining a running group is a great idea.  Nice to have you back.

Cathy

hey, where is everybody???  I'm currently rocking week one of my running program... this is the first time in my life I've run three days in a row, so I'm happy about that.

 I think we need a good discussion question....   how about this:  what are the top three things that you say to yourself during the hardest part of a workout to keep yourself from quitting/backing off?