Experior and Slornow's Winter Mentor Group-CLOSED (Page 7)

Merry Christmas everyone. Enjoy the day.

Randy

Merry Christmas everybody.

I lost something last night for Christmas.  I was lying on the couch watching football when all of a sudden while moving my feet my left big toe felt funny. I took my sock off and discovered the nail on that toe had pulled back at about a 45 degree angle.  No pain, just a strange feeling.  Ended up rocking it back and forth and side to side until it just came off.  I now have a big toe with no nail.  Looks and feels strange.

I listen and read about ultrarunners all the time and losing a nail is no big deal.  I guess it's just part of the lifestyle.

Rode 24 miles yesterday pulling the kids behind the hybrid in the trailer to the park.

Doing nothing yet today beside playing Disneyland on the Kinect with the kids.  Planning on long run of 9 miles tonight.

I've last many to soccer. They grow back very nicely!

Merry Christmas everyone.

I had a pretty decent training weekend.  Ran about 4 miles Friday, biked about 45 miles Saturday, and rand about 6 miles today.  Possibly doing another 40ish mile ride again tomorrow.

So, how's the Christmas hangover?

I took the day off from training yesterday (unless you include cooking all day, which was really hard on my foot), but will at least ride, and if I can work up the nerve, I'll go 'run' in my parents' pool.

Other than that, today is 'play with new toys' day...  Have fun all!

Welcome to BT, Kerry!  And Ceril's husband joining the couch to 5K program.  I think it's great to take on the training challenges together.  So much easier when your most important person is sharing the pain and glory :-)  Speaking of having company, my BIL and I went out for a nice 7.5 mile run yesterday and he recounted his full IM experience to me - talk about a good way to pass the time!  This capped off a good week for me in terms of training - over 420 minutes, or averaging >1 hr/day in training, which is kind of a back of mind threshold for me.  Will probably ease up a bit this week due to juggling family and work.  Hoping to get a swim in at lunchtime today - closing in on 100K for the year!  (silly, I know, but I love getting that odometer to roll over!)

Eating.  Not so good.  Gonna be close if I can hold it under 200lbs by Jan 1st (a December goal).  I've gained 12lbs since Oct 1st.  Will need to refocus in 2012. 

Have a good day, everyone!

Stu

PS. to Ceril - my brother in law (not the IM one!) and his wife live in Hillsborough and have a 12 year old daughter - Steve and Laura Simroth (daughter Emily).  It would be a small world if you knew them - but I know Hillsborough is a pretty large place :-)

Hey there, sounds like some great Christmas get-together's and workouts!  Glad you got to meet my hubby, and even more glad that he is joining in the journey .  We also got his bike trainer set up yesterday, and are both figuring out which races we might want to do in 2012. 

Ceril, good move on getting the shoes right first! 

Stu, nice inspiring run with the BIL and nice consistency!

The crud is still hanging on and I've been pretty exhausted from doing a whole lot of nothing.  With that + the ankle, I had to kiss my first 1,000 mile running year goodbye, topping out at 950something.  Did get in a walk today, so hopefully that's the beginning of getting back on the road.  Half Mary on 1/22 will be "interesting". 

Went for a short but fairly hard group ride today.  It was pretty windy, so I tucked in the pace line a little more than usual during the first half.  We had a motorist yell at us for not riding in the right lane, even though we were about to make a left turn at the next intersection (and it's not like we were going slow...we were actually going above the posted 35 mph speed limit going downhill. 

That kind of ticked me off and got me to ride a lot harder the last 10 miles.  I was going to take a pull up front, but some of the guys were egging me on to ride harder...so I broke away and held them off for the next ~4 miles at our next regrouping point.  Averaged 276 watts (283 normalized) for just over 10 minutes.  Nowhere near where I want to be...but certainly on track.

Went for a short OWS afterwards.

Hey gang-well I'm back home after 3 days of eating, drinking and poor sleep. Did run each day and just finished a short trainer ride so hopefully I will feel better tomorrow.  Just getting out of my usual schedule throws me off and makes me feel kind of blah.  Of course, the eating and drinking don't help with all that.

Jason-nice ride!

Carol-sorry you won't hit 1000 miles.  Frustrating... But, its more important to get better and come back 100%

I'm bad about trying to hit certain numbers.  In August I looked at where I was and figured out what I needed to do to reach 1000 miles running for the year and 5000 miles biking.  Passed the 1000 miles running awhile back and should hit 5000 on the bike in the next ride or two.  The numbers don't really mean anything to anyone but me. However, setting the goals in August kept me more focused on purposeful riding and running rather than just training.  

Its back to work for me tomorrow but should be a fairly quiet week other than the end of the year stuff.

Randy

Carol: Hope you feel better soon! What you've done so far is amazing and something to be very proud of.

Very excited. Local Tri federation is putting together a ride through the bike course of the upcoming Xterra race. Friends and I did a portion of it while it was mucky and under water. Took us 3 hours to get through 12 miles, yikes! Hopefully in better condition for the ride through. We also have the 1st tri of 2012 on the 22nd of January, which is a sprint. I better get cracking.

Hoping for any kind of physical activity today. Cleaning up after Christmas is like a work out in itself, so we'll see how I feel afterwards.

Got a 4 mile run in this afternoon and a Core Workout as well.  Went light on the CORE until I get into it a little.  I usually go to big and hurt so much I can't do anything else.  I need to get a weight ball and a few more stretch cords.

Speedwork out tomorrow evening at the high school track with my Tri Club.  Doing 4-6 1200's at Interval pace with 400 recoveries.  1 mile WU and CD.  Do 4 of them and you have a 6 miles workout when you are complete.  Goes by pretty fast.  Nice when you are running with others; motivation and intensity.

Take Care everyone.

Blanda-that sounds like a heck of a bike course. Xterra sounds like fun!

Brian-nice run.  I need to do more core work.  Always hurts after those first few sessions.

A little off topic.  What are some of your favorite TV series?  Old or new either way.  I watch Netflix when on the trainer and am looking for a few new series to try out.  I typically mix movies in with a series or two.  This past year I have either finished or am up to date on: Lost, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Weeds, Eastbound and Down, Men of a Certain Age and most of Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There may be others that I can't recall.  Started recently on Fringe but not sure I'm into that one and willing to commit long-term.  Have watched a few early episodes of Dexter and 24 but never quite got hooked.  I like sitcoms but I see those more as filler or something to take a break from a series.  BUT, still open to those suggestions as well.

With 4-5 hours a week on the trainer looming in front of me I'm looking for suggestions.....HELP 

Randy 

Nice training everyone!  I went out for a ride (first outdoor ride since worlds -- that bike ride put me right off of riding for a while), and the entrance to the Fort was closed.    How dare those soldiers take a day off!  So I rode around randomly for a while and came home -- still it was a good ride, and just what I needed to get my bike training back on track.

I totally understand what you guys are saying about arbitrary numbers.  I am the same way.  Carol, we can have a mutual pity party -- I was easily on track to hit 2500 for the year running, but because of this stupid injury I will miss it.  I agree with Randy and Stu -- the arbitrary numeric goals are, for whatever reason, motivating.  I frequently set myself goals like that.  My New Years 'resolution' will be an arbitrary numbers goal for the swim.  Still deciding what goal will be sufficiently challenging, while still achievable.  (I did that to myself last summer running and it worked out.  I will do it to myself this summer on the bike.  This winter is for swimming.)

So, for a guy who has trouble getting motivated to swim, but has pretty good access to pools and should be able to make the time to swim, what's a challenging but achievable goal (and one that will improve my swim!)??

TV:  We only have Netflix, so what little I know about TV comes from randomly looking there, and I'll reveal my almost complete ignorance by mentioning that I've never heard of a single of the shows that Randy mentioned except 24 -- for whatever reason, I did get hooked on 24 last year, despite the mindless violence, and watched all of it.  I'm generally into much 'calmer' shows though!  The only time I've had real access to TV was living in England, so I tend to watch British shows.  Right now I'm watching Midsommer Murders (murder mysteries, duh) and Kingdom (about a soliciter in a small English town).  On the trainer today I'll probably watch a movie, though.

Sorry I don't watch much TV.  If I do it generally is a show like Holmes on Homes and Renovation type shows on HGTV.  Exciting I know, but knowing this stuff comes in handy when you would like to save some MONEY doing it yourself and suggest to your wife or husband some of the money you saved can go towards additional training and race gear. : ) 

That's my job.