Destination MoP is FULL (of motivation!) (Page 8)

Thanks for the above.  The coach is good and really seems to know her stuff.  I forgot to mention that the final thing she had us do was practice for transition, so when we got out of the water we had to run to the cars (100yds away) and practice getting out of our wetsuits while running.  It was quite funny, but something they practice every time as it's very valuable experience.  I got the wetsuit a bit stuck on my heels because my fingers were too cold to do it easily, but I think with a few more goes it'll get better.

A couple of chuckles from another site to start the day (hopefully), and Rach, I just had to add the last one ;-)  All in good fun (and b/c I'm in awe of your dedication). 

Top 10 Reasons You know you are a Triathlete:

10.  You have a $4000 bike strapped on top of your $2000 car.
   
9. During the vacations, when everybody else is partying, you go to sleep at 10:00pm because you're going for a long ride the next day.
   
8. Nobody believes you when you say 'Never again'.
   
7. Your company announces mandatory unpaid shutdown days - every other Friday thoughout the summer - in order to cut costs and stay in business, and your response is "Great - now I can do two long workouts on the weekends and still have an easy day."
   
6. You have more water bottles than glasses in your cupboard
      
5. Mowing the lawn really smarts after being aero all morning.

4. The dog runs and hides when you get the leash!

3. You consider work regeneration time between training sessions.

2. Your bath towel is never dry.

and the number 1 reason you know you're a triathlete...

1.  You bike 18 miles home from work at 2am after a 12 hour shift because it seemed like a good idea at the time :-)

So who are we cheering for this weekend?  Anyone racing this weekend?  I see several on people's logs for the following week...

There's a (very) local 10K on Saturday with a monster hill that I might make part of my weekend run since it's a good cause.  We're pretty lucky, for a smallish city, we seem to have a running race every weekend in the spring and fall.

Stu

Stu -

My sister is hosting a really incredible 2 part race called "Move me out of my condo into a temporary apartment up 3 flights of stairs" on Saturday, the second part will be in August, "Move me out of my temporary apartment down 3 flights of stairs into my new house".  Yea for little sister's making progress. I'm not sure how I can document that on my log, but I will find a way.

I hope everyone enjoys Friday and has a wonderful weekend. Good luck to anyone racing.

Christine

Yes!  Perfect!

LOVE IT! Talk about a good workout - I hope you have nice weather for it.

Nice pull Stu.

OK, I'm planning this already.  I'm taking the family to my parents house near South Port, NC over Memorial Day weekend.  I'm already looking for a bike route and planning to get an OWS in the surf (maybe rent a wetsuit).

Guess I'm getting closer to 'triathlete' status

Steve

You're a great older sis!  I remember helping my little sister move from St. Louis to LA.  It was a haul, but it was fun to spend some serious time together :-)  First house, cool!

So you get double points for stairmaster and weights... impressive!  In all seriousness though, careful with the lifting... don't want anymore injuries in MoP group (right Tom?)

-Stu

Yep, you've clearly caught the bug, Steve.  Watch that NC surf :-)

What are you trying to say? ;-)

At least half of those made me laugh because they're just so true...

On a similar topic, has anyone seen the "I'm training for an Ironman" video on youtube? I'm not quite that bad (I don't do early starts for one thing), but it's funny.

You know you are a triathlete when: you run 6 miles to the pool for a swim, but the pool is only 2 miles away.

That pretty much summarises my day.

You know you are a triathlete when:  you run 4 miles before a 1000 yard swim and feel like it was an inadequate workout after reading the message board ;-)  Nicely done, Rach! 

(also enjoyed the video... those presentations totally crack me up... the monotone delivery is just so great!)

Off for part one of my therapy!

Too much glitter!!! My daughters and I went to a Ke$ha concert on Tuesday night, (missed workout, but does dancing and jumping for two hours count?)...woke up feeling like P-Diddy the next morning, I did NOT brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack but I never made it back...home until Wednesday night.  Don't get too excited a room was comp'd for us and we ended up spending the night in Reno.  However, I did have a most excellent run on Wednesday. 

Happy to be doing yoga again too.  Instructor changed the schedule, so instead of doing pilates at the end of the day we do yoga which I love.  They are both challenging but pilates seems like just work, yoga offers something different. So I feel good today after last nights class.

Running again tonight; working on my schedule this weekend. and doing a group ride with my yoga instructor and some of her friends on Saturday.  Then a good swim...1700 - 1900 scheduled for Sat and Sunday.

My immediate goal this week is to get back on schedule with the Oly training. 

May goals:  Get those distances for the Oly down and comfortable.  Log my nutrition. Study on what my nutrition should be as a diabetic triathlete.  Get my mph on the run under 11 mins.  Check my blood at least twice a day...right now I do about twice a week if that much.

Get rest!  Make that a priority as I amp up my training.

See you all in the blog this weekend when I have a little more time.

I second this.  Not that I've done a race yet but when I first started researching wondering what people wear, I was concerned with the idea of having a wet bathingsuit on and then putting clothes over it.  I would worry about time as well as chaffing.  So that's where I found out about tri specific tops and shorts.  It sounds way easier and more comfortable to have one set of clothes for the whole race.  They are expensive, so I started looking on ebay.  I was able to find shirts, shorts and a bathingsuit (for training), all brand new Zoot and for really low prices.  There's a great selection of brand new, name brand stuff on there.

My plans for the weekend:

Saturday:

Start the morning with a short run.  Then in the afternoon attend a swimming clinic with some of the others girls who are on the company team with me for a tri in July.

Sunday:

Morning group bike with the same team of girls from work.

I'm excited about two group workouts in one weekend.  It's cool to have a team to train with, it brings a sense of accountability as well as a social aspect to training.  There are a lot of clubs and group runs and bikes in my area.  I think pretty soon I'm going to start getting involved in more of these group activities.

Great job! 

It's nice to hear that you enjoy your group workouts.  I'm trying to convince myself to join one of the small tri clubs in my area......your making it tempting!!

I'm sure dancing and jumping for two hours counts as exercise.  All you have to do now is work out where to log it ;-)

Your run sounds great.  It doesn't matter what the actual speed is as long as you're showing an improvement.  Just keep up the good work!

I'd highly recommend it.  I did two short tri's last year just with my husband, and didn't join the tri club until the beginning of this year, although we started going to some of the training sessions in about September.  It's made a big difference being part of the club.  I really enjoy the training, but also there's a social aspect to it which is great, and having friends who actually understand why I spend so much time training...  We've had some great group runs and cycles, and of course I've just started going to the open water swim sessions.

And I've now got a club tri suit, so when I turn up at my next tri I get to look like "the real thing" because there'll be about 10 of us wearing the same kit :-)

That's good advice.  I've been wanting to join the tri club in my area (and the track club and the cycling club ), but I've been reluctant because I'm such a newbie.  I also haven't joined any group runs/rides yet because I'm afraid I can't do the distance or keep up with their pace and that would be embarrassing.  I keep hearing though not to feel that way and that joining a group is going to be even more helpful for training than sticking it out alone.  So maybe in the next few weeks I'll get up the courage to just jump in and join a group!

You should definitely join.  I was amazed how many people come to the training sessions who aren't training for tri's, but just wanted to get fitter.  And a lot of the people who I thought really knew what they were doing when I joined turned out to have about 6 months more experience than me.  The only way you'll know if you can keep up is by going along and trying.  If it's a decent club they'll allow for different paces, and if you think you can't keep up with the main group, make friends with someone who's happy to hang around at the back with you.

On today's training plan I have a swim (I'm on night shift, so can't really fit much in), but unfortunately the pool is closed because of a gala, so I guess today will be a rest day.  Tomorrow is meant to be a rest day, but I may be going for a long bike with some friends.  So the training plan is going well...  Flexibility is key!

We've got our start times for next weekend's sprint.  Getting the butterflies again already!

I'm sure most have you have already seen this, but if not, here's a Happy Mother's Day video for our MoP Moms :-)

Got in a nice long ride this morning.  Really focused on having relaxed legs and even pedal strokes.

Afterwards I went to the area's only triathlon store to check out clothing and take a peek at some bikes.  I spent a very long time trying on every tri-short in the store and a few tops.  All of the shorts were too tight right at the bottom of the short above the knee and didn't feel right.  They fit fine everywhere else.  I've been bidding on eBay and am now glad I did win any - I wouldn't have been happy with them.  I accidentally tried on a men's tri-suit and it fit perfectly.  So then I tried on all the women's tri-suits.  None fit quite right and some I couldn't even figure out how to get in (these ones must be for those with the shape of a pencil).  I ended up getting the men's tri-suit and will just wear a swim top underneath.

Then I looked at bikes.  I ride an old Trek 1200 from the early 90's.  Am thinking about getting a new bike sometime this year.  Lots to look at.  I do think I'd like to go completely carbon but don't know about tri-specific bike vs road.  Fellow said my Trek was perfect for commuting and didn't recommend getting rid of it.

So sometime in the next month or so I plan on heading there on a weekday to do some test rides.