Great morning ride, watching the sun come up over the mountains. Legs felt really strong. I had to consciously push my pace and I kept my cadence up- avg for the ride was 89 (which includes all the stops). I even practiced taking my shoes off on the bike.

BRICK

I love bricks. I should really do these more often, especially since I had no knee clicks or twinges at all (bricks made the bike knee pain worse). Must've been the pedals/shoes all along. There was a little bit of pain in my upper quads when I was going downhills from all the downhill running I did on saturday, but overall, it was great!

Sluggish swim. Arms were dragging and my legs were sinking; it was hard to keep my form right. Cut the swim short and relaxed in the hot tub to get the soreness out of my legs.

What an awesome ride!! I think if I try to write a description like I did yesterday, I would make everyone else vomit with jealousy... It's not that I'm trying to brag or anything, it's just I have an awesome appreciation for living here, and I'm cherishing every last moment of it.

I decided to join Tom (madcow) for part of his ridiculously long ride. He called me when he left his place about 1.3hrs before he would get to me. I had just gone to bed about 5 hours beforehand, but I didn't care- I had dreams about riding my bike all night and couldn't wait to get out there. Tom and I met up and rode through mission valley, and he teased me for writing him a PM about our ride while I was drunk last night at like 2am. Hehe. He didn't think I'd make it!
Highlights from the ride:
-Amazingly perfect weather- 72 and sunny the entire time, with breezes going in every direction to cool you off whenever you started to get too hot.
-Very challenging ride with a lot of climbing and descents to make sure we were never bored.
-All the beautiful people in San Diego decided to run outside with their shirts off today (guys and girls) and I swear, at least half those chics looked like pro triathletes.
-Tons of puppies playing on the beaches.
-Stopping at Torrey Pines to fill up our water bottles, and gazing out to the ocean, a pod of about 20 dolphins starts playing in the surf. They were about 15 feet from shore, just where the waves were breaking- it was breathtaking!
-I LOVE my new shoes and pedals!! My knees never ached!
-The fact that I could ride 60mi after my run yesterday- I must've run too slowly yesterday 'cause I'm not too sore!
-AWESOME company- I thoroughly enjoy riding with Tom, we are really good riding partners (or at least I think so!)
-Did I mention that it was 72, sunny, breezy and we saw 20 dolphins?

....will someone please give me a better job here in San Diego so I don't have to go to grad school?!? Pretty, pretty please- I work as hard as I train, I swear!!

Awesome run! This is what I love about training :) I woke up super excited for this run at a cheery 6:15am. Ate my breakfast of a bagel, coffee and OJ. I got my audiobook all set up and made sure garmin was charged. 1/2hr after eating, I set out for my longest run of the year. The weather was absolutely perfect the instant I stepped out the door- the sun was out and the skies were crystal clear (which is rare in socal). My route is a like a tour of San Diego. I ran through an area of rich, old homes called Mission Hills, then went through Presidio park past an old Mission Church. Next was the San Diego River bike path where I got to bird watch for 3 miles. This path leads to the ocean and a little dog beach where there were tons of pups out romping in the surf. I ran along Ocean Beach for a bit, watching the hardcore surfers catching some waves. After running through the beach communnity, I got to sunset cliffs. Sunset cliffs is a gorgeous road that runs right along an awesome bluff overlooking the ocean. There were some really sweet lookin' sets rolling in, and surfers dotted some of the reef breaks out off the shore. The sky was so clear that you could see a few islands out in the pacific that aren't normally there. After this road, I turned into a park and climbed a gigantic hill up to the top of the cliffs and into Point Loma. This hill was a bitch, and I had to walk for a bit, just to keep my HR below 180. Now comes the really tough part- 1-2miles of all downhill. My quads were aching by the end, but I knew it was good practice for Boston, so I consciously kept my pace up.

By this time, I made it San Diego Bay, and ran along Spanish Landing park, checking out the rich folks' boats. This part of the run was wonderfully flat, but I knew I still had 1 more giant hill to go. Once I got closer to downtown SD, I turned up Grape street and began my last huge ascent. It was almost 1 mile long, and very steep, but I ran the whole thing. At the top, I made it to Balboa park where I got to run by the dog parks and watch all the puppies playing together. They all looked so darn happy!

Now I was at about 19.5 miles, feeling week and crummy, and just wanting to be back home. As I got closer to a carousel in Balboa Park, they were playing my favorite Olympic theme song by John Williams, and I got a shit-eating grin on my face- what could be better in life than this right now? The wonderful timing of the music and the awesomeness of the day got me back to my house, and I still averaged about 8:35 m/m through those last 2.5 miles. Man, I just LOVE running!

Great ride on the road! My legs felt really strong for some reason, and it was great to be outside! Did 2 hill climbs for fun. Knees were amazing.

BRICK

Legs were stiff, so I thought I was going a heck of a lot slower. Through some 100m strides in there

Last night I decided to get a bike fitting done by a FIST certified guy at Hi-Tech bikes because my knees had been feeling funky lately, and I wanted to prevent any of my old knee pain from starting up again. My knees are really 'knock-kneed', and with my SPD pedals, it felt like they weren't moving correctly. Also, I was using mountain biking shoes because when I bought my bike, I had no idea I would like this sport so much. Anyways, after all was said and done, I decided to give speedplays a shot, and bought a new pair of tri shoes as well! Turns out my old shoes were a bit small, and they just weren't fitting right anways. As soon as I slipped the SIDI T2's on, I loved them. They gave my foot so much more supprt, it was weird! The speedplays also felt great right away, even though at first having all that float was a bit weird. Now when I pedal, my legs can move more naturally, so hopefully it will help. He also tweaked my seat position, and I feel a lot more confident with my bike fit.

So this morning, I HAD to ride with my new shoes, and they are AWESOME!! I had such a better transfer of power through my stroke from having a much stiffer shoe. The speedplays are also really cool, and I didn't have a single tweak of knee discomfort, even when I did the brick. Hopefully this time I really have it solved. If not, then I'm screwed, and it's just a biomechanical issue that I can't get over- my femur is abnormally long. When I got home, I compared my leg length to my boyfriends, and although he is 3 inches taller than me, my legs are longer than his- I'm a freak! Here's a pic of my new shoes:

Medium long run with a decent amount of hills.

wu: 200 pull
main: 4x500 (8:20, 8:30, 8:29, 8:34)
cd: 200 pull

I'm gettin' me some purple :)

I'm still contemplating doing the tri 101, but I don't know what type of training plan to follow, and I also can't decide whether or not to risk doing a brand new race during its first year. Does anyone know of any training plans out there, or does anyone want to do the race with me?! Pretty please :)