Tri Training Week 7

Well, last weekend was the big brick - the actual bike course (15 miles) and run (3 miles). We arrived bright and early on Sunday for the ride/run. There were about 50 people there and we started the ride just after 7am. I did not have a good ride. Even though the weather was awesome, I ended up in the back group, which got separated from the main group at two stoplights. At one point, my small group had to stop and wait 5 minutes for the sweeper (last rider) because we didn't know exactly where to go. The course is hillier than I expected and there are some twists and turns that made me a bit nervous. But we were riding on the road with traffic, and on race day, the roads will be closed to everyone but us.

One of the great things about the practice course was that we attended a Q&A at 6:30 about the race. Almost everyone there was a first timer like us. And nearly all of us were most scared about the swim. We got some good tips and info. The thing that made me the most happy was that this race does individual starts for the swim. Meaning, you line up in your age/gender group and they send you one at a time, every five seconds. That is so much better than all dashing into the water at the same time.

We ended up having to go to Lake Harriet for the run, as there was a 5K race at Lake Nokomis that morning. But Michael and I ran the whole lake and I felt good on the run, despite being disappointed in my ride. I don't think we can do that again before race day, but I'm glad we got to see the course.

We were so tired last week that we took Saturday off (walked 3 miles at Lake of the Isles). This week, we had Monday off and because of our weekend travels to Chicago, we also have Saturday off.

Here's our schedule this week:

Monday – off (we walked Lake Harriet with my parents, who were in town for a few days)
Tuesday – swim – 150 yard warm up, 450 yards, 100 easy, 50 cool down
Wednesday – bike - 45 minute spin class (this was at 5:45am so it felt like we slept in!)
Thursday – run - 40 minutes
Friday – run – 40 minutes
Saturday – off
Sunday – brick - 60 minute bike and 30 minute run

I hoping we can get an open water swim in soon. Maybe we'll try to do that on Sunday too...

My 30 day ab challenge is going well, but I missed a day so that annoyed me. Yesterday, I did 75 sit ups (those really suck), 100 crunches, 45 leg lifts and a 60 second plank. My abs look no different - waa waa :-)

Sunshines and Creeps

Sunshine to Jessi coming to visit this weekend!

Sunshine to War Horse tomorrow night!

Sunshine to some good workouts this week.

Creep to TOTAL exhaustion. I cannot wait to sleep past 5:05 am tomorrow.

Creep to all the ants in my herb garden :-(

Sunshine to the person who is taking over my old job starting on Monday! That only took 6 months!

Sunshine to my hubby! We celebrated 9 months last weekend at a wedding and had a blast!

Tri Training – Week 6

I’m exhausted. How we will train for 32 more days, I have no idea!!!

Last week ended well. We had a good swim on Thursday, a kick-butt spin class at 5:10am on Friday (it was so hard  but so good – Michael kept glaring at me), and an awesome run along lake Michigan on Saturday. Well, the scenery was awesome but my run was slow. I was dressed too warmly and was sucking air the last ten minutes. But that was nothing that some yummy Ann Sather cinnamon rolls couldn’t fix!

We don’t have an off day this week, as we skipped our brick Sunday after getting back from our trip to Chicago. There was no way we were going to brick that night so we did the bike portion, and then ran Monday. I pushed myself and ran faster than I normally do, which made me happy. This Sunday, we are going to do a practice course with race officials. We’ll do the actual course for the bike and run at 7am so that should be interesting.

This week, our schedule is:

Monday – 30 minute run
Tuesday – swim – 150 yard warm up, 400 yards, 150 easy, 50 cool down
Wednesday – 40 minute run
Thursday – swim - 150 yard warm up, 400 yards, 150 easy, 50 cool down
Friday – bike – spin class at 5:10am
Saturday – run 40 minutes
Sunday – brick - practice course – will probably be a 60 minute bike and 30 minute run

My 30 day ab challenge is going well. I haven’t missed a day and today’s agenda is 55 sit ups, 65 crunches, 40 leg lifts, and 45 second plank.

Goals - June 2013

Ah – it’s already June 11 and I’m just getting around to blogging my goals. It’s been one of those months where I feel like I have no downtime. Last night, Michael and I went for a run, made dinner, did dishes, and a load of laundry and by the time that was all said and done, it was 9pm!

My May goals went pretty well. I’m going to go a bit conservative for June, considering everything we have going on. If it’s not related to our travel plans or the tri, it probably is not happening.

Professional Goals - May 2013

Get the fiscal year end mailer out the door. Yes. I was happy without it turned out.

Take the “thank you” photo. Yes, but the quality isn’t great. Hoping our graphic designer can make it look good!

Finalize reunion volunteers and party locations. Almost finished. Just a few left and after next week, it won’t matter to me anymore because I am not in charge of it!

Recruit golf and tennis hosts for August event. Done.

Only work late one night per week.  I have been staying late two to three nights a week, but only until 6 a few times so that’s good.

Hire someone for my job! FINALLY – YES!

Personal Goals - May 2013

Stick to triathlon training schedule. We have stuck to the schedule but had to do some switching of days. But we did not missed a workout.

Yoga once a week. Ha – I went once. I just don’t have time. Post-tri, yoga will be back in my routine. I promise!

Eat healthier lunches. I did pretty good but now that the students are gone, I really can because I’m bringing my own lunch every day, so I’m not tempted with all the yummy things our chef (yes, he’s a chef, not a cook) makes.

Try a new recipe. I’m sure I did but I cannot even remember – the month seems like such a long time ago!

Menu plan better each week. We did much better with this in May. This not only helped us eat better but kept our finances in check.

Move into our new room at the cabin. Done.

Plant garden/flowers. Done.

Go to a Twins game.  Success!

Go to my school’s spring musical (Hair Spray). Yes – it was pretty cute.

Have a date night with Michael. We had informal date nights/days but not a formal one. That’s ok though – informal is good for me :-)

Host Mother’s Day brunch. Yes, and it was delicious. We made a sausage frittata, veggie frittata, cinnamon rolls, and a yogurt bar. 

Have a girls night. Yes. We had a nice “walking” girls night around one of the lakes – hope we do more of those!

Go on walks in the evenings. We were not so good about that.

Read three books. I read a lot this month - 5 books. After the TV finales for all my shows, I became engulfed in several books.

Blog three times a week. I need to be better about this. But since I feel like all we did was workout, there was not much to blog about...

Professional Goals - June 2013

Meet our financial and participation goals. We’re close on all of them except one so we should be ok.

Finalize thank you card. 

Meet with data researcher about what end-of-year reports I need.

Start website overhaul.

Hand off my old job to the new “me.” Did I mention her name is Jen and she’s tall and blonde? :-)

Personal Goals - June 2013

Keep up with training schedule.

Complete 30 day ab challenge.

Do one open water swim practice.

Eat healthier lunches. 

Menu plan each week.

Keep up on our gardening/yard work.

Go to the cabin the last weekend of the month.

Have a fun weekend with Jessi.

Eat all of our favorite Chicago foods – deep dish pizza, Ann Sather’s cinnamon rolls, and a Chicago-style hotdog.

Reschedule our meeting with financial planner.

Have a girls night. 

Go on walks in the evenings. 

Catch up on my magazine reading.

Blog three times a week. 

Sunshines and Creeps

Sunshine to going to one of my favorite cities in the world today: CHICAGO! Our friends Corey and Brittany (remember the Perfect Strangers Save the Date video?) are getting married.

Sunshine to going to Chicago with Michael for the first time since we moved. We cannot wait to be back in the city where we met and fell in love.

Sunshine to deep dish pizza tonight!

Sunshine to seeing Jen and Kristie tonight!

Sunshine to a run along Lake Michigan tomorrow.

Sunshine to Ann Sather, my favorite breakfast place, tomorrow.

Sunshine to seeing lots of other Chicago friends tomorrow.

Creep to having to do a brick on Sunday night when we get back from Chicago. That is the last thing I want to do when I get home, but I'll probably eat a week's worth of calories while I'm there so it's for the best.

And now, some non-Chicago posts...

Sunshine to reading the entire new Dan Brown book "Inferno" last weekend. Creep to not being able to find a new book that I'm interested in.

Sunshine to some good workouts this week. Creep to waking up at 4:45am today to go to spin class.

Sunshine to a productive work retreat this week. I will be very busy this summer. Thank goodness that the person we hired for my job starts on June 17!

June - crazy-busy month!

We have a ton of stuff going on in June! Nearly all of it is really fun stuff but it will be a crazy-intense month.

Here’s what’s going on:

June 7-9 – Chicago for our friends Corey and Brittany’s wedding
June 12 – dinner with friends Allie and Christian
June 14-16 – Jessi is coming to visit and we are seeing War Horse
June 16 – Father’s Day – don’t know what we’re doing yet but I’m assuming dinner with the M’s fam
June 20-22 – Chicago for Amy’s graduation, plus a special pit stop on the way home (more on that in a later blog post)
June 26 – Girls Night
June 28-30 – weekend at the cabin

Also, we train for the tri all month long, with a practice mini-tri on Sunday, June 30. And did I mention that it is also the last month of the fiscal year at my school? So I have to raise another $92K to reach our goal by June 30? NBD…

Tri Training - Week 5

It’s a busy week of tri training here. We thankfully had Monday as an off day. After 7 straight days of working out and ending with a brick, I was very, very thankful for Monday (which never happens – I hate Mondays).

We ended last week strong, but had a set back Thursday, as we rushed to make a 5:10am spin class (hello, 4:45am alarm!), only to have it be cancelled. So we just rode spin bikes for 45 minutes at the gym. Michael was dying of boredom. Our brick on Sunday went better than last week’s. We did it at 7:30am on Sunday so it was quite cool. I changed from capris to fleece-lined tights at the last minute and was really glad I did. And I wore an earband under my bike helmet - because I’m cool like that - and I was headache free after the run. I ran further this time but my pace was still pretty slow. Hopefully that will improve as the weeks go on.

This week, our schedule is:

Monday – off
Tuesday – swim – 100 yard warm up, 3x200 yards with 30 seconds rest, 100 easy, 50 cool down
Wednesday – 40 minute run – our route around our neighborhood is getting more and more creative. And it’s apparently National Running Day today so we planned that nicely 
Thursday – swim - 100 yard warm up, 3x250 yards with 30 seconds rest, 100 easy, 50 cool down
Friday – bike – spin class at 5:10am – I checked and it’s still on
Saturday – run 40 minutes – so excited to do this run in Chicago along Lake Michigan!
Sunday – brick – 35 minute bike, 25 minute run

I ordered a few top options that should be here this week so I’m hoping to nail down my day-of tri outfit soon. And I started doing a 30 day ab challenge for June. So far, it's not too bad but by the end of the month, I will have to do 125 situps, 200 crunches, 65 leg raises, and a 2 min plank. Ugh!