Vineman Half Race Report OR At Least I Didn't Walk

Well, it's over. And a mixed bag it was.

The week leading up to the race was unusually cool, and luckily that trend continued into yesterday. Taper week was great, workouts good, some down-time, and miracle of miracles, that diet finally paid off and the scale on Friday showed me a number in the 130's (albeit 139.8) for the first time in a long time. That was a nice confidence booster as I finished all my animal chores and left for check-in on Saturday. Navigated the check in process, including the mandatory athlete meeting and expo, and headed to my usual Motel 6 to set up the bike, knit and contemplate my "big goal". I wanted dearly to finish this race in under 6 hours. Over a decade ago, I once did a 5.58, and that goal has been elusive ever since! It torments me. The past few years I've done a 6.12, and last year was a 6.05. SO so close. Totally do-able.

The swim is always a deja-vu; oh, are we already here again? Looking up the canyon of the Russian River, unable to see the turnaround bouy. I read on swimsmooth.com recently how it pays to start the swim a little harder than you might. So I tried it. Usually I let myself ease in and warm-up so to speak. Stayed in a pretty straight line, which was good. I do love this swim; it's pretty and straight. Came out in 43.09, roughly 3 minutes faster than last year. Not much, considering I've been swimming 5 days a week as of late, including 2 masters workouts each week. But I'll take it. I would have been ticked it it was slower.

The bike: the lesson to be gleaned from this painful sub-3 hour 56 mile ride is probably not to use too big of gears or you will pay (hear me? PAY) for it later. I think I was lured in by that seductress known as strength, and simply stopped using my head. It's been awihle since I haven't had my own personal gear-mashing warning, the residual pain from my broken leg. So, without that, I think I got a little giddy in search of my goal and really should have been geared one easier MOST of that ride. The moral? Just because you can use them doesn't mean you should. 2.53.46. Yes, people, that was an average speed of 19.3 mph, and about fifteen minutes faster than last year.

But that's when the payment plan began to kick in...The Run: or Why Won't My Legs Work? It was just a sufferfest. Ugly shuffling for 13.1 miles. Mile 5 I seriously started to wonder if I could even finish. I just did NOT want to walk! And technically I didn't, but the speed was hardly discernable from a walk. Why I have come to the conclusion that my major mistake was the bike gear mashing, is that my heart rate wasn't even that high! I just couldn't turn my legs over. I had to actually talk myself into pushing hard enough to keep my heart rate in the target zone. But it hurt! Almost 15 minutes slower than last year. So, between my bike and my run, it was pretty much a wash.

6.08.39

I will now spend the next 364 days trying to figure out how to shave off this 8 minutes and 39 seconds.

A Weekend In The Mountains....Finally!

Our summer has been so busy so far! We haven't been able to make it up to our Arnold house for at least 2 months. So we were so thrilled to get up there this past weekend. My goals were simple.
#1: To train. The picture above is of Lake Alpine. This amazing place is a 30 mile, uphill bike ride from our front door and 30 miles back down the mountain to get back. It is one of my favorite rides of all times. Sunday I got in a three hour trail run just south of the house, and was happy, again, not to have to answer the question, "How fast can a bear run?". The weather was gorgeous both days.

#2: To knit. I got started on a baby blanket for my friend's new baby. But all I have to show you is this ball of yarn. My love-hate relationship with knitting continues. I got 17 rows in before having to rip the whole thing apart due to an irreparable mistake. I started another go at it yesterday and am 3 rows safely in.

#3: To read. My guilty pleasure of the summer--going back to re-read the second half of the Diana Gabaldon Outlander series (I'm on book 5, above), in order to get to this:

The new one! I read this series about ten years ago and was honestly surprised at how much I liked it, knowing my usual taste in fiction. This series is about a woman who travels back in time, to Scotland 200 years ago, where she falls in love. Part historical fiction, part romance, it is history made fun as you get to know the main characters Claire and Jamie in every 1000-plus page volume. Fun, fun summer reading.

Animal update:

Little black bunny from the previous post made a visit to the vet that same day and unfortunately it was a one-way trip. Poor little bunny was very sick and diagnosed with probable kidney failure. She is buried in our yard under a large oak tree.

Daisy the goat has had quite the week! The first 2 days she was here, she sat by the gate and was rather subdued. That first Monday I gave her a medicated bath for her dirty, flaky skin, and she seemed to immediately perk up! I knew she still had some sort of serious medical issues most likely, but she sure seemed to feel better. And she sure did eat a lot! I'm not sure how well she was fed where she came from. This week the goat vet came out to the house. I doubt she had ever seen one of those--let alone one as nice as Dr. Dana Conley. She brought her mobile ultrasound unit and we took a peek. It appears her lopsidedness comes from hernias, so parts of her insided are less protected by a body cavity wall. This is something she can live with and even if they could be repaired surgically, her advanced age (she is indeed ancient) would probably preclude it. She was wormed, de-flead, had blood drawn, put on some arthritis medication, and had her hooves trimmed. She is like a girl who just got new shoes. She is all OVER the couple-acres-hill! But her true nirvana seemed to arrive this week in the form of a whole bale of alfalfa hay! I put out the first flake and she spent the next 12 hours sitting there, chewing and chewing. When I brought her down to the driveway for the vet yesterday, the she got so excited and the look on her face said one thing: "The Mother Ship!!". This week she has even started talking to me when I approach the gate to bring food or come pet her. I'm so glad she has come here for her retirement and hope we can make her time left the best it can be.

And alas, this week is the Vineman taper week! It is so nice to have some time and energy for some other things. Saw a friend yesterday, took Sporty to the library, pulled some weeds. And the great short workouts where I come home convinced someone has swapped my legs out for Chrissie Wellington's....taper week indeed!

Vineman or Bust.

Never a dull moment

So. My neighbor does dog-rescue and runs a "traditional" rescue group (fostering/adopting out) out of our local animal shelter. We have become friends in the symbiotically dysfunctional way that animal rescue people form most relationships (I'm joking...sort of). So, she calls me on Friday before the holiday weekend with the "euthanasia list" in her hand. Not many people know, but around the country in shelters everywhere, the staff gears up for fireworks and 4th festivities by clearing out space for all the animals who will become spooked, run away, and end up in the shelter by the end of the long weekend. And they do this in the most logical way, of course. They kill everything. Problem solved. So, there are 76 healthy adoptable cats on this list she is reading to me. It took everything I had to remain in my right mind and stick to the fact that I'm at my unofficial "cat-limit" and say no. But I did definitely have room for 2 rabbits. So, she dropped off the two above. Eunice is the black and white bunny and is doing well with the resident bunnies here. The little black one has a vet appointment this afternoon as she has some definite "issues" and she may or may not be coming back home today, depending on the prognosis for quality of life.
But oh, no, I didn't stop there! I said bring me one of THESE....

Meet Daisy. Daisy arrived in my rescue friend's mini-van. Daisy has been seriously neglected. She is so thin you can feel all of her bones. And her hooves are so grown out she can hardly walk. She has some sort of growths all over her "saddlebags", and her skin is a mess.

But she is sweet as can be and loves to be loved. And our other little lonely goat has been doing a goat happy dance (seriously...it's hilarious) all over the pasture all weekend. She is SO happy to have a friend since she has been alone since Thunder died last year. Daisy has been eating and drinking like a champ and let me subject her to grooming and a medicated bath yesterday. Thismorning, all though she still looks lumpy and lopsided, and the farrier has yet to fix her feet, she was so full of herself she was up at the top of the hill munching away on grass. I don't know what her prognosis will be once the vet comes, but at least we will provide her with some dignity at this end of her life.

I got in an itty bitty bit of crafting this weekend between Sporty's race and sorting out animals. I finished this 9 X 9 scrapbook for my friend's new baby girl. I won't post all 20 pages, but it came out really really cute. I had a boatload of girl-baby scrapbook stuff.

sorry, this last one is sideways.

And The World Contains Another Triathlete

Setting up Transition.

Bodymarking!

The start.

Bike Out.

The finish!

Sporty Spice did it! He finished is very first triathlon! This race was part of the Jenny's Light Kids Triathlon series. It was held at the College of San Mateo, which was a beautiful campus. We were all up and in the car by 6:30. It was going to be a really hot day and Sporty's wave was last. We got there, set up his transition area, checked in and got body marked (what a proud moment!). Then we had almost a two hour wait by the pool, for the older kids to start. There were maybe 80 kids in all, ages five to twelve. Lots of parents, some with M-dot tatoos, and at least a couple of recognizable pro-women with their kids. The announcer was very funny, making comments on the p.a. system like, "ok, kids you've trained for years for this, and you're almost ready to live your parents' dream."

Sporty had a mini-crisis at the start and there was a little crying. I had a feeling there was going to be, only because the pool at his swim school is an indoor wading-type pool, and this one was a big, bright, deep, Olympic sized pool. It had to look intimidating. Luckily for us, they were allowed to use kickboards for the 50 yards! And still, my kid was last out of the pool--takes after his mother. And like me, he was pretty happy to get that swim behind him and get on that bike. Sixteen inch wheels rolling as fast as they could, off he went for the mile loop (2 laps!), powered up the little hill and back down without wiping out (whew!). And on to the run--half a mile--he took off running as fast as he possibly could--and through the finish chute! Professional Becky LaVelle gave him his medal and took his timing chip. He was so proud! It was absolutely one of the cutest things I've ever seen and I couldn't be prouder. When we got back to the car he asked if his race was going to be on tv.

Lookie What Sporty Got!

MAIL?? FOR ME?? WELL, WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE??...
ah
AH, MY FIRST USA TRIATHLON LICENSE!
AND I'M ONLY SIX!
WATCHOUT MACCA!!

Yes, it is upon us. Sporty's first triathlon is this coming weekend and we are training hard. Stay tuned....

As promised, June in our household was nuts. It started off with our aforementioned visitors. Brett has just posted his podcast from Escape From Alcatraz on www.zentri.com so both his Ironman Texas podcast and this latest ones contains bits of audio from their trip here and glimpses of life at our house. So fun to listen to on my runs this week.

While our houseguests were here, our little family actually had to leave for an overnight to the Mister's parents' up north several hours where we attended a graduation party for our eldest neice as well as a 50th anniversary party for his parents. The next week contained Sporty's kindergarten graduation and end-of-year festivities. The weekend before last, the Mister did his third-this-year 200 mile ride so Sporty and I were on our own and made it to the local Wildlife Museum and to see Mr. Popper's Penguins, which we very much enjoyed. The following Monday my good friend gave birth to her first baby, a little girl named Madeline and I was lucky enough to see both mommy and baby in the first 12 hours after her arrival. So amazing! And I couldn't be more thrilled for her.

And all along, I was finishing 3 weeks of major training (some might say overtraining--but I had the time and it felt ok). 70 mile rides, 15 mile runs and trips to the summit of Diablo each week for starters. And getting ready for a June 26th feral cat spay neuter clinic....

NO KITTENS FOR ME! NO SIR!!

Our clinic went well, if a bit smaller than we'd like. We fixed 60 cats. One cat didn't make it through surgery, which is always hard. He turned out to have an enlarged heart that we couldn't have known about and which just couldn't handle the anesthesia. But on the upside, one little itty bitty calico kitten with the saddest eyes I've ever seen, who was too tiny to be fixed that day, went home with one of our volunteers, and is going to live her life in one of the best homes I know of.

Belated Race Report: San Jose International Triathlon--1500 yard swim, 26 mile bike, 10K run.

It dawned on me the morning of the race that it had been about 3 years since I've done a race this short! This race is flat and fast! And the weather was very cool, which I have never experienced there. The swim start was chilly and almost everyone was shivering, despite the wetsuits. A great improvement this year was that they changed the swim course, from the old one where you practically need a map and a gps unit not to get lost on all the weird turns, to two nice triangles. The sun came out soon into the bike and I was moving! My bike time turned out to be third fastest in my age group. I met my own goal on the run: just get it under an hour, which I was happy with after going so hard on the bike. All told, I placed 13th out of about 60 women in my age group. If I could just learn to swim, I could see top ten!

I did this race in the midst of my Cambiati diet experience which I have yet to give an update on. I finally finished my 28 days that involved the cleanse. Parts were tough, but other parts were easier than I expected. It was interesting, and the diet was rather involved and hard to sum up in a nutshell. But I accomplished my bottom line goal. In six weeks total, I lost 10 pounds and a significant percentage body fat, which has made such a difference training. And I must say, that I was able to put in these three high volume weeks without feeling nearly as beat up as I think I would have before.

SO, my plan, until Vineman 70.3, which is three weeks away, is to basically stick to the primary list of foods that you start this diet with (non-inflammatory, non-allergenic) and then start adding some foods back to do the last part, where you figure out what foods you might have reactions to. It's just working too well to mess with before that. One other thing I have grown fond of as part of this diet is the post-workout protien and fruit smoothie. I hadn't really tried this before, although so many people I know do it, and I swear it makes recovery faster. I also like the eating only at certain times of day thing. Only ten pounds away from ideal race weight now!
I am drinking my first cup of coffee as I write (in almost 8 weeks!)--although it's decaf. I'm a hard core coffee drinker and had never successfully kicked it before. So I'm loathe to ever go through that process again. And I must admit that my energy level is much more even without the massive caffeine intake. My ART person told me not to even go back to the decaf, that I was looking for my old habits, which I'm sure has some truth to it. So I thought about it for several days...and decided that if a cup of of decaf coffee with some lowfat coconut milk is my worst habit, then cling to it I shall!

Help! There is a Triathlete in My House!

Or, there was! This is now a very belated post, but I cannot miss writing about one of my most exciting parts of June!

THIS is the Blankner family from College Station, Texas! That's Emily, her husband Brett, and their six year old son, Kai. Now, they did not know me before they arrived, nor did I know them, perse, but I felt like I was the hostess to rock stars! Coach Brett does the most wonderful podcasts about triathlon and balancing life and family that can be downloaded at his website www.zentri.com. I started listening to him after finding them while rehabbing my broken leg. Brett's podcasts got me through my rehab and training, all alone, for Ironman Hawaii. I had to train at a walk, for anybody that remembers, and sometimes the only thing that got me out on that silly 6 hour training walk (ugh, hurts to even think about it!) was knowing I had one of his episodes to listen to. It was like having somebody there to train with, and not only was the guy a character and had a family just like mine (one triathlete, one other athlete/supporter and a six year old son), but he was funny and informative at the same time. SO, for the past couple of years I'd been thinking in my head, "wouldn't it be cool if I could somehow repay this Coach Brett fellow for all he has done for me, that he doesn't even have any clue about?!". Lo, and behold, a couple of months ago, Brett anounced in a podcast that he had qualified for the hard-to-get-into Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon. I emailed him straight away and said, "Bring the family! Come stay at my house! I'll loan you one of our cars! Come and do this race!".

And out they came! I picked up my little adopted family at the airport the Thursday before the race and they were delightful! I felt like I had famous people visiting. We enjoyed their stay so much! Emily, who is a nurse and a runner, was so enjoyable to be with and Kai and Sporty Spice were a match made in heaven. And to get to talk tri with Brett in person was like a crazy dream come true. Brett met up with Jamie Patrick, the ultra swimmer who is planning to swim down the Sacramento river this summer, and that was interesting to hear about even second hand. We took the boys to the Space and Science Center which was fun. And Brett had a great race and got to check one of his dreams of his list at Escape From Alcatraz. It was so fun to have them here, it was actually a bummer when they left. I'm so glad I took a chance and sent my email to invite them. Triathlon truly is more than a sport. I know it is a lifestyle, but it is also a sort of family in many ways.

Check out Brett's podcasts and website at www.zentri.com!

Single Parenting Weekend

Ok, so the Mister was gone this weekend for his second of three 200-mile bike rides this year and Sporty Spice and I did what we do best. Added to our menagerie. Meet Sam, the guinea pig. He is SO cute! His family and two little boys loved him very much, but found out they were severely allergic to him, so he needed a new home and a new kid. He loves to be petted around his ears and run around. The Mister is just counting his blessings because he came home to this instead of the large black sheep I was "this" close to rescuing/adopting; he was picked up as a stray at the local shelter, but someone else adopted him before I could get there. He would have been perfect for our lonely little goat Isabel.

And what is this, you might ask? THIS, my friends is proof....proof of the TOENAIL FAIRY! Known by few, but mostly by endurance runners, the Toenail Fairy is the much maligned step-sister of the Tooth Fairy. She wears one of those terrycloth sweatbands from the 70's and sports one of the original pairs of Nikes. She runs about at night, placing money under the pillows of all the good little runners who have left her their toenails which have fallen off as a result of running too much.

Ok, it's really hard to spend a whole weekend with a six year old and not start to think at their level. Sporty gave me the most disgusted look when I suggested we try to summon the Toenail Fairy with this latest little gift from my toes, but then thought it was pretty cool when I told him I doubted any of the other kindergarten mothers could do this trick.

On a totally unrelated topic (well, related to running I suppose) is my report on my first week of this Cambiati Diet. I had very mixed feelings about it as the week went on. They ranged from "this might be the greatest thing!" to "F--- This!". The whole diet is a bit hard to explain, even the small part I think I understand, but nonetheless, it's gonna need some tweaking. It is a high protein diet, but not too extreme. I came home from a 15 mile run on Thursday thinking I was going to DIE; I'm clearly gonna have to add some carbs somewhere. The first two weeks of it are "practice" weeks before you start the real 28-day thing with the cleanse. Part of it is to get anti-inflammatory, possibly allergenic foods out of your diet, and I did succeed as far as not veering from that. And I started my coffee-taper, which saw my last coffee for at least 5 weeks thismorning. That's the part that scares me most. Will update after week 2!