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Archive for May, 2008

definitely a memoriable memorial weekend

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

I took full advantage of the 3 day weekend — the first one I’ve had since classes started in January.

Saturday Mike, the mountain bikes and I all climbed our way up the same basic route we did back in December. It was still beautiful and fun. We went a bit farther this time, and made it all the way to the summit of the fire road. And again froze our asses off on the way down. It took forever in warm water in the shower to get my toenails not blue. And I might never listen to Mike about when to bring my cold-weather gloves again. But about 22 miles and 6000 ft of climbing kicked off the weekend right.

Sunday started with a pretty relaxed 30 mile loop on bike paths, basically flat (just under 1000ft of climbing). Then some shopping for a dress for one of my sister’s wedding in a couple weeks. A fun dinner, and then a nice evening 4.5 mi run.

Monday no alarm clocks were allowed. And we relaxed in the morning. But got out the door barely before noon for a great climby loop chasing Mike or sometimes riding with him — 71 miles and a bit under 10,000ft of climbing. Knowing it was going to be a long day of climbing, I just spun up pretty much everything, relaxing and enjoying the gorgeous views from the ridge road and seeing down the valleys. I loved the miles and miles with no cars, since about 20 of the miles each way were on roads that are currently closed to cars (ok currently closed — but lots of bikers still play up there). And the french dip sandwich at the turn around, complete with a fire to dry off and thaw a bit from that last cloud, also rocked. Oh yeah, and on the final stretch, I got a bit playful and I think Mike got tired of me finding sprint points 😉 I just knew I could make it home from there!

And thanks to Marky, a nice little run followed the ride. Just 20 minutes, 2.2 miles, but there weren’t really any completely flat parts.

So I earned my spaghetti! 🙂

Oh and the “song” stuck in my head lately? “It’s too cold for holes in my arse… it’s too cold for holes!!” (inspired by a pair of bike shorts that were torn on a fence).

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sorry…

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

So Marky told me to zip it about the rain. But it didn’t end there. It poured and then was nice and sunny and warm at lunch and then pooooured this evening. With lightning and thunder! So I ran to the car to leave, of course during one of the strongest downpours of the day, and it wouldn’t unlock. And so I used the key. And it opened and I climbed in. Even the door unlock wouldn’t open the other locks, and I tried to turn on the car. No luck. Well shit. Looks like I left the lights on all day. I blame it on the rain. If it wasn’t raining I wouldn’t have gotten out of the car through the back seat in the morning, and the car would have beeped at me and I would have turned the lights off (I was hunting for my umbrella and crawled through to the back…).

So thanks to the guy in the common area at work who opened the door for me since my badge was in the car, and then had jumper cables and helped me in the rain. Wooo for helpful people!

And then I heard that we had a couple tornados today! Yes, in Southern CA! Craziness! So there, Marky — it was crazy here, too.

But it did mean the pool was closed, so no swim this evening. Just a crazy rainy drive home.

Posted in Life Outside of Tris, marky | No Comments »

huh?

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

Rain? This late in May? Well, as long as the lightning stays away it will be good for fire conditions. It is pretty poouring right outside my window. And it wasn’t raining at home, just work. Guess those light colored pants and no jacket or umbrella wasn’t the best idea!

Posted in Life Outside of Tris | 1 Comment »

learning the Marky Way

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

More focus this year. Not on just doing, but on improving. On building speed, so that instead of having a long run I have a strong long run. Sometimes it hurts. As I started my run this morning, I really thought just stopping and stretching for the hour would feel so much better. But while visions of coachy-pants danced in my head I kept going. And of course the warm up loosened up my legs, and things fell into place.

After the ultra to kick of the year, it feels odd to have my “long run” day be 8 miles. But the focus this year is on shorter races, so even the long run is shorter, and at a better pace. Today I threw in some intervals, doing a mile hard, 1/2 mile easy, and repeating that 4 times. Then (because Mike was about to catch me and because a certain hill and I fight over who gets to make me hurt more) I added a HARD 1/4 mile on a bit of an uphill to finish off the mainset.

And about that spinny bike ride I did last night? Well it felt awesome — my focus was on a higher cadence to let the legs spin a bit more, but even with keeping the highest cadence I have in a while, the winds made for a bit harder of a ride than I had pictured. Oh and I’m bad at the high cadence game — you’d think that means I’d go into easier gears even for slight hills, but often for me it really means I just push a bazilliondy watts up the hills to keep the cadence up. I can be soooo lazy about shifting.

So my legs are a bit sore, and I can feel it walking today. Man I love that feeling. I wasn’t really getting it the same with the ultra format of training. And it means time to see if my massage girl Brianne has time for me on Friday! Because only this kind of leg feeling makes a massage reward even sweeter.

Posted in biking, marky, running | 1 Comment »

wedding update

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

Well time flies when you are having fun, so the wedding just keeps getting closer and closer! A date and location has been determined, and I have a dress already. The main things we need to get going with are the announcements and rings!!

And today I emailed the honeymoon race and gave them an update on what my name will be, which was fun.

At least we already have a somewhat “theme” (basically how our invites and favors and such will all tie together and to us). But yet so much more to do!

Posted in Life Outside of Tris, mike | 1 Comment »

watt was I thinking?

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

Ok so it’s a geeky title. But no surprise then, right?

I rode this morning — my 20.5 mile out and back that is basically flat. And it was a bit windy, but nothing super crazy. I just had no power. None. Felt like I was running on empty or something. Even 100 watts felt unholdable. Not a great feeling, but I did the whole ride, home, and off to work.

Talking to Mike just now he reminded me that I haven’t been sleeping well at all — or have been working til crazy late for some unknown reason. Oh yeah. I always forget that sleep is a part of performance. But today’s looooow power numbers for similar perceived exertion to other rides sure reinforced it! Maybe next time I’ll remember.

Posted in biking, mike | 1 Comment »

no longer screwed

Sunday, May 11th, 2008

… and it was bad — ’cause it was my bike cleat. At my 33 mile turn around point today I finally checked the cleat that hadn’t been clipping out easily. I had forgotten about it with the long stretches without stopping 😉 And it was missing a screw, and the others were loose. So I tighted them, and crossed my fingers that it would get me home. And it did… but slipped out of position pretty well. Guess I need to fix that.

Posted in biking | 1 Comment »

100 lefty steps at a time

Friday, May 9th, 2008

I was good! The couch was comfy, I was in pjs since I had been working from home for a couple hours, and I got up and went for a run last night. Telling myself “at least 20 minutes”, by the time I was out the door it had changed to some trails with the last of light, an out and back that is special since it is where I got engaged 🙂

It’s just over 3 miles each way, with plenty of climbing on the way out. The only climb that sucks is a paved hill up from a trail along a drainage section to the park with the hiking trails. Not horrible, but long enough I think I’ve always walked on it. I started up, and told my self that I could make it to 100 left foot steps. So I started counting, and it gave me a rhythm, and at 100 I was just barely from the top so I kept going and made it. And then I made it up all the trail switchbacks and all the climbs the whole route! I’ve never ran that whole thing before!

So I got up, got it done, and felt great after. Remind me again why I almost skipped it?

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guess it is time to move

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

With the rides I do all the time, I love that my Trifuel training log lets me compare my times over each course. I often have goal times for “someday”. Recently, my 20.5 mile mostly flat ride had a goal of 1:10, and my rolly 30.5 mile route had a goal of 2:00.

Well Saturday I climbed on my R3 and headed out on the 20.5 mile course. Nothing too exciting at first, but I was feeling pretty good so starting going a bit harder. I returned home in 1:09:29. That’s 4:22 faster than ever before, and 8:15 faster than my average. Wooo! I’ll take it.

Today I went out on my 30.5 mile route, feeling a bit stiff. My legs were not warming up too well, and seeing my power numbers in the first interval put me in a “get it done” frame of mind (not a “grab that PR” one). But I figured I’d still sticking to my coach’s prescribed 5 min on, 3 min off intervals. At the turn around, I though I might be a couple minutes ahead of whenever I’ve done it before, but I wrote it off to remembering the time wrong, and just kept doing. About 7 miles from the end I could tell another PR was coming, and it was good motivation to hold where I was through the set after the intervals were done. Got home… in 1:53:13!! Yup, a good 7:58 faster than ever before, and 11:16 faster than my average!

I’m pleased, and gave the legs healthy food and the rest of the day off. Time to move and find new routes to set goals for… or to just up those. Did I hear 1:05 and 1:50? 🙂

Posted in biking, marky, R3 | No Comments »

Oops – should tighten that!

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

I started my ride on Tuesday planning to get in just over 20 miles with one of my favorite routes from my door. Mostly flat, and very little traffic (and many miles on a bike path). I was feeling pretty good, but realized I had forgotten my phone. Did the little hill at mile 1, and on the descent from it at about 30 MPH all of a sudden I had almost no control of the bike! I was fishtailing, and heading straight for a T-intersection where I was coming from the hard to see direction. Hoping no car was going to turn and right into me, I braked and looked at the back of my bike, expecting a flat and wondering how that had happened, and so fast.

Instead I found that the wheel was no longer in the drops! Yes, the wheel had basically fallen off my bike. Luckily the brake calipers held it sort of in place, so it was still in the chain. I smelled burning rubber and took the bike to the top of the T to put the wheel back in. And found a couple HUGE bald spots on my tire. Oh right, 30mph to 0 without spinning… yeah, that will take off some rubber.

Popped the wheel back in place, remembering how I had thought it was a bit loose that morning but hadn’t bothered to tighten it since I had raced on it that way and figured it was fine. Um oops.

I headed down to the running path I was just above, and where Mike had either just passed our would be passing soon on his run. I found him, and just rode home easy next to him while talking.

So it was a short ride, and a pretty easy one, but sure was scary! And next time I will be less lazy.

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