Well, Aren’t We Just Olympic…

This week started a little off (racing, and thus drinking copious amounts of champagne on a Sunday always does that to me), but we rocked it out of the park anyway.

Monday, we were pretty sore so we decided to skip kickboxing or any other formal exercise.  Instead, we hit up Costco for some bulk shopping goodness.  After a day of rest I was ready for a run Tuesday morning – it was definitely a run roulette, there’s been rain on the forecast just about every day this week, and it was cloudy and ready to dump.  However, I discovered that I don’t melt, and since my electronics are waterproof, I was able to knock out 7.1 miles slow (around 11 min mile pace).  It was a nice pace for me, I felt like I could go forever, but my legs didn’t want to go faster.  It was a great morning run!

I was going to spin that evening to make up for missing Monday, but I was pretty tired so I just rested.  Wednesday was a nice long strength session at the gym in the evening (pushups have made a comeback – I need to get better at them – I used to be able to do 3×20 no problem, and right now I barely have 3×12 in me…), and decided to just knock out a half-iron distance swim (2000 yds) – 200 EZ, 200 drill, 200 fast, repeat 3x, cooldown 200 EZ.  Thursday ended up being my epic day of making up workouts, with a 60 min group power class in the morning, and a double brick in the evening (15 mins on bike trainer, 1 mile all out run x 2).

After this epic 4-workouts in 24 hours thing, I was pretty exhausted and took a rest day on Friday.  Oddly enough, ended up at Costco again.  We washed the bikes and packed up for the next morning.  Almost felt like packing up for a race – except without the packet pickup and race shirt (maybe we should make our own, heh).

First Annual Lake Zliten and Quix Lake Pflugerville Practice Olympic Triathlon GO!

We had a back to back to back day of plans so our goal was to get out to Lake Pflugerville and be swimming by 8am.  Well, we slept in and couldn’t get going, so we got there more like 9:15 and were in the water closer to 9:30.  However, there was a “Walk for the Kidneys” event going on, plus there were a few tri groups training, so it was probably for the best that we got a late start.

We took the swim nice and slow.  This was Zliten’s first open water swim over 500m, and his longest swim to date, so I stayed with him.  We practiced stretches of freestyle between breaststroke breaks, and sighting.  Often he was going out to oblivion and I had to call him back.  However, we made it through 3 laps of the 500m course in about 45 mins (a guess, we didn’t pay attention to time) and got out and got ready for the bike.

We did not do traditional fast-as-you-can transitions, we probably took about 20 mins slowly getting ready, getting the bikes off the rack, pumping up  the tires, reparking the car not in the mud (since a lot of the kidney walk peeps had left), etc.  Once we finished all that, we were off.  It was a beautiful day, and we took our usual course for the first 7-ish miles, then made a left instead of a straight to get extra distance.  We held a 17-ish mph pace for the first half, but slowed on the second half as we came back right into the headwind.  The goal was 15 mph, and we hit it at an average speed of 15.3 for 20.15 miles.  An Olympic is usually closer to 25 miles, but we didn’t want to deal with busy roads, and really? 20 was close enough.

I was worried that we might be beat after the bike, especially Zliten after his longest swim ever, but we felt pretty good.  I had eaten 3 nutter butter cookies and had a few sport beans, and had a 200-cal bar for breakfast + some caffeine, so I felt pretty fueled and peppy, but the last time I ran after biking out here I felt soooo terrible and could barely make myself go.

Not the case that day.  We started out slow, around 11:20s, but quickly found our pace that day around 10:50s.  I think my avg pace read 10:52 from about mile 2-5.  I think there were both times that we felt like we could go faster, but tried to hold it to easy pace.  Zliten commented that it was a shame that we had people waiting for us, because he wanted to try to do a longer run after having a really nice, comfortable first lap around 32-ish min for 3 miles.  Then, the sun came out and started beating down on us – mile 5 was the longest mile EVAR.

However, I started feeling peppy again in the last mile and around 5.5 I broke away and started sprinting for 6.  I was actually hungry (the only thing I ate on the run was a small squish of Zliten’s gel) and in my head, the sooner I finished, the sooner I could eat.  I finished around 1:04 for the 6 miles – avg 10:45 pace.  With more nutrition… maybe I could have done another lap?

I was tired, but not exhausted-collapse-at-the-finish-and-lay-there-for-an-hour like I did at the TX Olympic Tri a year and a half ago, not to mention that we finished almost an hour quicker (I was 4:04 for that, and we did this in 3:08-ish, not counting transitions).

I feel pretty confident after that practice that the half iron is actually in my grasp this year.  The bike is still what I feel like I need the most work at (I’m super comfortable with the swim and run distance stand alone, but biking 56 miles is only something I’ve done twice and been uber tired after), but I’ve got a few months.

I feel like I need to work on 3 aspects the most – 1) cycling longer distances and time in the saddle, need to get used to a few hours (read: 40-50 miles) of cycling 2) running on tired legs and keeping up my distances and 3) strength… the stronger I am overall, the better equipped I will be to maintain a 7-ish hour effort.

No Rest For The Wicked

We rinsed off in the outdoor shower and changed and headed to early Mother’s Day lunch with my parents.  We had packed a sunbutter and jelly sandwich, and while I felt kinda silly eating on the way to lunch, I had a PIT in my stomach from an approximate 2000 calorie burn that morning, so it worked.  We enjoyed many, many plates of food at the soup and salad bar, and relaxed the afternoon away playing games.  I even had the energy to be bouncy.

We got home about 7:30, and we had a graduation party to go to, but we decided first we needed a quiet drink on the patio first.  It was a nice breath of calm before we headed back out into the crazy, and found that since the party was going for about 4 hours, it was pretty raging.  We weren’t sure if we were going to stay long (ya know, epic day and all), but I ended up being able to push through and we had quite a good time!

Today we have done a whole lotta nothing.  We attempted to pick up our disaster of a house and deal with the laundry pile, and we made a little progress, but that fell by the wayside due to important duties like eating, napping, and watching TV in bed.  Y’know, the important stuff.

While I enjoyed my day o relaxing a LOT, I also felt really bummed that it was such a beautiful day and I culdn’t be out again at the lake swimming, biking, or runniing.  A sickness, I has it.

Randomness

I want to stay here – it’s only 15k per person for a week.  No big d.  What wealthy benefactor wants to surprise us with 2 tickets?  For that price, their private jet picks you up, you get a stay for 2 nights in the underwater room, 4 nights on land, all the water activities you can do (lookie Zliten I didn’t say watersports, apparently that means something dirty and not, like, scuba diving, snorkeling, and personal sub-ing), all your food, drink, and most spa treatments.  I want to do this so badly… I’m not sure the price of a car is ever something I could consider dropping on a 1 week vacation, but it definitely would be an experience.

I cooked some freaking awesome black pepper chicken with baby bok choy in garlic sauce tonight, and served it with this brown rice/quinoa stuff I found at Costco.  Om. Nom. Nom.  So good.  I haven’t cooked Asian-y food much lately, and I may have to change that.

Is there anything you can do with old spoiled wine?  We found some in the garage that had been there for a few years in the hot and cold and hot and cold.  It was cheap wine to begin with, but now it’s probably spoiled.  Any suggestions on how to use it, or should I just dump it out?

Nacho kitty (other-wise known as kittyface this week) and Iguana Donna met today (through the glass, the iguana is strictly indoor except for rare, very supervised and short trips outside and the cat is strictly outdoor).  There was much hissing and puffing, but dang she looked pretty.  I do not think they are going to be BFFs, which is fine.

Speaking of Nacho, she has become extremely friendly and expects love and pets when we’re outside and pretty much exclusively lives in our mud room.  She likes to headbutt the sliding glass door when we come by, and actually is entrance and meows at me when I sing Nyan Cat to her.  Never thought I’d enjoy having a cat, but this one is a pretty bomb diggety feline.  I’m definitely in camp dog still, but… this one seriously might be part dog.