Splish Splash

Last Sunday while browsing wasting time on the internet, I came across the Splish website. They have a wide array of really fun bathings suits and other swim gear. Most of the time, I get my swim suits at T.J.Maxx etc or from the clearance section, because I am just not willing to spend a whole lot of money on them. The chlorine water in the pools, really do a number on swim suits and most of them are past their prime (if not already see-through or baggy) in less than six months.

Still... I really do like these suits... I know that my birthday is still a couple of months away, but I think I will put one of those suits on my birthday list. Oh... And they also let you customized your suit (for even more money, I imagine). Because I was browsing wasting time already, I played around a little.... ;-)

There had to be some purple in suit, of course.



On the other hand, who is ever going to see it, once you are in the pool.... So is a very cute, but pretty expensive suit really worth it?

Unless, of course, you have something like this on the training plan: 

"8x100 - all of these are at race pace. Before all the odds get out of pool and do 10 sit-ups jump in and swim 100 hard. For all Evens do 10 push -ups and swim the first 25 as a sprint and the last 75 even paced"

Thanks, Coach! ;-)



Form And Such

Running should be easy right? Why should I ever learn anything about it? If you can walk, you can run.

Yes and no.

Even though running might be the least technique relevant sport of the swim-bike-run, there is still a whole bunch of stuff that can be done wrong. And wrong technique can either make you prone to injury (heal striking and such) or inefficient. I hate to be inefficient in all areas of life, but for the longest time I didn't even know ignorned, that I was running inefficiently.

Terry actually pointed some things out to me, pretty early on... But why should I listen to somebody, that just runs since highschool.... 20 something years or so. Hmmmmm.

After getting a lot of feedback from different people and then eventually working with a coach, I started to slowly break my bad habits, to name a few: chicken wings and having the pelvis unengaged.

Chicken wings (this is not an official name) are, when you stick your ellbows out and then on top of it swing your arms from side to side. I hear it's pretty common with women and I sure wasn't an exception to that. So I want to move foward, but waste momentum (energy) by moving my arms from side to side. To eleminate (reduce) this, I spent weeks of running while saying over and over in mind: no chicken wings, no chicken wings. While running, I constantly checked that my ellbows are, where they are supposed to be and that my hands swing by my hips to ensure that I don't move my arms sideways.

The difference in form when your pelvis is engaged vs unengaged is amazing. First, I had to understand what I was supposed to do... That took a while. Then I started to comprehend, that this type of adjustment is going to take some core strength and that realization opened a completely different can of worms. But things are improving and I can actually feel the difference now and if I bring it to my attention every couple of minutes while running, I can fix it whenever my form starts sliding.

Is my running form perfect...? No. But I am pleased that it is much improved from a year ago, so I'll take it.

This morning, I did my planned track workout on the treadmill due to rain and lightning (weird time of the year for lightning right?). While I don't necessarily enjoy running on the treadmill, listening to Pandora and the intervals help to make time pass fairly quickly. I also picked out a treadmill in front of one of the windows, so I was able to check my form in the reflection and that is helpful as well.

When I walked out of the gym, I ran into coach and she also said my form looked good. Always nice to get positive feedback. I feel like I am on the right track.

One more note: They have new treadmills at the Caine Halter Y where you can hook up you iPod/ iPhone. So you can watch TV or watch/ listen to a video/ music that you have on your iDevice. While this is entertaining and a "nice-to-have" feature from my standpoint, I am more intrigued by the Nike+iPod feature. Of course, I didn't now anything about this, when I got on the treadmill this morning, but when you stare at the "Nike+iPod" logo on the treadmill for an hour... It kind of got me interested, so I did a little research. Turns out, that you can record your workout (mileage etc) over your iPod and then later look at it in iTunes and even download it.... They do have this feature for their treadmills, but also for the ellipticals and stationary bikes.

I'll have to get myself a little more educated on this and how I would be able to utilize it along with training peaks for workouts that I can't do outside and still want to have the data. I know, I can be a total geek, when it comes to stuff like that.... But if you want to share your knowledge, I can possibly make a litte short cut on my research activities! ;-)

Happy hump day, everyone!

Paris I/2011

Yesterday, I looked for takers for a Sunday afternoon ride per Facebook status... What else, right? I did have tons of comments, but no takers.... Words like "nuts" were being used! The temperature was over 40 degrees, so why is everybody calling me crazy??? ;-) All in good fun.

Fortunately, I was able to motivate one of my training buddies that are not on FB to join for the ride and with one of her girlfriends and Terry, we ended up being a nice group of four.

The two ladies were looking at a 3 hour ride, I was looking at something between 2 and 3 hours.... And they rode up from Greenville, so it kinda all worked out.

First we did the Green Valley Loop with some nice rolling hills from Furman to Travelers Rest (TR). With the right gear, the weather was actually pretty good for riding. Actually, once we stopped in TR (around mile 20), I had to take the "toasty toes" out of my shoes, because my feet were cooking!

At this point, Terry took the direct way home, while the girls and I decided to go up and over Paris Mountain. With Mitchell being on the plan for this year, Paris is going to be a basic in my training, but this was my first trip up Paris in 2011 and actually my first ride up there in several months. While I consider myself a pretty good climber on the bike, this climb is just kicking my bootie, especially after a little break from the hills for the last couple of weeks.

Yeah, that's right... 800 ft of climbing over 2 miles (when you start from Old Buncomb Rd)....  And it's really save the best for last with a steep steep section right at the end. While I pedaled up there, I mostly thought about how embarassing it would be to topple over because I couldn't pedal fast enough to keep me moving. But all was good at the end. I didn't time my ascent (or descent for that matter), but I wanna start doing that, to see how and if things progress.

The base of Paris on the Old Buncomb side is just 2 miles from the house, so once it's light outside longer in the evening, I want to tackle this climb during the week too. Maybe even more than once per workout at one point. What's good enough for some local cycling pros, should be good enough for me... right?

Race Report: 2011 Run Downtown 5K

Overall results based on chip time:

29:04 - 9:23 min per mile average

Overall 922/1761

Age group results based on gun time:
29:58 - 9:40 min per mile average
Age group 47/134

A cow ran too. I am pretty sure he/she was faster than me! ;-)

Pre Race:

Preparation is everything! ;-)

After work, I stopped by Academy Sports and picked up my number and t-shirt. Once at home, I picked out all my stuff for the race the next day... Only to switch from capris to long tights basically two minutes before leaving. It was just too cold out there.

I drove over to the Caine Halter Y and then ran from there to the start line as my warm-up. I made it 10 minutes before the start. Perfect timing! I met up with two of my relay buddies and then fought my way back through the crowds to be closer to the back of the pack. On the way there, I ran into two more acquaintances.... Always good to have somebody to chat through minutes before the race, this time, I didn't even think of getting nervous.

Race:

My (the coach's) plan for this race to stick around 170 bpm and that's what I did. The race starts with a downhill and then an uphill for the remainders and then some of the first mile. I clocked the first mile with 10:09 minutes and it freaked me out a little. I was right on target concerning my heart rate, but I didn't feel like I worked hard at all.... And a 10 minute mile won't bring me in at my secondary goal of making it under 30 minutes. The second mile was a rolling downhill, meaning that in general the direction was downhill, but there were also uphills in this mile. I still stuck to my heart rate goal and then second mile came in with 9:27 minutes. Better, but still not great and I still felt like I wasn't working a lot and it was harder and harder to stay within my goal and the garmin kept beeping at me. So right around the mile two marker, I took the heart rate alert out and just ran... As hard as I felt like it. Mile three and the rest is also rolling, with the last .1 mile is straight downhill to the finish... I sure felt right away, that I was picking up the pace and working harder. Mile three came in at a 8:54 minute pace (WHAT??? ;-) and the rest of the race was done in 37.1 seconds meaning a 7:22 pace.

It was not a PR (not even close), but overall this was a good race. I did what I was supposed to do heart rate wise for most of the race and I also accomplished the secondary goal of staying under 30 minutes. Good stuff after all.

The little picture sequence shows that I was kicking harder at the end.

On the left behind the girl in the pink shirt and black jacket.

This is my "I am sucking air" face.

So ready to be done....

 Post Race:

I walked through the chute and dropped off my chip. They used the chips that are glued to the bib and you just tear off the bottom of the bib and drop them into big bins. Of course, I felt sick for a little while after the race, but I walked it off first. I wanted to grab some water and a little food, but then saw the line and didn't think it was worth waiting, because I wanted to run back to the Y before getting chilled to the bone. So I turned around right away and ran back to the Y and also did some weights since I was there anyways.

Race Review:

This is a great race with a lot of people each year. I prefer the smaller races, but this is just a lot of fun and I am really digging the race shirts. ;-)

Meh!

I like the word "meh". It's says a lot of things without having to say a lot of words.

I am feeling kind of meh* right now.

*is an interjection, often used as an expression of apathy, indifference, or boredom. However, it can also be used to indicate agreement or disagreement. It can also be an adjective, meaning mediocre or boring.

So what's meh right now? Everything.... Just everything... Also a reason that I haven't written anything in the last couple of days. Work is getting done, workouts are being logged, my household is not (yet) falling apart, but nothing seems to be noteworthy...

So and because I need a little laugh... Here is the "Dinner For One". This is a very popular play. It's being broadcasted in Germany on New Year's Eve every year and several times that day on several channels. It's originally from England and is broadcasted un-synchronized (which is unusual).

So hopefully, I'll be back with something a little more interesting next time.

Happy Friday!

11 + 4 = One Long Run

One of the Malone Coaching athletes (Thanks AnnieLloyd!) organized a Donut Dash yesterday for athletes and friends/family. But since coach won't let me get away with "just" running 4 miles, I had 11 miles on tap before the donuts.

Looping around downtown Greenville for 11 miles to dodge the snow.

I wasn't the only one that had more than the dash on the calendar and this way, a fairly big group of people met up at 8am in front of GoRun to get a run in. The plan was to hit the Swamp Rabbit Trail and the plan started out good until we hit a section of the trail that was still covered in ice. In the meanwhile the group split in smaller groups and because the whole SRT plan fell through, the different smaller groups took different routes to total up the mileage for the day. A training friend (she really is faster than I am, but slowed down for me) and I stuck together and looped around downtown while catching up.... It's amazing, how fast an almost 2 hour run passes when you haven't seen each other in weeks and have tons and tons to talk about.

It was almost 10am by the time we got back to GoRun and the place started to fill up with contestants for the Donut Dash.

The donut run was set-up like this: You run a 2 mile loop, than have to eat 6 donuts (Krispy Kreme Glazed, still warm) in a designated area and then run the 2 mile loop again. If you leave the donuts on the second loop, you are disqualified.... All of this applied, if you started as "challenger". But you could also start as "casual" participant and only eat 0-5 donuts, but in that case, you were also not eligible for (donut shaped) awards.

Since my history of stomach issues is well documented, let me assure you that I didn't signed up as challenger. But fellow blogger Lindsay is much more kick butt than I will ever be and she started as challenger and ended up coming in second woman... She has some good insight in fast donut eating strategies and you should totally check her "race" report out.

I took those 4 miles very easy... The tank was empty and fortunately another one of my training friends came out for the dash and we ended up running the two loops together... Catching up, since we haven't seen each other since before the holidays. After the first loop, I actually thought about skipping the second loop, but with that kind of company... Skipping wasn't really an option.

After the race we all just hung out for a while. Several of my relay team goons came out too and it certainly was fun to hear their donut stories! ;-) I had two donuts after the race to refuel... of course!

The contestants for the inaugural Do Run Donut Dash!

Pre-Race instructions: "This is an unofficial race, if you bust your butt, it's your fault!"

The Goon-Ru came out too... Of course he was sporting DNR team gear.

The donut, a natural enemy of the runner.... ;-) Those facial expressions are priceless.

Getting Back To Normal

Time to shake the ice out of the whiskers and get back into a routine - shall we?

With all the snow shenanigans, the workouts this week of course didn't happen like they were planned out... Big surprise here hmmmm?

Nevertheless, I feel like I got in a good amount of training... Especially the Wednesday night trainer ride, I was dreading all week and I was glad when that was finally done. That was one rough set and I sleep like a baby the following night.

The next morning, I headed out to the pool and I probably have never seen the Middle Tyger Y so empty. But unlike the Greenville Y's, it was open for business, despite snow and ice.

I decided early last night to skip Yoga today and take an hour more sleep... Fortunately... Because this morning I saw that the Y didn't open until 9am. PHEW! But I did download a couple of yoga video podcasts yesterday, that I will try out over the weekend.... Maybe.

With a fairly easy going week due to the weather restrictions, I actually can't wait to do regular training and other fun stuff over the weekend.

The Freewheelers have also published a list of four official Mount Mitchell training rides. I won't be able to make the first two due to previous commitments, but already put the last two on my schedule for this year. Over the weekend, I will try to find another couple of organized ride that can be used for training. Speaking of Mount Mitchell, registration opens on Feb 1st for members. There is no turning back, once the registration is done and procrastinating is not an option either! YIKES!!!

Last, but not least: Head over to DC Rainmaker for a Garmin Forerunner 310XT Giveaway. Good luck! ;-)

Have a happy weekend!