About damned time.

My precious NewBalance 768s are finally available in Pink and White.

Just thought I'd mention it.

Well, I'm excited, at least.

Not exactly running shoe bling-bling, but it's a start.

2008 Milkman Triathlon, race report

Two years ago, I ran the Milkman Sprint Triathlon in Dexter, New Mexico. My race report for that event is here. This race is the statewide championship qualifier for the "best of the US" triathlon series.

I was thrilled to find out that, once again, this training crap WORKS. My times, in comparison (approximate):
- - - - Swim - t1 - - - bike - - - t2 - - - run - - - total time - - results
2006 - 12:00 - 3:00 - 48:30 - - 2:00 - 42:00 - - 1:48 - 3rd place Athena
2008 - 12:00*-1:30 - 46:00 - - 1:30 - 34:00 - - 1:36 - 1st place Athena

*in 2006, I used a wetsuit. today I did not.

This is a very well run race near Roswell, New Mexico which as Baboo points out, "is trying very hard to be a real city." They have a very nice restaurant for carb loading called Pasta Cafe and a great local coffee shop called "Out of This World" coffee.

One of the sponsors is Shwans and a local dairy, so after the race there's ice-cold drinks, chocolate milk, and ICE CREAM FOR EVERYONE. The trophies are milk bottles and pitchers. Baboo, who was head ref for this race, is insanely jealous of my pottery bling.

The lake is very shallow, and tastes kind of bitter. There really high winds on the course this year, at your back on the way out and in your face on the way back in. The run is HOT.

Next up: Ironman Couer D'Alene. Serious taper to commence NOW. Well, right after my run tomorrow.

...

Bed weather training haiku

(of course, now that I'm approaching an ironman, I'll be writing more bad haiku. Lucky you.)

Who knew it would rain

here in the desert? Well, crap.

Guess I'll long swim on Friday.

Insanely Sexy Socks, the sequel.

<-- These are Blue Seventy neoprene socks.

They are, as all gear designed for foot comfort must be, insanely sexy.

Current water temp at CDA, about 50 degrees F (11 degrees C).

Today I swam Cochiti Lake (60 degrees F) It's 2.2 miles if you swim down and back. I found that I've been very run focused and my swim has slowed down as a result.

Hey, why can't fitness be like a college degree? You reach a certain level, and then you get this certificate, and it's yours forever. No matter how much TV I watch, I'll still have a master's degree. Not so with fitness though.
Wouldn't that be nice?
E.g., You can now run an 11 minute mile. forever.

Anyway. Cindy swam with me, (and faster, I might add.) and I'd like to take a moment to publicly thank her for accompanying me in a great deal of my training. Honestly, if you've known me for long you have some idea the level of laziness I'm capable of reaching. However, if I know that someone is waiting for me, I'll show up and do the training. Plus, there's no way I would have done this swim alone - not safe.

Anyway, my swim was incredibly S-L-O-W, although I figured out on the way back across that if I sort of pull up on the torse of my wetsuit (neoprene wedgie not withstanding) and pull up on the sleeves, this provides some "give" in the neoprene over my shoulders, so I could reach better in my stroke. I'm going back out tomorrow, but a little more gently because I don't want to wrench my shoulder. I'll be doing it twice next week, with at least a day in between swims.

Lastly, I've been obsessing some more over the the bike course at CDA. Looks like, about 12 miles of gentle rollers, and then about 25 miles of hills, then about twenty miles or so downhill. Lather, rinse, repeat. If I don't get a flat, I may actually pull this off. Ayii.

And hey, did I mention Mini-baboo has been gone for 2 weeks, and will be returning in JULY? Hah!
More on that later.

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How do you plan for an ironman?

Today I'm mostly thinking in print. So how do you plan for an Ironman? Well, if you're not incredibly lazy, you train more than me. But I, of course, am lazy. So here's my totals:

May's totals ....................2008 totals (so far)
Bike: - 282.5 Mi..................... 1042.1 Mi
Run: - 84.29 Mi.......................368.48 Mi
Swim: - 7430 M (4.4 mi)......20730 M (12.5 mi)

These days, I waver between feeling excitement and dread, and worry and confidence. It's a hell of a rollercoaster. And like all rollercoasters, it nauseates me. Erp.
And even though my training has been far less than it should be, it's far more than my training last year. Yyyesssss, that's right. This year I was sorta lazy, but last year I was lazy SQUARED and i paid the price. I finished, but if they hadn't extended the cutoff I would not have. So I'm counting on this training thing coming through for me.

So here's how the planning breaks down, after the cannon goes of at 7am on June 22nd.

SWIM: At IM-LooAvul I swam in 1:31, and I'm fine with this. I will probably be a bit slower this year because the water will about 20 degrees colder. I'll be wearing whatever neoprene is allowed, and I'm confident about beating the cutoff at 9:20 am.

T1: At IM-LooAvul this took about 11 minutes. I should be able to knock about 5 minutes off this. I'll be pulling on cycling shorts, into which has been smooshed a LOT of Baby Aveeno and Sports Slick, a sleeveless jersey, arm warmers, thick cycling socks. Sunscreen applied to my shoulders and arms and nose. Sunglasses.

The Bike: My nemesis. This is what will make or break me. At At IM-LooAvul my bike time was 8:55. 8:55, and the bike cutoff is 5 pm. I've got to take about 45 minutes off my time. yikes. The weather at IM-LooAvul was mid-nineties with about 70%+ humidity. IM-CDA is supposed to be cooler - by as much as 15 degrees - and drier.
Nutrition: My nutrition at IM Loo worked, so I'm not going to change that. De-fizzed coke and three SportLegs capsules at mile 0 and mile 56. Gatorade the rest of the time. 2 Fig Newtons at mile 0, 30, 60, 90 with plain water.

T2: At IM-LooAvul, this was 20 minutes, because I sat down and cried. Think I'll avoid that this time. I'll change to a long-sleeved meshy long-distance running shirt, RaceReady Long Distance Fitness Shorts, of course the insanely sexy Injinji socks, my NB768s, and my Garmin.

The Run: The part I'm worried about least. The bike cutoff is 5 pm, after which I'll have 7 hours to finish the marathon. At IM-LooAvul, I did the marathon in 6:20, when it was hotter and much more humid. I'll be carrying my inhaler, SportLegs, and blister bandaids. I'll also be carrying a hand-held water bottle. My Garmin will chime every minute.
Nutrition: Same as IM-LooAvul, coke with ice and SportLegs capsules at mile 0 and 13. Powergels every 2 miles. Gatorade throughout.

So that's the plan, i guess. I'll be fine-tuning it over the next couple weeks.
Goal: Finish before midnight.

...

You Will Do This.

It doesn't matter how many times I see this video, it still chokes me up. And I am not a gal that gets choked up easily.


...

Dazed and Confused.

So now I've come to the part of Ironman training that I refer to as the dazed, stupid part of training - because most of the time, I wander around in a fog. I can't think of the right words to say and most of my conversations involve phrases like, you know, that thing. Everyone has to say stuff to me twice, because the first time they say it, it barely registers that they've even said something.
Oh, they said sometime to me, I think.
I wonder what it was.
And then finally my brain
makes my
mouth fall open and I say, "WHA--?"

And then, remember that there's two of us, wandering around in a fog. So the house is falling apart and our system of doing for each other what we don't do ourselves is falling apart.
A scintillating conversation between me and the Sweet Baboo these days is likely to be something like:

Hey, did you get, you know, the thing? That thing you were gonna get?

Wha--?

Did you get that thing?

What thing?

you were saying something this morning. About a thing. A thing you needed to get. You know. Stuff.

Do you remember what it was?

What?

The thing - do you remember what it was?

What thing? Huh?

What?

Oh, never mind. This is wearing me out.

Oh, Yeah: It's a regular McNeil-Lehrer Hour over here.
Meanwhile, my body is screaming for food!! Now, I don't really feel hunger, and I was raised in the south, so in place of hunger I have inappropriate food impulses. For intance, if my body wants carbs, I crave potato chips. Although sometimes I crave chips if I'm low on sodium, too. It's complicated. If my body screams for fried chicken, which I don't eat because I'm a vegetarian, then I know I need protein. So lately, these days I'm wondering around in a fog, my attention diverted sharply by KFC billboards and Frito-lay trucks.

So in this fog I embarked on my last "long ride" today which was, to say the least, disappointingly slow. I was just whipped. I couldn't get my legs to move and when I did, they hurt like hell. Not injury hurt, but the "leave me the hell alone so I can recover from all this running and cycling" hurt. My ride had over 4800 feet of climbing, and the temperature was in the nineties when I finished.

My overall pace was about 13.7 mph. And the little voice whispered, maybe you just suuuuuuuuck. I tried mightily to ignore it, but as you can imagine when you're kind of kind of in a fog, emotional strength and self-esteem gets the back burner so that things like pedaling and drinking at the same time can be done.

And it was in this fog that I did not wear any sunscreen today. Yeah. 6+ hours in the New Mexico sun. Luckily, only my legs and arms were exposed, but I now have this super charming tan on my legs that Pirate refers to as "Neopolitan legs": brown, red, white.
My feet and torso are white. The rest of me is in various shades of red and brown.

And I'm tired. But now the taper starts, sorta.

Now I'm going to eat a pizza and drink a gallon of Gatorade and
stare at the TV, slack-jawed, until I fall asleep. I'm watching, uh,
that show. With the people. And the stuff.

...