Weekend Update

Saturday - I did an 8 mile run in the morning.  Same route as last weekend (although extended), but without the mental breakdown in the middle!  I still struggled a bit on the uphills, but I felt MUCH better than last week.  All in all, it was a great run, and a good mental boost to have done that distance.  The only negative was that it was bone-chilling cold.  The temperature wasn't that low (only 30 degrees), but it was foggy and the moisture just soaked right through you.  Despite the cold, I was a very happy girl.

Sunday - I rode the trainer for 75 minutes.  My legs were pretty dead from the run the day before (I'm starting to understand why the training plan separates my long run and long ride days in the future), but I got through it!  My butt bones were super sore at first, but went numb about 20 minutes into the ride.  It'll be interesting to see how they feel on Tuesday for my next ride.

Plan for the week:
Monday (today) - Long swim at the JCC
Tuesday - Trainer 60 min, Run 45 min (separate)
Wednesday - Swim at the JCC (Speed Day)
Thursday - Long run (80 min)
Friday - Swim at the JCC (easy, recovery)
Saturday - Romp to Stomp (5K snowshoe race)
Sunday - Long ride (90 minutes, likely on the trainer)

National Chocolate Cake Day!!

I hadn't been back long from my run yesterday when my labmate announced that it was "National Chocolate Cake Day" and we must celebrate.  You can't argue with that logic! So, we all headed over to the hospital cafeteria in search of cake... and they came through!! Danielle and I justified the splurge by adding a glass of milk and saying that it was the equivalent of our post-run chocolate milk (that's actually good for recovery, it's been proven). Anyhow, we had a lovely afternoon snack and returned to lab full and happy!

It then dawned on me that I still had to go for a swim.  Not to worry, apparently chocolate cake and milk is the perfect pre-swim elixir. I had the best swim I've had in a long time.  I did 1000m as an increasing/decreasing ladder (50, 100, 200, 300, 200, 100, 50).  The 300 was actually the best set of the whole workout.  I totally got into a groove and felt like I could have gone on forever.  YAY!  Oh, and my sincere apologies to the adorable 3 year old girl I plowed into mid-workout.  Your mommy should have been paying more attention so you didn't cross over the lane buoys.  You came out of nowhere, I couldn't stop in time, and I'm very sorry if I scared you! It's always an adventure at the JCC pool : )

Today is a glorious rest day and I'm very much enjoying my only cup of coffee of the week... earned it!!

~Ash

Bike and a Run

Last night I put in a solid 60 minutes on the trainer... kept what I thought was a pretty good pace.  Jeremy came home about 45 minutes into it and said "Wow, you're going pretty fast", so that made me feel good! I still haven't moved the freakin' speedometer to the back fork, so I have no clue how far I went or what my actual pace was, but I'd guess it was somewhere in the 15-16 mph range. The first part of the ride was tough, but I settled in and actually felt pretty good by the end of it! Woohoo!

I just got back from a run with Danielle.  I am really starting to enjoy my mid-afternoon run breaks at work. We did a quick 3 mile loop in 26 minutes... not bad! I'm headed to the JCC after work for a swim.  Ruby was super snuggly this morning and I just couldn't pull myself out of bed early enough to go swim before work!

I'll post later about the swim.

~Ash

I swear I've been training...

... I just haven't had spare time to blog about it! So, here's what I've been up to.

Saturday: 70min run with Jeremy in City Creek Canyon.  The run started well, but I had a little mental breakdown about a mile in.  I was feeling like this whole IM thing is too overwhelming and there was no way I could do it.  It probably didn't help that we were going uphill at this point and I SUCK at hills.  Anyhow, I had my little breakdown, cried a bit, and Jeremy talked me down.  He convinced me to just get it out of my system, and then start the run over as though it never happened.  Amazingly, it worked.  The last 40 minutes of the run were awesome.  It started snowing and was super peaceful in the canyon.  All in all, it turned out to be a good run.  We think we went somewhere just over 6 miles. Not bad!

Sunday: Jeremy's co-worker scored us a deal to try cross country skiing in Park City on the cheap. Couldn't turn that down! After a brief lesson on how to propel ourselves, and more importantly, how to stop, we were off.  We ended up doing the 5K course and it was super fun!  It was actually a pretty decent workout.  Including the lesson, we were probably out there about 2.5 hours.  It was a sunny, but brisk day... gorgeous!!!

Monday: The first three days of this week have been a little crazy work-wise.  I have been doing day-long surgeries that don't leave tons of time for training. I've made it work so far though and I'm pretty proud of myself! Monday, after work, I went to the JCC for a swim.  As I was driving over there, I realized that there has been a fatal flaw in my swim workouts up until this point.  I typically would go to the pool with some set amount of time in my head and just swim.  What I needed to be doing was going in with a predetermined plan.  So, in the 4 minute drive over there, I quickly devised a plan. Swim 1000m (warm up - 2 x 50, main - 8 x 100, cool down - 2 x 50).  It was great! My workout was so much more focused. Loved it!

Tuesday:  Again, I was up against a monster surgery day.  Add to that the fact that we had planned a fondue girls night at 6:45 and I was short on training time to say the least.  So, I headed to the JCC afterwork, hopped on the treadmill and did high-intensity intervals for 20 minutes.  Honestly, I was shocked at how good of a workout I got in such a short amount of time.  Intervals will definitely be my go to for those days where I only can fit in 30 minutes or so.

Plan for the rest of the week:
Today - Trainer ride after work (60 min)
Tomorrow - Swim before work, Run with Danielle at work in the afternoon
Friday - Off
Saturday - Long run (70-80 min)
Sunday - Long bike (I want to go at least 75 min).

I need to get back to posting daily.  This took far too long to write!

~Ash

New Shoes

Today was the official first test of my new running shoes.  I wanted to test them out on the treadmill before hitting the road (just in case I needed to return them).  This bummed me out a bit because it was a sunny afternoon and a road run was super tempting, but I knew it was for the best. I hopped on the treadmill at the JCC and did a quick 3 miles.  My original plan was to do 3-4 miles, but it was approximately 95 degrees in the gym and 3 miles was all I could take.  Seriously, who sets a gym thermometer that high? You know people are going to be working out in there, breaking a sweat, why try to kill them in the process?!  Anyhow, it was a straightforward 3 mile run, and the shoes passed the test... mission accomplished! They'll get their first road test this weekend - woohoo!

~Ash

Modified Plan

Yesterday was supposed to be a trainer day.  I hopped on after work all excited and OUCH!! My poor butt is not used to being on the bike seat this often.  I decided to suck it up and see if it would go numb.  I made it 15 minutes before I couldn't take the pain anymore.  I could barely sit, let alone lean forward to the proper position.  Frankly, it wasn't worth it if I couldn't ride properly.  So, yesterday became a rest day.  My plan for the rest of the week is as follows:

Today - Run 40 min
Tomorrow - Swim before work
Saturday - Long trainer ride (at least 60 min). Hopefully I'll be able to tolerate the saddle by then!
Sunday - Long run (6-7 miles)

~Ash

Nice afternoon for a run

Danielle and I had planned a mid-afternoon run break from the lab today. What a fabulous decision!  For the first time in weeks it wasn't super cold, the inversion was gone, and it was sunny... all at once!  We did about 4.25 miles with some decent hills in just over 40 minutes.  My quads were totally shot on the hills, maybe from the trainer this weekend??  Either way, it was so nice to be outside in decent weather, not having to worry about dodging ice puddles.  A great run overall! 

~Ash

Weekend Update

Didn't manage to get myself in front of a computer this weekend to update the blog, but I did get some good workouts in!

Saturday - Jeremy and I went snowshoeing at Mountain Dell with one of our friends.  We went for about and hour and 15 minutes.  Not sure what the distance was, but it must have been at least a couple miles.  Fun times, and good cross-training!

Sunday - I rode the trainer for 1 hour. I've discovered that crime dramas, or suspense-type TV shows really make the time fly on the trainer.  I suspect this will be useful information when it comes time for me to have  to spend hours at a time on there.  This was my longest ride so far on the trainer.  I need to reconfigure my bike computer so it's reading off my back tire.  It would be nice to know how far I went and what my average speed was.  Even without that info, it was a pretty good ride.  Legs felt good, although my butt is still re-familiarizing itself with the bike seat. Ouch!

Monday - Jeremy and I both had the day off of work... woohoo!  We let ourselves sleep in, then went out for a quick morning run. We only went 2 miles, but we kept a pretty quick pace the whole time.  Still felt like a great workout even though it was short! Also, I bought new running shoes today.  Hopefully they will rock and will become my racing shoes for the Ironman.

I've decided that I should probably post my plan for each week at the beginning of the week.  My thinking is that this will keep me even more accountable.  Not only will those of you who read this be able to see if I've been training, now you'll be able to see if I actually did the workouts that were planned. So, here goes:

Tuesday - Run w/ Danielle at work
Wednesday - Swim before work, spin class after work
Thursday - Run w/ Danielle
Friday - Swim before work
Saturday - Long ride
Sunday - Long run

~Ash

Pros and Cons

Yesterday was a rest day.  I hadn't planned it that way originally, but ended up having to go with it due to work issues and extreme hunger.  Not to worry, my planned rest day on Friday will now be a workout day.  All is balanced!

Danielle (my most fabulous running partner) and I snuck out of lab this afternoon for quick run.  The major pro of this run was that it was approximately 33 degrees when we left.  This may not seem like a pro to my CA friends, but this is the warmest temp we've seen in WEEKS.  Totally beats 20 degrees at 6am, which is when we typically run.  So, the above freezing temperature was a major plus.  Unfortunately, this was matched by a con... a yellow air day.  For those of you unfamiliar with SLC inversions, a yellow air day isn't as bad as a red air day, but you still feel like you're smoking a pack of cigarettes while you run... yum! All in all, we were pretty pleased with ourselves for getting in an afternoon run while our experiments were running themselves in the lab. Danielle's Garmin battery crapped out about a 1/2 mile into the run, so we're not sure exactly what our distance was, but gmap-pedometer puts it at somewhere around 3.5 miles.  Not bad for a shitty air quality day!

For me, it was a personal success.  I haven't run since Dec. 31st (pre-death bug), so I wasn't super optimistic about my run.  As I said to Danielle, it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been having taken 2 weeks off!  And, super bonus, I didn't cough up a lung while out there, which is really saying something : )

Gotta love small victories!

~Ash

Swim Team

I managed to stick to my plan.  I got my stain running in lab and walked over to the JCC for a swim.  I had been in the pool for about 15 minutes when a whole herd of kids showed up... swim team! I hadn't even considered that it was about 4pm, prime swim team time.  They leave one lane open for lap swimming during swim practice, but there was already a woman swimming in that lane.  She offered to split the lane with me, which I did for another 5-10 minutes.  Unfortunately, she was swimming backstroke and despite her best efforts could not stay in her half of the lane.  I got tired of running into the lane line trying to avoid her, so I just called it a day.  Not bad for my first swim back.  Probably got in 600m or so of solid swim time before chaos hit.

Note to self: swim in the mornings... it's WAY less crowded!

~Ash

The road to recovery

Wow, that was one killer bug that hit me!  I made a calculated decision to spend the entire weekend recovering, rather than forcing a workout, and I hope it paid off.  Jeremy came down with the same snotty-disaster that I had, so we spent the whole weekend laying around the house watching movies.  I realized at some point on Sunday that it was the first weekend I can remember where we just relaxed... no errands, no workouts, nothing.  Maybe this illness was the world's way of telling us to just chill out for 48 hours. Anyhow, I allowed myself to sleep in a bit yesterday morning before heading to work and I actually felt rested for the first time in recent memory!  I told myself that if I got through the day and didn't feel like I had been hit by a truck that I would get on the trainer when I got home. So, I did!  I only made it 30 minutes before my nose was running so badly I couldn't stand it.  Something about that bike position wreaked havoc on my nose.  It was a very short ride, but I broke a decent sweat and it felt good to be at least somewhat active again.

The plan for today is a swim at the JCC.  I decided that sleeping in is probably still a good call, so I have to fit my swim in somewhere else.  I'm running a super long assay at work, so I'm going to try to sneak out during one of the longer incubations this afternoon and get in a swim.  I'll post later on if I'm successful.

~Ash

Freakin' Flu

What I optimistically thought was a cold mutated into something more like the flu.  Not long after my posting on Monday, I found myself on the couch under a blanket wearing a coat & a beanie, and holding handwarmers...  I was still freezing.  This was my first clue.  The second clue was the aches (like knives were being twisted in all of my joints).  The third clue was that I barely had enough energy to roll over in bed. Not pretty! 

After two days off of work, I'm starting to feel human again.  Needless to say, working out hasn't really been an option and I'm less than thrilled about it. My energy is coming back today, but I'm still pretty congested and deep breaths send me into fits of coughing.  Not exactly the picture of health.  I'm bummed because I need to use every bit of training time this month to get up to speed, but I know that I'm better off taking it easy and trying to heal. The silver lining is that I seem to be kicking this thing pretty quickly (knock on wood), so maybe I can work out again starting this weekend.  Here's hoping!

~Ash

Holiday Catch-up

Whew... what a whirlwind couple of weeks!  Training took a bit of a back seat before Christmas so that I could get all of the wrapping, packing, etc. done in time.  Even with all of the travel craziness and uncharacteristically cold and rainy CA weather, I did a pretty good job of getting some training in while we were home for the holidays.  All in all, I fit in 4 runs ranging from 2-5 miles, a good swim session, and a New Year's Day hike.

Unfortunately, I woke up on New Year's Day with a brutal head cold. I'm still feeling pretty congested and foggy today, so I think I'll forgo a workout in favor of a nap when I get home from work.

Health permitting, my plan for the rest of the week is to increase my frequency to at least one workout per day.  I know it's the frequency of training that will hit me the hardest when the "official" training plan kicks in next month, so I want to try to minimize the shock to my system by increasing my frequency now.  Danielle and I are planning to resume our Tues/Thurs morning runs.  Since the projected temp for tomorrow morning is in the low 20's and I'm still battling this cold, Danielle suggested we wait until Thursday to start back up. Probably a good call!

Here's hoping that a shot of Vitamin C and a nap will get me back on track ASAP!

~Ash