oh yeah!!!!!

Swim Rodeo

As you all know, I am the swim co-ordinator for the local tri-club. My job is to organize the pool times and coaches and deal with the City and their bizarre requests....the latest is, I received an e-mail asking us to please put our drink bottles against the wall of the pool deck....not near the edge of the pool...as the drink could spill into the water...so now swimmers are supposed to get out of the water, walk to the wall to grab a drink. Seriously. One a few weeks ago was a request to ASK the lifeguards before jumping into the hot tub...or we will be charged for hot tub time ($40!!!). Seriously.

To make things fun over the winter, one of the coaches and I (actually, more him than me...) came up with the idea of a Swim Rodeo: Are you Ride'n, Or are you Hide'n?? Just a little swim meet for everyone in the swim program to get together and have some timed events and some fun. I chose to help on deck and time other swimmers rather than swim and I also put together silly little grab bags from the dollar store so everyone left with something. It was a fun night. Here are the names I came up with for the events:

1500 meters: "Fast and Steady"
800 meters: "Little Big Man"
400 meters: "Kicking Horse"
100 meters: "The Warrior"
50 meters: "Big Thunder"
Creative...no?? And then we had relays afterwards...
I am tired this week. We are so busy at home at work at everywhere. Kids have all sorts of shit happening, work is stupid busy and I am trying to fit workouts in. Went to the pool today and had a nice slow swim. It felt good to just go slow and stretch out the stroke. My legs feel surprisingly good after the half marathon on Sunday. This is good news!! Mind you I was not running very fast...
That's it for now!! Have no time to tell you more...but how bout those Olympics?? I am enjoying them! My fave Olympian is for sure Jon Montgomery, so far...

a looong, cold, uphill run

The Hypo Half Marathon 2010 Edition.

I was not registered for this run. BUT...I ran it anyway...BUT...before you pass judgement, let me tell you what happened.

Luke was sick ALL week. Coughing, puking, fever, the poor little guy was really sick. We were up with him pretty much every night, Thursday was the first night he slept through the night. I had not registered for the run and wanted to see if he improved before registering. And not sleeping for 4 nights in a row....not the best way to go into a 21km run!! Friday comes along and I go online to register...the online registration had closed on Wednesday...I call the store and ask if I can register at the store but they tell me no, but there will be onsite registration the day of the race. I get to the Sheraton this morning and I don't see anywhere to register, mind you I don't ask either but whatever...I did not feel like paying $80 to run. I had my own drink and gels and I did not go to the lunch afterwards so I didn't feel too bad running on the city paths that I run on every single day of my life. There were not alot of people in the run so I ended up running nearly the entire thing all by myself so really, it was just another long run!! I called Shaun beforehand and asked him to bring the boys down and we had a nice brunch at the Sheraton after the run.

It was cold out there. The weather network said 30km/hour winds. Nice. Those winds come through and blow the frost off the trees and at some points I seriously thought I was in the middle of a blizzard. And the course was uphill...both ways!! I am not kidding here...if you know our river bank, depending on which way you go around, both sides are uphill....or downhill. It sucks. I would have preferred to run one direction for the first lap and then turn around and run the other direction for the second lap. I guess I could have done whatever I wanted to do as I was just out for a Sunday run!! But I have also heard a rumour that Boston is hilly so any chance I can get to run hills, let me at them... My legs did not mind the hills and I ran every one of them but the steep one just before the Broadway Bridge. I was super happy about that. I feel my legs are much stronger doing all of those fast-er runs and I can get up a hill...it ain't pretty and it ain't fun, but I am not as nearly trashed as I was say a year ago.

The actual run was slow. Very steady but the time was slow. The good news is that my legs feel amazing right now, not like last year when I could not get down stairs for two days, they feel very good. So I am happy with that. Another 21km in the tank!!

kick ass swim...kick ass run

I am still gloating about my Sunday swim.

Nasty.

Not one to brag....buuuut....I showed up with super tired legs and body from my looooong run on Saturday. I saw the workout and nearly puked right then and there. 4 x 100 at your 200 race pace minus 2 seconds. Do it twice...so eight 100s basically, go hard or go back to bed! Maybe I have mentioned it, but to swim fast, you need to kick. Triathletes don't like to hear this. But trust me, it works. But my legs were dead. As in don't talk to me, grumpy DEAD! I hopped in as the very last person of the fast lane and....just...hung...on....and I could not get out of the pool afterwards!! Kind of embarrassing but my arms were weak and I had to try TWICE to bring my knee up onto the ledge. Sort of did a stumble, wobble out of the pool...class act all around.

Could not get my arse out of bed Monday. It was a holiday and we had nothing going on and I just wanted to sleep. We did not get out of our pjamas all day....perrrrfect! Do you remember those days when you were a kid? The boys love pj days, at night we just threw them into the tub and put new clean pjamas on before bed.

Not getting up on Monday meant I had a big run to do early, early Tuesday morning. As in out the door by 5:15am. Warmed-up, then it was 4 times 10 minutes at the Boston Q pace. Holy. Shit. I am readjusing my goals for that race. I managed the workout, but just barely. I was a wee bit off on one of them but the other three were bang on. My legs were tired. My body was tired. So to get three of them in, good for me...

Next up is the Hypo Half Marathon this weekend...which I still have to register...but the plan is to pace the damn thing CORRECTLY...as in negative split. Coach Justin claims this run will give us a good idea of where I am at for April and what we need to work on. Weather is supposed to be perfect for a run so let's go have some fun!!

a solid but cold run

Had to get up and get this run in early today. It was minus holy shit and I have been sick...again...a couple of days this week. Stayed home from work, felt really crappy for a few days. Missed a couple of important runs and was feeling really bad about it, some more motivation to ignore the weatherman and get my arse out there. Saw several groups of runners out so was nice to know I wasn't the only crazy one. Ended up running 1:45 and felt really good for most of it.

I have also decided I will never ever train for a spring marathon again.

I forgot how hard a marathon is to train for and how hard it is to train in the winter. When this whole journey started, Coach Justin said my major obstacle would be the weather and I should be realistic about setting a goal time...at the time I thought "he does not know what he is talking about"...well...he does know what he is talking about!! My drink AND my Cliff bar froze today and I had nothing to eat or drink after about an hour. Yikes. The last half hour was that old death march, one foot in front of the other, just get home and have a hot bath.

Next up is a swim tomorrow and then another run on holiday monday.

crisis at the v-day party

Today was Luke's Valentine's party at preschool. These were the pretty little candy cups I made last week while bored at home sick. Aren't they nice? Thanks to marthastewart.com.

I had an early morning meeting so Shaun was up for getting the munchkins out of bed, fed, hair combed, and to school...on time. He is also responsible for getting the valentines to preschool. I get a phone call in the middle of my meeting today and it is Shaun in a panic..."You are THREE short!! We don't have enough!! "
This sucks as I counted those damn things vs the class list about 6 times. Honestly. I number crunch for a living and I cannot count to 15. WTF?
I am downtown. There isn't much I can do except make up for it at the next preschool day. I tell him to get the names of the kids we missed and I will get them their darn cups next day!! Duh.
Being the awesome dad he is....he scoots home and MAKES THREE MORE CUTE LITTLE VALENTINE'S CUPS!!!! Did you look at them? They are not so "man-friendly"!! And they are crafty, not really up his alley. But he got them done, took them back to the preschool, everyone was happy. I snickered all day imagining him and his big guy-hands, gluing tissue paper onto cups....
On the training front...feeling much better. Had a long talk with Coach Justin today and we have a game plan for the next couple of weeks. Including the HypoHalf , on Feb 21, which is to be done "speedy".

sick-o

Been sick.

Not real sick but that on the verge of being sick so you are not sure if you should just relax until it goes away or ignore it or just punch through it. I stayed home from work Friday to hang out but I could not sit still and ended up doing a bunch of errands and did the neatest, coolest little valentine's project for Luke's preschool. I am quite proud of them, actually!! I guess I should have gone to work but I DID sleep for over two hours in the afternoon so the day was not totally wasted. Saturday was our usual run around the city doing all sorts of stuff.

Should NOT have sat in a cold hockey rink for two hours as Sunday was a total write off. I slept all day...felt like shit. Missed my swim...missed a big run i was to do...had a small panic attack...

Drug myself into work today but still feel like hell.

Not sure what the week will bring as far as workouts go as I need to feel better before I can tackle anything.

sick kid...clean closets

At home today with a sick kid. So he is watching movies and I am cleaning out closets! I think I have given away half my wardrobe...HALF! It feels darn good.

Never did get in for that x-ray...so nothing to report from that. My chest feels 100% better and I think I may have over reacted just a wee bit by getting in to see a doctor...but the fall jarred something in there...so whatever. I hate going to the doctor and will avoid it at all costs. My mom got wind that I had gone in and left me 4 messages at work yesterday...all worried...cause I literally never go...unless I have to for that annoying annual check up we females must go through.

Had a 30 minute recovery pedal to do on Monday...let my kids play video games while I pedalled for 30 minutes. That? Is some solid parenting, right there.

Swam Wed am. Try this at home...flip on your back, kick with your arms above your head for 5 kicks then lift your arms so your hands reach the ceiling...now try not to drown!! Holy hell this was hard. And more pull which I did all with my pull-bouy low (at my ankles). Again, hard but good for the core and my arms were screaming at the end of it all.

Today was a run which was just an okay run. Was up a few times with said sick kid so was a tired-just-get-through-it kind of run...and one interval short but again...whatever.

There is a Run For Haiti this weekend that I am thinking of entering. A throw together run to raise $ for Haiti. Would be nice to a) run in daylight b) run with other people. Think I will try to make it out!!

for shit sakes

Fell on the ice Sunday.
Have a nice bruise on my left knee.
Going in for x-rays today as my chest is really bugging me.
Fell darn hard.
Watch it out there!!!