Iron Cheer Squad

Keith, myself, Tat, Steven, and Dave are headed down to Florida this morning bright and early to cheer on Ironman Florida participants. As an added bonus since today is halloween, I will be dressing up in a cheerleading outfit as an "Iron Cheer Sqaud" member. Yes Joe E. I will take pictures!!!

Good luck to:

Sue Allen
Dana Greene
Allen Heaton
Paul Kindzia
Wes McKean
Joe Reger
Shelley Ruiz
Barbara Sharver
Sudie Teslzer
Scott Whitney

Look for the huge garden of signage that we will make in the park again this year! If anyone is dehydrated and needs a little post-race IV bag, go to the med tent and look for the short Russian nurse. Tell her I sent you and she'll give you an extra little treat!

Sarah Palin is hot!

It is highly unlikely that I will vote for her, but you cannot deny her hotness, or actually, Sharon's hottness when she is dressed up as Sarah Palin. Well done Eddie and Sharon! This is hilarious!

Congrats to Kelly and Matt!

Sunday night was Kelly and Matt's wedding. It was beautiful, held at the Cator Woolford gardens in Decatur and the reception was at Wahoo, so delicious! Of course Monday morning I had the most wicked headache, way too much wine for the night before a huge test on EKG tracings! Oh well, you only live once!

Wishing you guys years and years of happiness!

Brrrrrr!!!

Winter officially began for me on Sunday. Here's how I determine my seasons: Heat on=winter time after heat is on and before A/C= spring, A/C on= Summer, time after a/c and before heat= fall. So the heat is on and it's winter already. Sunday's ride with the Luna Chix was cold. About 45 degrees or so at the start. I could have used another layer on top, and some of those disposable foot warmers. Not everyone was wearing fleece-lined pants like I was. I know that some people were cold but no one complained and everyone rode strong! It reminded me of my first ride in the cold......

I had never ridden more than about 25 miles when I joined Kelly, Vanessa, Anna, and Joel at the Silver Comet. It was early March and COLD! I wore some cotton yoga pants, a long-sleeve t-shirt and a fleece jacket. I brought a (1) water bottle. No nurtition. They said the plan was to ride 40 miles, which seemed okay to me. Apparently I had forgotten about my first-ever ride where I wore pants and they got caught up in my chain ring and shredded up. So this time I took my pants and I tucked them into my socks. No joke. Kelly, Anna, and Vanessa took pity on my naive self and loaned me gloves, a hat, and a scarf. Immediately after the start of the ride I realized my toes were numb. Like really, really numb. After about 20 miles I was starting to get really hungry, and fortunately we stopped for a potty break. Vanessa gave me a Hammer Gel. I had never eaten a gel before and I didn't really get it, but I was so starved that I had no choice.

At the time I had no clue what "bonking" was, but now I realize how bonked I was. People were talking to me and I thought I was responding, but I was only talking in my head-no words were coming out of my mouth! I got dropped and remember a guy riding by me telling me "drop your gears down, your just spinning your legs out". Once the ride was over Kelly offered me a blueberry scone that she had gotten from Starbucks that morning. I don't even like scones, but that one tasted like it had been baked in heaven especially for me.

That was the day I learned about riding in the cold weather and bike nutrition!!!

Babies!!!!

I got two new little cousins today! Reagan Anne weighed in at 4 pounds 10 ounces and Ashton Nelson weighed in at 5 pounds 10 ounces. Congrats to Amy and Tim! I can't wait to meet them!

LT, VO2 Max, and other things that hurt!

So I had my VO2 Max retested on the bike. Ouch. I was hoping for huge improvements (ya know in time for the Tour 2009) But apparently there was only my VO2 Max only increased .2 ml/kg/min. Hardly anything worth writing home about. I was whining about this dismal increase when my professor pulled up the information about my lactic threshold. That's where things really started to get exciting because my LT heartrate has increased to 170! MAJOR improvement! My last test was in September 2007 so I knew that I had made some really major ground, but an LT heartrate of 170 is seriously high and I am so happy about it! If I wasn't being tested on a $50,000 piece of equipment by someone with a PhD in Exercise Science, I would think it was a mistake. What does this mean? Mostly that I am a total goon for not having my LT redone a million times in the midst of Ironman training. Because I was working with the wrong LT all season I made minimal gains in speed on the bike and basically sold myself short. Although this is the "off" season and we are supposed to be doing "base" stuff I feel like my entire season was spent doing long slow stuff and now I am itching for some speed!

Speaking of speed (or lack thereof) I ran in the Chandler Park 5k on Saturday with Sarah Heaton. Since we are both coming off Ironman (me Louisville, her Wisconsin) we were pretty sure that we wouldn't be speed demons. Add that in with lot's of hills we didn't know about and it made for a tough little 5k!! We refueled with breakfast at the Flying Biscuit, OMG, so yummy! I need to incoporate one long run with refueling there every week!

Other things that hurt? My ankle. Like really badly. Ugh. But I think that my sinus infection has started to clear up and I am able to breathe again!

Next up on my agenda: transferring bike speed to running speed. Let me know what your favorite speed workouts are, I'm in the market for some pain!

What goes around comes around!

While cleaning out my closet I came across my 8th grade cheerleading uniform! I tried it on, wow, wasn't that short or tight 13 years ago, but I was able to get all the zippers up! Poncey was looking at me like I was crazy, so I decided that he too needed to try the uniform on.

Obviously, Poncey wasn't a huge fan of the uniform. But blue is definitely his color.
Poncey got pretty ticked off about the uniform and showed me what he thought about me by getting up twice during the middle of the night to go out. He refused to do any business until I fell back asleep and then his butt threw up on the stairs. Nice. There is nothing that sucks worse than cleaning up an explosion at 3:30 a.m.

Motivation

I am highly motivated to run fast thanks to Golden Shoes. Michael Johnson? That's who I am talking about. Except not this MJ:

I mean he is great and all but I am talking about another Michael Johnson. This one is a lot skinner and kind-of goofy looking but he runs really fast. Not only does Golden Shoes run fast but he can run fast at a really high incline.

We are learning how to administer VO2 Max tests in one of my classes. Fun stuff. Everyone has to learn it, so that means everyone is taking both bike and run tests, multiple times since there are only 14 of us in the class. Golden Shoes went on Tuesday and set the standard for all the non-running guys. They aren't happy. After a little warm-up we let him set the treadmill at a "comfortable" pace. For him it was 7.0 mph. Then his partner ramped that sucker up every three minutes until he almost passed out, or fell off the treadmill actually. I was trying to yell at him as much as possible to encourage him to blow it out, but since I was on the bike getting a sub-max test it was difficult. Turns out my partner was having a hard time taking my blood pressure with me hollering across the room. Honestly I wasn't too concerned with my blood pressure as I was getting a lot of entertainment out of Golden Shoes.

Why? Because at my gym the treadmills only go up to 15% incline. But Michael? He was running at 15% incline and 7.0 MPH like it was NOTHING. HR wasn't even cracking 150. Keep in mind that since this is a graded test, you have to stay at the incline for 3 minutes before you can increase it. His RER (respiratory exchange ratio) was increasing at a snail's pace. It is the indication of what percentage fat you are burning for fuel and what percentage carbohydrates you are burning (at rest 100% fat, at anything above 70% VO2 Max you are 100% carbs)

By the time Golden Shoes was done he was at an 18% grade. His test was the longest I have ever seen at 32 minutes. VO2 Max was 72 ml/kg/min, 75 is considered the benchmark for world-class athletes.

Nothing makes me more fired up then watching someone exercise to the point of nearly passing out. Call me a masochist, but this was fantastic.

VO2 Max essentially means very little to endurance athletes. My professor calls it a "worthless number". He's right. It's all about the lactic threshold for us.

Humans? We really aren't all as great as we thought we were. Siberian huskies that run in dog sled competitions? VO2 Max of 240 ml/kg/min. I'd like to know how they got them to run on a treadmill with a huge mask on their face!

Emerald Pointe Triathlon

Suck. Suck. Suck. Suck. Suck. Goal NOT accomplished!

Swim: 8:03. It was a cluster bomb of chicks with 100+ in my wave. So difficult to navigate my way through the people, most of whom decided to stop and sight directly in front of me. That's the nature of 400 meter swims! Official swim time of 10:16 includes the hill and getting into transition. Not wearing my wetsuit was a bad idea. I was SO cold. The water was freezing. I felt frozen getting out of the water.

T1: Need to practice cooler looking transitions. Like shoes already on my bike. That's super cool. Fumbled with my helmet. Saw Steph and family cheering. 1:49 transition time.

So far so good. Goal at this point was 11:40 and I was at 12:05.

Bike: Freezing. Really cold. Snop dripping everywhere. I was quite uncomfortable on the bike. I passed lot's of girls within the first 3 miles, than it was nothing but guys. I tried but just couldn't get myself warmed up. My quads felt cold. Bike time of 36:03 and 21.6 MPH avg was slightly faster than I anticipated. It felt really slow out there to me.

T2: There is no way I made it out of T2 in 55 seconds like they claim. Something was sketchy about that.

Run: I looked at my watch when I left and knew I could make my time goal. Well, thought I could at least. My legs were still frozen and I couldn't feel my feet. I went out too fast and my first mile came in around 6:50. I felt like I was going to throw up. I slowed down a bit but stopped keeping track of my pace. I passed tons of guys and saw the lead girls. I only got passed once on the run. Apparently Sue writing "Go Faster" on the back of my leg was inspiring to someone! I felt sick to my stomach but seeing Keith, Dave, and Jim made me push harder. I tried to catch you Dave! I saw Olga and Tat while I was coming back in. When we rounded the corner to the finish line a guy said "let's sprint" I ran as hard as I could and we crossed the line at the same time. When the lady said "I need your chip", I said "I am going to throw up" I grabbed a trash can a did. Official run time says 24:48 but I have it at 23:50. Not sure who's right on this one.

Finish time: 1:13:40. 4th place age group. 12th female overall. Three minutes faster than last year.

Congrats to Tat, Olga, Dave, Keith, Jim, and everyone else who had solid races. Thanks to Hunter, Steven, and the Suob's for volunteering and cheering. Thanks to Steph and family and Kellye for cheering, it was good seeing you guys!

I am now in stealth-mode run training with Scoots. Gotta get faster for next season!

Lost another one!

Do you think they give discounts for 8-toenail pedicures???

Last race of the season.....

Tomorrow marks the ending of the 2008 triathlon season. It also marks the beginning of home improvements. Ugh. Triathlon training will be easy in comparison to tiling and painting I am sure.

Very sad that the season is ending. I feel like I am just get started! Okay, that's an overstatement, but I feel like the FUN is just getting started, now that the pesky Ironman monkey is off my back and all.

Emerald Pointe is a fun sprint up in Lake Lanier. Should be chilly. I doubt if I will wear my wetsuit because it's too hard to run up that huge hill in. I did put the "toewarmers" on my shoes. What a pointless purchase that was. Why just the toes and not the whole foot? Whatever. They will work for tomorrow let's hope.

I rarely, if ever, have posted my goals for a race. Generally I will say "get hardware" or "beat my time from last year". Even though this is a sprint, since it's local and the last of the season it draws a lot of talent. So I decided my goals would be based on my time from last year. Basically I would like to improve on everything! Shouldn't be too tough considering the fact that last year I fresh off a broken leg and my running was more like "hobbling". Here's the breakdown:

2007 Emerald Pointe:
Swim: 9:28 (400m)
T1: 3:22 (hill+wetsuit removal)
Bike: 37:10 (21.0 MPH average)
T2: 1:11
Run: 25:32 (8:15/ mile pace)
Total time: 1:16:41
2nd in 25-29 AG, 18th female overall

2008 Emerald Pointe *goal times*:
Swim: 8:50 (let's face it-I can't swim!)
T1: 2:40 (still has the hill but I am not taking off the wetsuit)
Bike: 36:45 (21.4 MPH avg pace)
T2: 1:00
Run: 23:40 (7:37/mile avg pace)
Total time: 1:12:55

I am not exactly in peak sprint shape so this is gonna hurt. Sprint's always hurt the most to me which is why they aren't my speed of choice. I don't know what my speed of choice is to be truthful, but I know that I don't get warmed up quickly enough in races this short. Taking 4 minutes off my time from last year should make for some hard racing, but what better way to end the season?