Boston Marathon, and Test Week!

First off,

I want to make a list of all my twitter buddies who are doing Boston on Monday. Wow, congrats to you all! If I've missed any, please email or tweet me and I'll add them to the list. The list will hopefully include bib number and start time.

Finished!!!

Josh (SpeedySasquatch) #4385, 10am, 3:00:58
Craig (CraigMacfarlane) #2655, 3:04:02
Justin (Mangorunner) #1985, 10am, 3:08:59
Chris Russell (cyktrussell) #10798, 10am, 3:36:08
Shelly Centis (Smellycents) #16071, 10:30am. 3:37:24
Steve Wisner (Runnermaniac) #12776, 10am, 3:45:01
Megan (Veganrunningmom) #16139, 10:30am, 3:45:20
Mark Ulrich (Texasrunner) 3:50:30
Dennis (Dennisfromohio) #11833, 10am. 4:01:21
Steve Runner (Phedippidations) #27361, 10:30am, 5:01
Mary MacManus (Gracefullady) 22,786, 7:50:43

To tweet live during the marathon, go to http://www.tweetchat.com./ on Monday, log in with your regular twitter ID, and go to room #TCS (for Triathlete's Coffee Shop). There you will see a steady stream of people chatting about our friends doing the marathon (using the hashtag TCS.)

Thanks to Coach Adam and Triboomer for setting that up!

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Test Week Results:

Bike Time Trial - 3 miles - April 15, 2009

	08m 55s 4.84 kms 32.57 KM/hr	Min HR: 80 Avg HR: 172 Max HR: 181
4:30 PM

4.84 km = 3 miles,
32.57 kmh = 20.24 mph

Mar. 17 - Mile 1 - 2:59 avg HR 161, 90 rpm.
Mar. 17 - Mile 2/3 - 6:10, avg HR 176, 91 rpm.

Apr. 14 - Mile 1 - 2:49 avg HR 164, 95 rpm.
Apr. 14 - Mile 2/3 - 6:05, avg HR 176, 94 rpm

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One Mile Test Run - April 17, 2009

	08m 26s 1.60 kms 05m 16s/KM	Avg HR: 169 Max HR: 180
4:00 PM

For you non-metric folks - that is 1 mile 8:26 seconds.

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1000m Test Swim - April 19, 2009

Had a few ups and downs for the swim but it worked out ok in the end.

First of all, got to the pool and tore my swim cap (I had put a small hole in it last time when one of the lifeguards had suggested I tie my key around my ponytail. Don't try it.).

I decided to swim without the swim cap and headed out the pool which was set up for 50m instead of 25m. I specifically had chosen a swim time when it was supposed to at 25m so my time comparisons would be similar. Oh well, will swim anyway.

Did 200m as warm up and the lifeguard asked me to get out. Apparently they had decided to switch the pool to 25m now. (It was supposed to have been done 2 hours earlier.) OK, get out, glad I hadn't already started my test swim.

Decided to go home during the 20 min wait to get another swim cap. Got changed, dressed, drove home (5 min), put on dry swim suit and got cap and headed back to pool.

Did another 50m warm up then started test. 500m, 11:05. Good time - I'm ahppy with that because I'm not going as hard as possible yet. 750m checked watch, too fogged up to see so briefly stopped timer, checked the time, 16:45 - still happy with that, faster than my tri swim time, then turned time back on and finished swim. went harder, hopefully faster.

1000m, still at 16:45. Hmm, guess the timer didn't turn back on. I hate this watch. It has no memory for laps or anything. I'm guessing I was faster but I assumed I kept the same pace which was 2:13-2:14 per 100m. I was kind of hoping for 2:10 but was happy it was still under 2:15. Will keep working on that....

After swim, went out an bought a Timex Ironman Triathlon watch with 30 lap memory. Yeah.

Here's the data from my BT log.

	21m 20s 1000.00 meters 02m 08s /100 meters
12:30 PM

Had to guess final time. 500m was 1:05, 750m was 16:45. Not bad. Faster than last year.

Another Week Goes By...

Wow, I'm finding it hard to keep up with family, work, training, podcasting, and blogging!

I've had a good week over all and although I did get my pink slip on Monday, it was not a surprise.

Here's a quick training and life recap.

Mon: Rest day (planned due to stress)

Amazingly enough the line was drawn just ABOVE my name so I was the first to be declared surplus, but also the first on the recall list. The chances of being recalled before the end of June are fairly high because people are likely to retire and/or post out of my current school. However, this will not happen until after May 1st so I will be in a holding pattern until then. All of the available positions in our district will be posted on May 1st so I will go thru the process of applying for other jobs and being interviewed. At the same tine, I will likely be offered a position back at my current school. I may have a difficult decision to make. Life is like that. I won't worry about it until/if it happens. So many possibilities, no idea how it will turn out in the end...

Tue: Did a hard 1 hour ride and an easy3.7 km run. Ran 5 min with 1 min walk breaks.

Wed: Easy 1:20 recovery ride, 22km. Missed swim.

Thu: Supposed to be rest day but moved yesterday's swim to today, 45 min, 1200m. 3X100m sets. 2:00-2:10 per 100.

Fri: 45 min run in am, warm up, 2X10 min run with walk break. Also 1:50 min ride down in Oliver, 48 km. Rode the Sprint Tri route as well as the Oliver Half Iron bike route with my friend Paul and his daughter Stephanie.

Sat: 45 min swim, 1200m 3X100m sets 2:01-2:07 per 100m. Also 1:37 easy recovery ride, 29km

Sun: Easter Sunday. Family brunch, too busy to get to the gym/pool before it closed early.

Mon: Still on holiday. Rest day in prep for test week coming up.

Upcoming plan:

Tue: 3 mile TT exactly the same way I did a month ago.

Thu: 1 mile test run

Sat: 1000m test swim.

Not a lot to do, but what I have to do will be hard. ope to see some improvement since last month.


I was really tired today. Had an awful sleep last night - think it was from eating a big dinner, really late. Going to bed eraly tonight - ate really well today and drank lots of water too.

Oh yeah, and I was down to 121.4 on Saturday. Right now, hovering around 121.8.

Hope to get down to 121 by next weekend.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Well I had a great birthday weekend and got tons of good wishes on Twitter, Facebook, and several social networks. My best 'gift" was a birthday poem written for me by Gracefullady, aka Mary from the Just Finish website.


Happy Birthday to Kelownagurl
A spirit that really shines
Indulge in your favorite pleasures
Dark chocolate some tasty fine wines.
May today be filled with happiness
Get out and cycle or swim and run
Enjoy every moment remember
You're always number one!
And when this day is over
and the celebration is through
May the year that lie ahead
Be a personal best for you.

I am honoured to know so many wonderful people in real life and online and I appreciate all the good wishes about my birthday, as well as my current job situation.

For anyone who doesn't follow me on twitter and/or listen to my podcast, I got my 'pink slip' on Monday. I am not too worried about it because I am first on the recall list for my current school and a lot can happen, plus I am guaranteed a job in the district so I WILL be teaching someplace in the fall. Nevertheless, it's still a stressful situation with all the waiting etc and I'll be glad when everything is finalized and I know what I'm doing next year. I'll keep you posted as new events arise. :)

Training

I had an awesome week of training and managed to get my running mojo back - yee haw!

Last week (March 30 - April 5)

Mon - 1 hour hard bike, and plyometrics in the evening.
Tue - 1 hour easy bike, :45 hard swim
Wed- 30 min easy walk/run (felt good)
Thu - 1 hour bike Zone 1-2
Fri - :45 elliptical (had to skip :45 swim)
Sat - rest day
Sun - birthday! 4.9km pain-free run, 2:30 49km med. bike

Totals for the week:

Time: 9:36 hours
Bike: 115 km
Run: 7.9 km
Swim: 1200m
Ellip: 7.6 km


This week - planned: 9:45 hours

Mon - rest day (stress day)
Tue - 1:00 hard bike, :30 easy run

Planned for rest of week

Wed - 1 hour easy bike, :45 hard swim
Thu - rest day (will do :30 weights)
Fri - 1 hour bike zone 1-2, :45 run
Sat - 2 hour zone 1-2 bike, :45 hard swim
Sun - :45 swim, :45 elliptical

And now, I must sleep. I have only had 6 hours of sleep for the past two nights and I am bagged. I came home and did my hard ride, then I fell asleep on the living room floor for 20 minutes. Work up and went for my run. *yawn*

Little by Little

I'm slowly getting better, feeling less cranky about not being able to run.

I was feeling pretty darn frustrated on Friday about my constant state of injury. My left calf, which had NOT been hurting me AT ALL, was extremely tender after my massage and felt quite a bit worse on Friday and Saturday, to the point of forcing me to limp. On Friday morning, it felt a sore so I thought that I'd take it easy on my cross-training hike and went very slowly when we were going uphill. It didn't really hurt while we were walking and we really enjoyed the long walk. The dogs loved being off leash for an hour and a half as well.

Later that afternoon, the calf really hurt, mostly when I got up from sitting. I couldn't stretch it at all so I had a hot bath and took it easy.

Saturday it felt pretty much the same and my butt muscles were quite tender as well. I did my swim in the morning without any problem - 45 min, 1500m - and then we went for a long fairly chilly bike ride. I was supposed to stay in zone 2 so we rode pretty lsowly the whole time, only covering about 33km in the 1:45 we were out. My toes were frozen by the time we got home and I had to stop at Kelowna Cycle to buy a new headband, but it was still a much nicer ride than sitting on the trainer for 2 hours. My leg and butt felt fine for most of the ride but started to feel a bit sore after the first hour so I went reeeeally slowly up the hill home.

Erik took a picture of me downtown, where we rode along the boardwalk. You can see the hills are still covered in snow in the background. I live about halfway up the mountain, pretty much above my helmet, about at the snow line.


Today, Sunday, I had a lot of work to do around the house and at school, so I didn't go to the pool until this afternoon. I found out I can use my YMCA swim pass at the Rec Centre so I decided to save myself 10 minutes of driving and swim there today. I swear the water in that pool is warmer than the Y. I did a speed workout today, first time in a long while.

300m warm up

3X100m fast (I ranged from 1:55-2:15) 1:55 was a PR for me)

50m slow kick.

3X100m fast

50 slow kick

200 freestyle CD

I didn't actually get to do my last 50m because the pool closed at 5pm and everyone was standing there at 4:56 waiting for me to get out. I was the last one in the pool.... :)

Anyway, I did 1150m in about 36 min.

Today, my calf is feeling quite a bit better and my butt is ok as well. I am going to do a bit of gentle yoga stretching tonight and see how things go.

I don't think I'll run until later in the week unless I feel perfect on Tuesday and might want to try 1-2 easy slow kms. We'll see...

Butt Update

Nice title eh?

So - I couldn't run on Tuesday as planned. I went out and gave it a try but quit after 1 km because it tightened up right away. I did some upper body work and took it easy the rest of the day - Ibuprofen, hot epsom salts bath, light stretching.

Wednesday was a planned rest day so I did more of the some. I was quite tired and had two naps. Amazing how low I feel when not on an endorphin high.

Today (Thursday) - I went for my first swim in over a month. I was supposed to do 1000m but felt good and did 1500 in 45 min. 100m on 3:00 - slow and easy. I also tried the elliptical and it felt ok - only did 15 minutes tho.

I managed to find a massage therapist who could fit me in today and she was great! She gave me a thorough check over and figures some of my shin problems could be related to the problem in my hips -weak hip stabilizers - which are also what is causing my sore butt muscle.

She gave me two exercises to do which should strengthen the area and with any luck, get rid of the problems for good. One is using my theraband and walking sideways, much like this. This is an exercise I have done before but not properly and/or regularly. She thinks if I do it 3 times a week, I should see some improvement in a month. 5 left, 5 right, 4 left, 4 right, 3L, 3R and so on down to 1. If at any point the expected "burn" turns to pain, then stop for the day.

After 2 weeks of that, she suggested adding hip hikes. Stand on a stool or a stair, with left leg on the step and right leg hanging in the air, next to the step. Keep hips level. Lower right leg below the stool level, bending the knee of the left leg. Repeat several times. Switch and try other side.

Afterwards she did a good massage. It hurt a lot at first but then loosened up until I felt no pain at all. In fact, I'm farily certain I could run without pain right now, but of course, I won't. She figured if I was feeling ok, I could probably run on Monday or Tuesday, starting with a good warm up and a walk/run and judge how I feel. We'll see how things go this weekend.

I made another appt with her for next Wednesday to make sure all is well.

So I'll continue with the training plan for the next 3 days but I'll skip the planned run on Sunday.


Fri
- 1:30 XT

Sat
- 0:45 swim 1000m
- 2:00 bike zone 2

Sun
- 0:45 swim 1200m