Search

Happy. Healthy. Heathen.

Traveling, training, thinking, talking, typing

Open Search
Category

training

80k ride – in the mud…again

Someone PLEASE remind me next time it rains that the Greenway is not the best choice for a bike ride!!

high water at the rapids

I had a big 50-miler to do today, so I started out early – and it was COLD this morning!  I had on my usual smashing outfit to brave the cold, but it warmed up beautifully by the time I finished.  The riverside Greenway is so wonderful, and I’m so proud of Murfreesboro for having seen the need and potential and responded to it, but seriously?  Check this out:

oh yes, I most certainly did...

This was along the newest section out toward Cason Lane, and this picture is a few minutes later:

Question my judgement, but do NOT question my commitment!!

That’s my sock I’m wringing out on the left side of the picture – the water completely covered my ankles, soaked the legs of my pants – keep in mind it was about 37 degrees out there this morning!  So after 80k, all on the Greenway, this is what my gear looked like:

and the bike looked even worse!

By the time I finished, as I said, it had warmed up nicely, and I took a post-ride stroll into the river – I strongly advocate this to all my running clients – cooling one’s legs down after a run or ride greatly reduces inflammation and speeds recovery.

evidence of practicing what I preach - thigh deep smack in the in cold water!

I’ve decided to leave my bike computer on kilometers through the race – NZ uses k’s and they don’t mark the bike or the race course in miles.  So from here on out I’ll be training in kilometers – I kinda liked it today – they’re smaller than miles!  (Don’t burst my bubble by trying to convince me it’s the same distance overall – I like my delusion.)  From Thompson Lane to Gen Bragg to the Battlefield to the new section by the Medical Center back on the Greenway through Old Fort Park, out the new stretch to the dead end at the 99 bridge and back to Greenway to Cannonsburgh is 25k.  (15.5 miles according to my handi-dandi iPod conversion app).  If you take the Greenway straight back to Thompson Lane it brings the total to 32k.  I did this loop twice, and added in about 5 loops around the “criterion” at the Battlefield to make the whole 80k.

One last picture:

You can't see how unbelievably messy the house is - but the bike gets cleaned!

Huge day tomorrow – 120k ride/14k run (75/9 miles for you Yanks); Jesse and I are going to the Natchez Trace for the ride – he said he’d be really supportive during the run by going to get something to eat while I ran AND he’s not committing to the full 75 miles…but I get it – HE’S not training for an Ironman.

iPod is in dire need of rehab – got one song this morning before it died – gotta make a trip to the MAC store in Nashville.  That one song was an ABBA song, but I don’t remember which one.

Thanks for reading!

1

Great run on the farm

60 minute run on the farm today – felt good, felt strong.  It helps more than I can describe to have my running companions with me…

not a great pic, but these girls just wouldn't cooperate!

It was cool and overcast-y, and a little bit muddy, but it was good to get out on the property.  It was probably about a 5 – 5.5 mile run (60 minutes); yesterday was a great strength training event.  Kinda boring, but sometimes that what training is.  Favorite shuffle today was  Bread and Roses, John Denver.

I wrote in an earlier post that I wanted to blog about a few different things, and since this post is a bit short about training, I’m going to blog about one of my favorite Christmas presents:  My New Kindle.

Jesse gets the credit for this, but I’ve been whining about it for a while – he knows how to shut me up!

So this is Amazon’s electronic book, if you don’t already know.  It can hold about 3,000 volumes and most downloads are about $10 and take about 60 seconds to beam into my device.  There are a lot of books that are considered public domain and are free:  Sherlock Holmes, most classics like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, many children’s stories.  There are other sources for book downloads, but I haven’t begun researching this yet.  Not every book in available in Kindle form, but it appears they are growing exponentially.  You can also subscribe to newspapers or magazines – you get them even before they hit the newsstands!

The Kindle is a pure delight to use.  It is not a lighted screen, so you must have a source of light in order to read, but it is incredibly simple to use.  There is a font size option, and a words-per-screen option.  I use a smaller font if I have my reading glasses handy, but can enlarge it to readable size if not.  The page-turning feature is on either side of the 6″ x 8″ pad (about 1/3″ thick) and the black leather cover protects the surface.  It takes a charge in about half-hour and will last about 4 hours reading, I think.

I do not think that electronic devices will ever fully replace books.  Everyone with whom I’ve spoken about this Kindle has the same response:  “But I want to TOUCH the book, FEEL its pages, SMELL it”.  I get it, I get it.  I like to do that too.  But here’s where I think the Kindle has an application.  When I travel, I usually take 3 or 4 books with me…sometimes I finish one on the travels and need a new one, sometimes I am reading several at once, sometimes I want to refer back to something.  So far I have downloaded 8 or 9 of my most favored volumes, and a couple of new ones I’ve been wanting to read, along with the complete works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and On The Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin.  I am reading a most of them simultaneously, which is the way I typically read books.  I beamed in the latest edition of Newsweek, to which I have a subscription, but I didn’t really like it on the Kindle, because it has no ability to show pictures, and I really missed that.

It was perfect on the airplane, and on the couch, and in my bed.  You can also highlight, make notes, save passages, and add bookmarks.  It has the ability to be online, but since I have an iPhone, I haven’t really pursued this ability.  I’ll see how it goes in my usual routine here at home – I’ve had it with me for the last 2 days, but haven’t found an extra couple of minutes at Starbucks yet! 

I was given the option of naming the device, so I’m waiting for inspiration; so far it’s Read Even More, but that’s a little weak, so any suggestions are helpful??  My rating is TWO thumbs up.  I’ll continue to analyze it as I use it, so stay tuned…

Thanks for reading

2

Back in the Boro, back on the bike

Well, the Christmas Party’s over…

What a fabulous month it was with the kids in Colorado!  The skiing, laughing, eating, drinking, talking, all surpassed my highest hopes.  What a joy and a pleasure to observe and interact with one’s children as adults!    I love hearing their opinions, listening to their senses of humor,  sympathizing with their concerns, celebrating their choices, and anticipating their futures.  I am so grateful to them for their letting me into their lives like they do, and I’m so proud of the people they are.

Jesse and Aden were the first to leave on Tuesday.  He was such a pleasure, and I’m  so grateful to John and Shannon, his parents, for letting him join us for a few days.  He did great on the slopes, and we even had him saying that he shredded the half-pipe, which of course he did!

I love his face in this picture!

Then on Wednesday, Amy drove Glenda and me to the airport in Denver, where we would fly together to Atlanta, then go to England and Nashville, respectively.

goodbye at Denver airport =(

Then, finally, this morning, back to reality.  Back on the bike at around 2:00 for a quick 15-mile ride to pick up Jesse’s truck in Smyrna.  I had on my new riding gloves, which I loved, and my freaky goggles, which I LOVED, and I was on the Baixbaix.  It was cold as hell, but the bike felt good.  We had a little tire mishap before riding out of the driveway – one of my slick red tires had a littleblowout when Jesse went to add air, but he got it fixed in a flash and we were off.

not enough clothes!

I’ve begun making the arrangements for my accomodations in New Zealand.  Son Sam and girlfriend Laura will be in school in Palmerston North (near Wellington on the North Island), but that’s a fair distance from Lake Taupo, so I’m looking for a hostel/hotel for about 2 weeks before the race.  Sam’s 2-day Coast-to-Coast New Zealand race (kayak/trail run/mountain bike) is Feb 12 and 13  (he and I are experiencing the same pre-race freakouts:  “What am I doing?  WHO would attempt a race like this!?”), so I have a need for a home for about 2 weeks, preferably in the Lake Taupo area, so I could possibly train in the area and even swim the lake!  I’ve sent a couple of emails, and I’ll post when I hear something back.

No iPod today because we were on main roads, but my iPod has experienced Epic Fail; when I restored it on iTunes, I lost all my music!  Not good, cuz I don’t have all my music on my laptop.  Sad.  So I’ll start re-downloading what I have and reconstruct from there.
Thanks for reading!
0

I’m still here

I know the posting has been weak – still in Colorado with the fam. 

Swam and strength trained yesterday while Glenda played with Aden in the pool.

Avon, CO Rec Center

Strength training was, well, strong, swim was weak – still having oxygen issues up here at 7000 feet.  That’s compounded in the pool where my breathing pattern is highly defined, so to speak.  So I worked on form, sprints, etc, before joining Glenda in the delicious whirlpool for a few minutes.

Today was a ski day, and a delightful one at that.  Temperatures have finally risen above the 10-degree mark, so the sunshine was great.  We had our five-year-old entertainment saying that he shredded the gnar on the halfpipe…why have children if not to make them say funny things?

Aden pulling Ben down the mountain

OK, fam’s rushing me to go get pizza…more to come when I get back…

So, back from pizza – doesn’t sound much like a training diet, does it?!  It’s not.  Neither is all the beer and wine I’ve had, or the cranberry cake, fudge, pork roast, sweet potatoes, brownies, and “slope cookies” I’ve had since I’ve been here.  Oh yes, at Beaver Creek, at 3:00 daily, warm, fresh chocolate-chip cookies get brought out to the skiers:

3:00 at the Beav

Life returns to “normal” next week and I’ll be back on the high-protein/low sugar Ironman nutrition plan, along with resuming the bicycling along with the running and swimming.

Life is so very good, and this trip has been spectacular.  We start dispersing tomorrow, and I’m trying not to think about it.  Son Sam was not able to make it in, because of his training/schedule/work in New Zealand, but we’ll see him next month when we go for his HUGE race a couple of weeks before mine.  Daughters head back to Paris and California for school in  a couple of days, but what a trip it has been.

No music on the slopes – too much fun laughing and carrying on with the kids.  We do the Kennedy thing for our last run, minus the football, but you can hear us for miles.  I am so lucky to get to spend time with these people.  Right now we are all rolling on the floor crying looking at the Cakewrecks website.  Google it.

Thanks for reading!

1

Back to Colorado

Alright, a few delightful days in Tennessee to check on the house, the dogs, the mail, train a bit, enjoy friends a bit, play a bit; now back to beautiful cold Colorado with one more of the offspring in the mix.

Daughter Glenda arrived from Paris on New Year’s Day at the Atlanta airport for a quick night with my parents, my brother, Jesse, and me, then on to Beaver Creek for a sweet reunion with her twin and big brother.  Sam is still supposed to join us from New Zealand, but standby flights are weak, so we wait.

Yesterday’s training (remember the oxygen issue!) was a strength session (strong) and pool session (fair).  Take a look at the view from the gym windows:

Tomorrow is January 6.  My race is March 6.  Whatever your interest is, whatever you strive for, whatever deadlines you are pressured to meet, you know the feeling of pressure that begins to increase as time marches its inevitable course.  It was far off in the distance when I made the commitment to it, and now, tick, tick, tick, it looms ever so much closer to the present.  I will try to limit my freak-out posts, but part of the point of this blog is to document all these emotions and feelings in addition to the mechanics of what the workouts entail.  Excited.  Apprehensive. Determined.  That’s where we are now.

On a different note, I visited my friend Ted’s blog (www.runolfr.blogspot.com) and was delighted to read about his adventures and opinions; I was also inspired to throw in a few posts that are not limited to training and travel (or food porn, my third most-used category).  My life is consumed by those things, and while after March 6 I’ll still be travelling, the training will change focus a bit, and I want to keep up the blog.  I’m working on a post about Rules, and I’ve got a couple of book reviews I want to add.  Stay tuned for those.

Life, as always, is spectacularly complex and beautiful.  I’m profoundly grateful to be marinating in the presence of the kids for these precious days.  Even at their ages (20-somethings), I can’t get enough of simply staring at them; I’m amazed by who they’ve become, astounded at their growth, humbled by their intelligence and compassion.  That may be magnified and compounded by their distance from me,  the time between visits, or the intensity of having them together; it matters not, I’m still in what we in the south call Hog Heaven.

three of four

Thanks for reading!

4

Cold biking

So I came home from Colorado to the sunny south…????

My minimum bicycling temperature is about 45 degrees, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.   So I bundled up in:  sports bra, bike jersey, underarmor turtleneck, black pullover, Georgia hoodie, biking jacket, bike shorts, leggings, sweatpants, socks, bike shoes, headband, riding gloves, running gloves, helmet, sunglasses  —  I think that’s all.  I waited til the warmest part of the day, 2:30ish and took off for the Greenway.  I did the usual – Greenway, Battleground, new Gateway stretch, new stretch under Old Fort Parkway.  I finished just about dark and by then it was FREEZING – fingers and toes numb, eyes watering (no ski goggles – they are in Colorado), face tingling, but workout was done!

Colder than I look

No iPod – it doesn’t work well in this cold, but the song in my head was Winter Wonderland…

Thanks for reading!

2

Anaerobic aerobics

Can I please get credit for doing this bigass brick while my family’s susshing down the slopes?  After taking them to the skiier drop-off point, off I go to the gym for my swim/run brick.  I know that’s not the sequence – but remember that   1) I’m all about the flexibility and 2) I hate the stationary bike more than almost anything in the multiverse.

The swim was boring and uneventful, but I swam about 2000 yards (just over an hour), then into the locker room for a quick change (neglected to  bring the trisuit), and upstairs to the treadmill.  I had the iPod, but this treadmill had a television and I lucked up on catching last year’s Stephen Colbert Christmas special, so that kept me entertained for an hour.  Then I transitioned to iPod to finish the workout.  Why the pool faces the mountains, but not the treadmills is kind of a mystery, but whatever.

me SUCKING WIND cuz someone took all the delicious oxygen

I had NO incline on the mill, but had it set at my usual 5.5mph to begin with, but that went by the wayside as soon as I got winded and had to back it down to 5.2.  I got my 8 miles in about 90 minutes and was awfully glad to get off that bad boy and into the shower.  By then it was time to get to the grocery store (on Christmas Eve in a resort town – I had to wait for a shopping cart) to get lasagna stuff for the household.

Yesterday I did end up running outside – that was an adventure.  My son lives in a condo on a golf course, so I hiked to the top, then found a road that was relatively quiet and cleared, and off I went.  Oxygen problems there too, but I got through it.

Ben's condo complex - it's 12 degrees here

Anyway, good brick today.  Can I say that it’s nice to work out in a gym where NO ONE knows who you are?  I got through my workouts completely unmolested except for the creeper who walked in front of my treadmill, oh, maybe 25 times?  I love the social interaction I get in Murfreesboro, but sometimes it comes at the expense of the time I’ve set aside for the workouts.  My fault, I know.

Going home next week for a few days to check on the dogs/mail/business/house/cows/mother-in-law.  (Maybe that’s a little out of sequence) (Maybe not).  I’ll stick my head into the MAC on Tuesday or Wednesday to see that everyone is working off the holiday fudge and boiled custard.

Fave iPod song today:  something by Transiberian Orchestra (can’t remember the name, the iPod is across the room, and I am THAT lazy).  I admit I cheated on that – I chose the two albums I have by them to feel all Christmas-y.

Thanks for reading!

3

Training in Colorado

When I miss several days of blogging, it’s always so important for me to say that even though the accounting has been shabby, the training continues.

I am out with my family (two-thirds of us) at my oldest son’s home in Beaver Creek, Colorado.  We’re combining skiing, Christmas, family time all in one extended month-long visit.  I think that is the long-term scenario when you have a family the size of ours that is as active as ours:  implement a start date and finish date and take what time you can get from each member of the family!  Oldest son Ben is here, of course, daughter Amy from California is here til she must go back to school on Jan 15, daughter Glenda in Europe will come in as flights allow after the New Year, son Sam in New Zealand will try to come around Jan 10.  Hopefully, we’ll have several days when the whole posse is together.  Epic.

In the meantime, even though I enjoy skiing, I’ve made arrangements at the local gym for a temporary membership, and yesterday had a great strength training session/swim workout.  I’d been dormant since the trip out here, so it felt good to get in the pool.  I have the option today of running outside (new snowfall last night, snowing now) or going to the gym and getting on the treadmill (which I despise only slightly less than the stationary bike).  Details to come.

I plan to go home next week for a few days to check on the business, write the payroll, check on the house/dogs/cows, and do some riding, since that’s the one thing I won’t get done out here.  72 days remain between now and raceday.  I think shivers just literally ran right up my spine.

No workout-related pics, but I did get a replacement camera, so I’ll add these just for fun:

New camera! Minneapolis airport on the way out
my girl Amy
construction of the Diet Mt Dew Christmas tree
Amy's new Vibe (Vixie) in her first snowstorm!

Fave random from strength training:  It Ain’t Me Babe, Bob Dylan

Thanks for reading.

3

Finally, some sunshine!

Today’s brick was all outside – bike, run, breathe, soak up the rays for a change…

First time on the new bike with the computer (set to kilometres – notice the continental spelling) and the aerobars – the only things that might possibly have made this bicycle EVEN better!  I’m in love with this bike – it is so slick, so smooth, so light, so fast – the Baixbaix rocks.

Started out at the Cannonsburgh Trailhead with Jesse for a little ride in the mud – the last few days’ rain, while good for filling ponds, was hell on the Greenway.  The trail follows right a long the river, so anytime the banks swell at all, all the mud and muck washes over the path, then recedes, then we play slip-slidey through the puddles.  But it didn’t matter, cuz it was bright and sunny outside – even needed the sunglasses.  Because of the mud, we ended up doing a criterium at the Battlefield 6 0r 7 times around, then through the new section by the hospital. After that, we made an attempt at the new section under Old Fort Parkway, where we went about one mile before encountering a puddle I just didn’t want to take the new girl through – she’ll get trashed soon enough, and I just didn’t want all that muck in my chain.  Jesse tried to take a picture of me in the new ski-goggle attire, but we know the camera took a dive on the last ski trip, so, alas, no picture of me when he tried to take it with the malfunctioning equipment.

The ride was a bit slow because of the mud, but we got in about 30, then Jesse bailed and I transitioned to running  (Jesse said he would go eat chips and salsa and think of me while I did it).  The jog was a bit slow too – the new sneaks are FABULOUS too, so I’m just in pig heaven with all my new toys.  I headed out from Cannonsburgh again, toward General Bragg, did a turnaround and finished just short of 6 miles in an hour. 

What a great brick – sunshine, new bike, new shoes, and 81 days, 9 hours, 5 minutes, and 48 seconds to the race.  (Not that I’m obsessing over that little count-down thingy on the website www.ironman.co.nz to  see for yourself).  As always, everyday, life is so very very good.

Random shuffle (well, not exactly; I chose the new Rat Pack Christmas CD I just downloaded)  I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm, Dean Martin.

Thanks for reading!

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑