Eating: 6/7
Workout goal had been to take a day off from running, and I was ok with whatever else happened - started off the week anxious so I didn't make any goals. Totals were 18700 yd swim, 37 mi bike, 49.3 mi run.

M - 9.3 mi run + 40 min stairmaster + 4200 yd swim
T - 8.2 mi run + 20 mi bike
W - 6.5 mi run + 6000 yd swim
Th - 8 mi run + 1.5 mi walk
F - 8 mi run + 4000 yd swim
S - swim meet: 2:28 in the 200, 6:21 in the 500, 1:12 in the 100, 12:36 in the 1000
S - 9.3 mi run (12 x 400 @ 6:27 pace) + 17 mi bike

goals for this week: 5 swims, 2 rides, one day off from running. No eating issues!

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

I ate my weight in French food celebrating our anniversary last night, but ran a total of 14 miles during the week, so feeling decent. My first half marathon is now looming all too soon - this Sunday - so I will have to keep moving, despite hellishly long days at work. The bike and swim are on the back burner, and I can't wait to go back to spin. I splurged on a fancy coffeemaker, which will make my mornings a bit easier, so fewer excuses about energy. I started wearing a pedometer at work, and it is SO depressing to log 3-4k steps on non-workout days, vs. 13k+ when I run.

Enough fiddling with my laces seems to have resolved the foot-numbness issue, and I had a great moment of pride when I was nearly defeated by calf cramps after 2 miles of running. I used the mental image from West Wing of "let's throw our caps over the wall. Then we have no choice but to go get them!" and made sure to run a full 3 miles out so I would get the 6 in total.

Time for 5 straight hours of meetings, stuck in my chair. :(

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You. You make me stronger.

re: coffeemaker - I have a milk frother in my office. It is the best thing! Have saved lots of $ on lattes.

Nice images. I need to remember to yell at a hill this week like AP does.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Survived two weeks of not running. I can't for the life of me remember the last time I didn't run for two whole weeks. This is almost killing me.
Christmas holiday weight is coming off nicely, thanks to my fitness pal. I'm back to wearing belts again with my work pants.
Last week:
Bike: 5x (goal was 4x
Strength: Fail, only made 1x when goal was 3x
Swimming: accomplished - but only 1x, need to start thinking about how to fit in a second swim during the week, when I'm away from home.

Next week:
Bike 3x, strength 2x
If the weather is nice enough on Tuesday, do some walking.
In addition to being away from home, we are spectating CX UCI worlds next weekend, so I'm sure exercising and eating will just be a bust.

is your leg healing?

I can empathize with that and I know you're not exaggerating.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Ooooh! We have espresso makers at my work, but I have no clue how to use them so I resort to the plain coffee and (heaven help my innards) diet mountain dew. I take 7am calls from home before going into the office, and having a treat-like flavored coffee during that call makes me less likely to hate everyone and everything ^_^; It must be hard to fit in such long workouts with a student's schedule - I remember having weird and unpredictable gaps between classes and clubs and barely making it to the gym between fencing days.

I've realized that mental images are such important tools - I tend to focus on how I want to look on my wedding day, how I want to be a "hot mom" when I have kids, and a few inspirational scenes from movies. Love the idea of yelling at a hill!

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You. You make me stronger.

Ha, I think it's pretty easy - certainly easier for me than those of you with kids! I get up and work out first thing. I'm a grad student, so my grad classes meet 1x a week (two classes = T and Th afternoons), my maths course meets MWF afternoons and Tues at 10 am. The result of this is that I have a bunch of time in the AM and show up in my office whenever I feel like it - usually between 9 and 10. It would be crazier trying to work out between classes/mtgs, which is part of why I do it in the morning.


My life is soooo much less busy and scheduled than you working moms.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

last week's goals:
- run x 6: WIN
- bike x 2: WIN + 1
- swim x 4: WIN
- core/strength x 4: WIN


runs were mostly short & easy, but the important part is that they happened despite ragingly cold weather through the week - it comes to something when running in the dark at -10c feels pleasantly mild after windchills of -25c (-13f) for days on end. got a snowshoe in on a truly beautiful afternoon saturday as the sun streamed down through the trees:






this week's goals:
- run x 6
- bike x 3
- swim x 4
- core/strength x 4


the weather has turned mild again, so all our lovely snow (including the 3" that fell last night) is being rained away. 4c and drizzle for this evening - can we go back to the -16c? at least that didn't give us freezing rain that turns our 1hr morning commute into 2.5hrs..


cheers!


-mistress k

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ill advised racing inc.

I knocked 15 minutes off my half marathon in 8 weeks.

I didn't hit my time goal for Carlsbad but it is hard to argue with a 15 minute improvement. I do struggle with my overall speed and the fact that I am still very slow. My time in November was so pathetic I feel like it doesn't even count. But I also can't dismiss the fitness and speed gain I made in those 8 weeks.

Typical athlete, never really satisfied.

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Jen

"In order to keep a true perspective on one's importance, everyone should have a dog that worships him and a cat that will ignore him." - Dereke Bruce

Holy shit! 15 minutes off a half in 8 weeks is fantastic! Strong work Jen :)

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Trying to fight gravity on a planet that insists

Well last week went great, despite Jen bringing the Washington rain down with her when she came to do the Carlsbad 1/2. Great job Jen!
Last week- biked twice on trainer, ran 3 times (twice on treadmill and once on track with some friends), swam once (my usual swim buddy was not up for swimming). Went to do a brick at local tri shop, was not raining at my house, but on the way there it started raining and was unsafe to ride, so skipped that and just stretched, as they were having a stretching class after the brick.
This week-- goal-follow the plan as much as possible, have already done swim-run brick today, more time on bike and run some outside, as the weather is suppose to be very good this week.
Employment situation is looking up, I have a substitute teacher orientation tomorrow, so I will be working at least a few days a week now.

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check out my blog http://theswimmingtriathlete.com

Congrats on the time improvement!

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Thank you :-) I need to separate the finish time from the time improvement so I can get some perspective on the accomplishment. So hard to do.

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Jen

"In order to keep a true perspective on one's importance, everyone should have a dog that worships him and a cat that will ignore him." - Dereke Bruce

A big congrats to Jen!!!! That time improvement is HUGE!!! Nice work!

And a big YIP YIP for all the womens' hard work this week!

As for me, not a great week - felt a cold coming on so the first four days were nada. On Friday, got a good swim in, followed by a visit to the treadmill - first time ever running on a treadmill so that was most entertaining. It's damn easy to pound out an 8:30 pace to the tunes and I may have found a good way to do my tempo work! Got in two long runs over the weekend and I'm feeling pretty good now.

This weeks goals are 5 runs, 4 swims and a visit to my forlorn two wheeled friend on the trainer. She really wants me to take her outside and I think she is very jealous of my running shoes right now. I just keep petting her when I walk by and tell her that warmer weather will be here soon . . . I do miss riding outside so much right now!!!!!

Happy training to all the women's!

I'm not sure about the leg... I hope so... you see, there's really no way to know as it wasn't hurting until the end of a 3-4 mi run. It doesn't hurt doing any other activities, granted I have been avoiding jumping or other high impact stuff too... So the plan was to just give it time off and come back slowly and see what happens.

It's so funny... I see people out running and I'm SO JEALOUS...
lol!!!

And congrats to you for taking a day off from running. :)

Congrats to JenSW on her 15 min HM time improvement!!! I was thinking the other day I needed to email/pm you and ask how it went as I didn't see anything about it on FB. Way to rock it! Just keep with your plan and your speed will return. It just takes time. With my 4 month summer break, I am close to 30 sec per mile slower over the HM distance than I was at this time last year. I just keep working and know that with some hard work and time, it will come back.

Last weeks goals were: 1 -2 swims, 2 rides, 3 runs, 2 strength (not just wrist stuff). I got all it all in with just one swim. I did something weird to my shoulder in the warmup and it bothered me for a few days. I swam this morning and it was fine so must have just been some freak irritation. I am finally starting to feel like me again on the bike. I am able to hit my watt goals without much effort (even after a 20 hilly trail run the day before) so that good. However, my running is up and down. I have been able to hit my paces during my tempo and speed workouts but my long runs haven't left me with much confidence for my very hilly 50K in late Feb. I am pretty sure some of it is poor nutrition during the run but I miss being able to crank out 20+ mile runs every weekend and feel good at the end. The problems of being an ultrarunner.

This weeks goals are: 2 swims, 3 rides, 5 runs, and 2 strength. I joined a challenge with my ultragroup to run at least 1 mile every day in Feb so we will see how that goes starting Friday. I also have a 50K on Saturday. The 50K is more group run than race as the entry was just $10 and most people will just do a couple of the 5-6 mile loops (course selected on race morning). My goal is to run at least 20 but hopefully closer to 25 and to focus on nutrition and getting the mileage in.

Wow - you all inspire me so much!

TC - great job on swim as always. Good job on the eating, 6 out of 7 is amazing. keep up the great work
Aglecipher - good luck on your 1/2 marathon, tell us all about it next week.
Determination - not running is horrible. I'm so sorry for you. When do you get to run again?
mistressk - good solid week. I'm jealous of the snow. It'll be 85 here today. No winter :(
Jen - 15 minutes - that rocks!! Well done
SDCali - good luck w/ the job hunt and the sub teaching.

My week last week wasn't amazing. I did a couple runs first two days and then pulled my quad again. Had to take the rest of the week off both running and biking. The good news is that forced me to swim. I got three times in - very happy about that. And my leg is starting to feel better.

Goals this week
run 5-6 times
Bike 3-4 times
swim 3 times
core 3 times

I'm running Napa marathon in 5 weeks, and Boston in April. I'm thinking about signing up for Buffalo Springs 1/2 IM. Anyone else doing this race?

Happy training.

not sure on the running. After 2 months of pain at the end of my runs, and the symptoms all seemed to point towards possible stress fracture... rather than go to the doctor (is somewhat difficult to do since I'm away from home every week) I just decided to stop running.
Since that would be the treatment for a stress fracture anyway. They just confirm the fracture and have you stop running. So, I stopped running.
It's self-imposed.

That makes total sense, unless pain is not improving. Do you feel you're getting better?
Good luck!

That's the tricky part... I was pain free except when running, and only at the end of a 3-4 mi run (because of said pain I didn't try to run farther than that). So for 2+ months or so I was running 2x per week, 3-4 mi at a time... the last 1/2-1/4 mi I would have the pain, and for a short while afterwards.

I won't know if I'm getting better until I try to run again, and I really think I have to give this some time... if it IS a stress fracture and I try to run too soon, I will only delay my healing by re-injuring myself.

I have ZERO pain during swimming or cycling or strength training. I have been avoiding impact stuff.
Hopping on the one leg just now, I get hints of the pain.

Been nailing my workouts and was all excited for the first race of the year (a half marathon) this weekend and now, all of a sudden, my ankle is hurting. AGH! Woe is me.

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kelly dunleavy o'mara
@kellydomara

I hate that! It doesn't seem fair, all that training just to get hurt before a race. But since it's the start of the season, unless it's an A race, I suggest you listen to your body. That may mean just go slow and have (if you can do that, some of us can't. We have to race). Or if pain is bad, just DNS.
Good luck with whatever you decide.

Jen - AWESOME! That's fantastic!

misstress k - nice pic :-) yeah you've been having some serious cold out your way, glad you've been able to get out tho.

Last week was a good running week, 87km for the week even if I only had 1 long run (22k but I pushed the tempo on that one so I felt it the next day!). Every run felt very good, which is the main thing.

This week, I have a huge work week including managing a product recall (that'as a big part of what I do) which is stressful - I already binged the hell out of Monday :-( But it's my daughter's NINTH B-day tomorrow - I still can't believe she's nine. We're going to a hockey game tonight (Nucks vs. Avs) and we made cupcakes for her class last night. I have my quarterly maintenance check-in with the doc today, TSH levels look good & steady, but I'll get her to check my umbilical hernia, I've been having a lot of bloating and sometimes diarrhea on and off for I dunno, 18 months maybe now? and I am finding that it's starting to affect the hernia. Hopefully minor to nothing, I know wheat & dairy are not the culprits, so I am going to bet $5 she'll check me fer worms :-). Anywhoo, goal is 2 long runs this weekend, with a weekly total of 90-95k.


Pick of K and her step-bro L a few weeks ago:






AP

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"How bad could it be?" - SimpleS