Planning Races

I have a bit of Election Day hangover after staying up late (for me) to see the results. 4:20 am alarm felt very early this morning. But it felt good to get a spin class in before work this morning. Something I love to do is PLAN! I keep myself very busy between grad school, a full time job and triathlon training so good planning is necessary to fit everything in. Because I choose a late season Ironman this year I also have to be careful about my race planning this year so that I can peak at the right time and get all my training in. I worked with coach and this is the plan (as of now, I fully expect some things will change)

November: Turkey Day 10k with the family

December: Stocking Run 5k

January: Yeti Chase 10k

February: Ralston Creek Half Marathon

March: Run Through Time Trail Half Marathon

April: Boulder Half Marathon? Holding off to see when our clubs Spring Training Camp is in Moab

May: Colorado Marathon and Summer Open Sprint Triathlon

June: Pacific Crest Half Ironman

July: Still looking to add some shorter triathlons in July

August: Boulder 70.3

September: Ironman Lake Tahoe

What are your plans for 2013??

A Favorite thing

The photo promt for the day was "a favorite things" I have many but the favorite thing I DID today was vote.

Hope you all got out there and and did your civic duty, now all there is left to do is wait and watch.

This Week in Workouts

I hope everyone is doing ok out there, I can't believe what some of you on the East Coast are going through. I am thankful to have a lot of my family here with me in Colorado safe and sound. Life here keeps chugging on with beautiful temps that allow for outside riding in November.

My week is shaping up like usual for prep training, nothing crazy
Monday: am- master swim workout 2800 
pm- hip and core strength work
Tuesday: pm- Run speed work ~6 miles plus plyo work
Wednesday: am- 90 min spin
pm- strength work
Thursday: am- hip and core work
pm- masters swim
Friday: am- 60 minute tempo run 
pm- hip and core work
Saturday: Swim/Run brick 2250 swim short transition to 15 mile run
Sunday:  2-2.5 hour bike ride with long hills and strength session

Total Hours: 16 hrs (not too bad!) 

Now for the November Photo-a-day today's prompt was 5 o'clock.

 My brain went straight to 5 am and what I am normally doing at this time. The first thing that came to mind was spin class. 5 pm now just makes me think of the darkness that I will be running in from now until April =( guess I better get used to it!

November Goals

Well Hello there! It's been a crazy month, I hate to admit that I bit off more than I can chew this semester with school, work and training but a few things have slipped. I think it's more that I have had to PRIORITIZE. Things that have been de-prioritized are blogging and housework (sigh) I have been able to keep up on school, work and training so I am happy about that. Something I can work on is being efficient. I love to read magazines in the car or enjoy a half hour on the couch in the morning drinking coffee and watching the news. This month I will be focusing on EFFICIENCY, I can be reading articles in the car for school or while drinking coffee. I would like blogging to make a bit of a comeback because it is something that I have missed but it will have to be efficiently worked into my day. To help with this I will be trying to follow in some November Photo fun on Instagram:

I have already missed a few days but I think it's ok to jump on the train a little late...

As for my November goals I have some specifics other than focusing on efficiency

I tried once before (in May) to blog once a day, I was successful and enjoyed it until I went out of town for work to a ranch that didn't have internet so I didn't make it the full month. This month I am not scheduled to travel and even though I am starting on the 4th I am going to try for the rest of the month. Anything would add to my consistency, and as athletes we know that is important!

Meeting with a sports nutritionist

On Friday last week I had an hour long nutrition “tune-up” with Dina from Fuel4mance. A tune up includes:

Our Nutrition Tune-Up is a one-time consultation for those seeking assistance with their daily eating program and competition day planning. Whether it is fine tuning your nutrition to ensure good immune and cardiovascular health or overcoming a weight loss plateau, this service includes a customized eating program based on past medical health history, fitness level and future nutrition goals.  

Competition day nutrition is also included in this assessment when time allows.

I was excited for this meeting because I have been looking to clean up my diet a bit and lean out for heavy training come spring.  I am at a “healthy” weight but feel that I could lose about 15 pounds and be able to swimbikerun easier. Since I sort of thought that Ironman training would help knock some pounds off (It did not….bummer) I thought I would call in the professionals. Dina was super nice and fun to talk to, her main advice was to not count calories or do crazy diets but to work on metabolic efficiency (i.e. not spiking your blood sugar). I don’t want to give everything away since this is her job and everyone’s nutrition needs are different but I am changing my diet to see how I feel and if I can drop a few pounds.

The biggest change is getting rid of grains and extra crap from my diet. 

I am not going low carb, I am still eating plenty of low-fat dairy and fruit, I am just avoiding breads, rice and starchy veggies. This will be a bit of a challenge for me because I really like grains and starchy veggies (goodbye butternut squash, pumpkin and sweet potato). I am going to give it a try for two weeks to see how I feel, if I have enough energy to get through 15+ hours of training and if I drop a few pounds.

Oh yeah....Alcohol is a nono as well =(

Have you ever worked with a nutritionist or wish you could? Did you find that it created a big change in your diet, body or life?

First Big Week Back

I won’t call it Ironman training since I still have more than 11 months until Ironman Lake Tahoe so I will just say I was back to training. Last week was my biggest volume week since finishing IMCDA and I am feeling it today! It feels really good to be back at it but also reminds me of how sore and tired I was all the time last spring. I really need to nail down some recovery aids, I know what to do but am sometimes just to lazy/busy to do it. Here was last week in review:

Monday: easy six mile run before work then 60 minute body pump in the afternoon

Tuesday: Track practice including 1 mile time trials

Wednesday: 90 minute spin class and body pump

Thursday: 45 minutes Yoga

Friday: 90 minute spin into a hard 20 minute transition run and strength training in the evening

Saturday: 11 mile hilly trail run (was supposed to do strength training but watched OSU beat BYU while following Kona live, priorities!) this run was SO beautiful!

Sunday: 66 mile hilly ride with fast friends (easy ride for them, pushing it for me;) No pictures from the ride since we forgot our camera but it was a great way to enjoy the fall colors!

It was a good week, total hours came to something like 16ish hours training. This week is fairly similar with some juggling for two evening events at work and traveling on Sunday.

What does a big training week look like to you? Last week was biggish with 16+ hours of training, really big will be more like 22+ hours.

Fourth Quarter

I can't believe it's already October, where did September go? October is my favorite month, I love the changing leaves, the moderate temperatures and all the fun harvest activities. I am not ready for snow but I am ready to be done with the 80+ degree days. On Saturday we enjoyed a beautiful trail run near Nederland Colorado. Sourdough trail was a little rocky but mostly runnable and very beautiful!

The aspens were bright yellow, it was worth it just for the drive, the mountains are gorgeous right now, and it won't be long until they are covered in white. I hope to come back to this trail in the winter to snow shoe!

October also signals the start of the fourth quarter of the year, the last chance to get things you wanted to get done in 2012 before we ring in 2013. I had lofty goals for 2012, I am happy that I met the most important one but have to accept that I probably won't meet all my 2012 goals. I feel ok rolling some of the into 2013, this year wasn't perfect but it's still been great. So here is my progress on my 2012 resolutions:

1. Follow my training plan as best I can. I am TERRIBLE at this, I know you can't control everything so following 100% of the time is not reasonable but I need to be better. What is the point of hiring a coach if I just do whatever I want anyway? Still working on getting better at this, I think this might be an ongoing fight.

2. PR in half and full marathons check for the half marathon back in the spring, I had planned on running a marathon before the ironman but had to skip it because I had some over use injuries acting up and it just wasn't worth it so close to ironman, this one will have to roll over to 3013. I have already signed up for the Colorado Marathon, hoping to PR there!

3. Complete the ironman (most important goal) DONE!!!

4. Complete an ultra marathon Sadly, not done =( I thought I would be able to shift focus after ironman and spend the summer running trails in the mountains. After a bad ankle injury in July I was derailed from reaching this goal at a early fall race. It is SUPER tempting to try to attempt this one in a non race self supported 31 miles. I have wanted to meet this goal for a long time and I knew that when I signed up for Ironman Lake Tahoe that I would be giving up an ultra marathon in 2013 so I could focus on Ironman, road running and avoiding injury. So this may happen not at a race (since there aren't any in December) I will have to try to talk my husband into helping me accomplish this one.

5. Get to my training weight by April (10-12 lbs lighter than I am now) and racing weight by June. I was closer in the spring, but I am still working on getting there, I am hoping to be solidly at "training weight" by the end of the year.

6. Be better about blogging (i.e. more consistent, better pictures, etc.) This is a repeat from last year but I want to continue to improve. This is a COMPLETE fail, must do better.

7. Run 1,000+ miles and ride 3,000+ miles I think I am on track for this, but I am not great at tracking all the time.

8. Focus on strength all year This dropped off during peak ironman training but I am back at it now

9. Stay injury free, this will be most important in helping me reach all other goals Hmmmm, I did get injured but it wasn't as bad as the last two years so that is progress. I am trying to get better about recovery.

So it's a mixed bag but I am happy about the progress so far, now I jut need to talk my husband into a gorilla ultra-marathon late in December...what do you think hon??