I can do it!

I did my HIIT on the treadmill this morning, beginning with a 1.01 mile warm up in 10 minutes, and then doing the 20 minutes with levels beginning at 6.0 MPH and topping off at 10.0 MPH. This time, I increased my levels just a bit so that I could do a full minute at 10.0 MPH. I ended up doing 2.49 miles in 20 minutes.  My friend Leslie told me that she does her level 10 at 11.0 MPH...I'm going to give that a try next time and see how it feels...scary!!!  I did a 1 minute cool-down at 6.0 MPH, for a grand total of 3.61 miles in 31 minutes.

We spent the rest of the day at the Ironman venue, running around and supervising all of our volunteers.  It was SO MUCH FUN!!!  The aid station ran like clockwork, and then we spent another couple of hours cheering for the last of the finishers until we were hoarse.  What a fantastic, inspiring day!  :D

Today is day ONE of my new training program, which includes my 17-weeks-until-half-ironman-triathlon schedule, and my 21-weeks-until-saint-george-marathon schedule, combined with my 4-weeks-until-becoming-a-fitness-bootcamp-instructor schedule! I was a little freaked out when I realized all that I would have to do this summer, but once I had written it all out on a calendar, it really wasn't much more than I'm already doing. So I started this morning with a 50 minute run, doing 5.6 miles total. Then I went to bootcamp training, where we ran another half mile jog, then did a great arm and ab workout, and followed it up with some stabilizer strenthening exercises with the bands. After that, I did my 60 minute bike ride, taking along my trainer friend Kim, and we did 15 miles of hill work. But when I got back home, Ben wanted to go out again, so I did another 51 minutes on the bike, finishing 15.6 more miles. Needless to say, food is tasting really good right now. :D

Today I started the morning by hitting the gym for a HIIT on the treadmill.  I warmed up with a mile in 9:28, then played with some higher levels of intensity.  I added a few walk breaks so that I could recover a little more, and ended up doing 3 miles in 24:58.  Immediately after the gym, I headed over to the park for bootcamp training.  Then I did another .5 mile jog at bootcamp.  I've been getting my arms worked over, so I was a little worried about the open water swim tonight at Sand Hollow Reservoir...I should have been more worried about freezing to death and/or drowning!  I ended up swimming about a half mile, but it was so cold I had trouble breathing, and then on the way back to the beach, the swells were timed just perfectly so that everytime I came up for air, I got splashed.  Fun, fun.  That swim made me feel both hopeful and discouraged about tri training.  But I felt better after Ben told me that he had a hard time swimming as well.  :D

I got to sleep in until 6:00 this morning!!! It wasn't enough.

Bootcamp started at 6:30, and I ran a bit for a warm-up.  We did MORE arm stuff (And I'm FEELING it!) and then I had some breakfast and headed out on the bike.  My plan was to take it really easy, since I'm supposed to be tapering for Ogden.  I rode up through Ivins, picked up my friend Kim, then headed out towards Gunlock for a little ways, turned around, and went through Santa Clara back to my house.  I ended up with 32.5 miles in 2:07:52, which I figure is okay for all the hills we did.

My body is wasted!!! So much for tapering...

I woke up at 5:00 to do intervals on the treadmill at the gym, but I was literally struggling just to finish a one mile warm-up.  It's not so much that my muscles are fatigued, just that the rest of me is exhausted!  I've actually been falling asleep while teaching music lessons - very bad.  I probably should have stayed in bed, but...

Anyway, I did a couple of high intensity intervals, but not the full workout.  All together, I ended up with 2.7 miles in 25:12.  Then I headed over to bootcamp training, where I was supposed to mostly watch, but they put peppy music on, and the next thing I knew I was doing plyometrics.  Ben would shoot me!  I'm seriously going to have to start tapering.  But first, I need to get a swim in.....

LATER....

Fighting against much negative inner dialogue, I finally made it to the pool this morning and forced myself to swim.  I figured I would have to wash my hair anyway, so I might as well get in the water.  I told myself I would do 20 lengths, and then...whatever.  I ended up doing 60 lengths.  It was a bit short of the 45 minutes I was supposed to do, (actually a LOT!) but I am happy about it anyway.  Yay!

I showed up for bootcamp training this morning, but no one else did, so Kim and I got our friend Helen and did a 19.5 mile bike ride in 1:22:17.  Just for fun, I made the girls switch to their running shoes and do a quickie mile after the ride, just to get our feet used to it.  It took 10:49 to do 1.12 miles, but we did a lot of walking, and the loop we ran was pretty hilly...so all in all, it wasn't too bad a run.  :D

I was feeling like I was about to get really sick when I went to bed Friday night. I think maybe it was because I am just so completely exhausted! I've been having a hard time getting enough sleep lately.  So I decided to skip my morning run and jsut take an extra day of rest.  After all, I AM supposed to be tapering!  Unfortunately, my inner alarm clock didn't cooperate, so I woke up at 5 anyway.   But I forced myself to stay in bed and at least pretend to sleep.  I think that helped a little.

My bootcamp buddies had to be in Washington at 8:00 AM for a parade we were marching in to promote our business.  I ended up doing sprints for most of the parade.  Then we went up to Zion's Canyon to hike the Observation Point Trail - four miles up, climbing about 2000 feet in elevation, and then four miles back down.  I headed up most of the way with an 18-year-old exchange student from Belgium, and we beat everyone else to the top by 45 minutes.  It took us about an hour and 20 minutes, even though we stopped several times to let some others catch up.  We finally just ditched them the second half of the hike.  I ran part of the way up some switch-backs, but I was going at a decent rate of speed all the way up, so I know my heart rate was nice and high.  I'm calling it a high intensity interval day.  And even though I can't count the miles as running miles, I know I got a better workout in.  I'm going to say I ran one mile, just for fun.  :D

So this is my "official" taper week...yeah, right.

Seriously, I'm going to do it. On Wednesday. Maybe I'll regret it. We shall see.  :D

I got up early to do a 40 minute run, but it turned into a 43:28 run.  I did 4.8 miles, and felt pretty excited when I did the math and realized that if I had run a full 5-miler, I would have come in just over 45 minutes - which cuts at least 3 to 4 minutes off my standard 5 mile time!  Wow, those HIITs really DO make you faster!  I was even taking it easy, thinking about tapering and all.

After the run, I went to bootcamp training, where luckily today was a stretch day.  So we did some yoga on the top of a huge rock overlooking Saint George.  It was beautiful, and exactly what I needed.

After bootcamp, I needed to get my bike ride in, so my friend Kim met me for an hour of easy spinning on a local trail.  We did 15.6 miles in 1:01:58.

To wrap it all up, I went to the pool this evening and swam 80 lengths, nice and slowly.  I really tried to focus on my technique...what little I know of it.  Ben said I looked like I was gliding, and I guess that's a good thing.

I had planned to do a swim, bike, and run today, but the weather didn't cooperate, so we had to skip the lake.  I did a little bit of interval work on the treadmill...1 mile warm-up at 5.0 - 7.5 MPH in 10:04, then walked for 2 minutes.  After that I did two intervals, starting at 6.5 and increasing a full MPH every minute until 9.5 the first time and 10.5 the second time.  All together, I did 2.5 miles in 22:43.

Then tonight, since the lake trip was cancelled, I went to an hour Zumba class and an hour Yoga class.  Funny how that feels like tapering after the workouts all the I've been doing this last week.  :D

Guess what?!?  I'm tapering!!!  Hahahaha!

I haven't done a single form of exercise today.  And I don't think I'm going to, at all!  BUT I DID get some pics taken for my post-18-week-challenge, and also got myself a Body Composition Analysis in a Bod Pod...pretty cool.  So since the first of the year, my weight has gone from 126.6 down to 121-ish and up to 131-ish and now back to 124.2 as of this morning.  But my bodyfat % has dropped from 23.8% down to 18.2%...not bad!  I've noticed that I've added several pounds of muscle mass and I'm feeling like this may be a good, healthy weight for me to be doing all the endurance training I'm doing.  Much lower and I start to starve.  I'm going to play with it more as I progress in my training.  I love the scientific experiment that is ME.  Hahaha!

This evening, I made it through a half-hour of yoga, but I was feeling really light-headed and dizzy, so I decided I would go out to the car and wait for Ben.  During the half-hour I was out there, I fell asleep FIVE times and woke myself up!!!  No wonder I'm sleep deprived.  I think I'm going to go visit a sleep clinic....

Ogden Marathon!!!

We were pretty worried when we pulled into Ogden yesterday afternoon, and it was raining and hailing!  The weather forecast had said that it would clear up by Wednesday, but two days later, it was still bad!  But it turned out to be a beautiful morning.  They bussed us up the canyon at 4:45 am, even though the race didn't start until 7:00 - not sure why.  It was much warmer than we had anticipated, even though the skies were clear.  We waited by fire pits in the middle of some farmer's field, so we had to be careful about the "cow pies."  The course was absolutely spectacular, especially coming down by pine view lake.  Even though the course was advertised as downhill, there were some rollers and one small-ish uphill section that took me by surprise.  I felt absolutely FANTASTIC for the first half of the run, and was trying to carefully pace myself so that I would have plenty of energy and strength to finish strong.  I felt certain that I would be able to come across the finish line easily under four hours.  But at mile 18, my legs quit!  It was strangely reminiscent of the Mesquite Marathon!  What a bummer.  Mile 18 was where we hit the steepest of the downhill section of the canyon, and all I could do was shuffle along to the finish line.  I'm not sure what went wrong.  Both of my soleus muscles locked completely up, and my bad foot was cramped.  Other than that, my energy levels felt great, and the rest of my legs were fine.  But I could NOT get more than a shuffle out of my legs.  So....I crossed the finish line at 4:07 - enough for a new PR for me, but far worse than I had anticipated.  My garmin said I did 26.46 in 4:07:32, but my chip said 4:07:15.  I placed 900 out of 2137 total, 301 out of 951 women, and 93rd in my division of 230.  I would really like to do this race again, and hopefully figure out what went wrong, so I can remedy it!

I slept in today...for real!  It was so nice.  Then I puttered around all day, and totally neglected my workout.  So this evening, I had a half hour rehearsal out at Tuacahn, so I decided I'd make it worth going out there by riding my bike.  I had just over an hour to kill, so I rode for 1:06:15, and covered 16.09 miles.  Then I sang for awhile at rehearsal, and hopped back on the bike to ride to the pool.  Ben had met me there, so we did another 7.45 miles in 24:02.  We did an interval workout at the pool, swimming a total of 2500 meters, and then jumped back on our bikes to head home.  That was another 9:06 miles in 31:33, giving me a grand total of 32.6 miles in 2:01:50.  Not too bad for a recovery workout, says I.  :D

I got to teach my first Bootcamp today - it was so fun!  But since I was teaching, I wasn't working out.  Heehee!

I made up for it tonight at the lake.  I did a half-mile swim (actually it was more like a half-mile near-drowning!) and then hopped on the bike for the 15 mile out-n-back on those horrible rollers and steep grades.  Oh, how my body needs rest!  I celebrated with Ben afterwards at Del Taco Taco Tuesday, and then topped it off with a bowl of ice cream.  I think I'll go to sleep now....

Nothing but a lousy 2.5 miles this morning with my daughter. We ran it in 24:03. I feel like such a slacker...

I got up this morning thinking I would try a HIIT seesion on the treadmill, but I guess it's too soon after the marathon. My legs were NOT wanting to go!  So I did a warm-up run for 15 minutes, increasing in tempo from 5.0 MPH to 8.0 MPH, then I walked for a minute, and then did a short interval starting at 6.5 MPH and increasing to 9.5 MPH.  Then I jogged for a minute to cool down.  I ended up doing 2.33 miles in 21:00.  I may have done more, but I ran out of time, and had to be at bootcamp.

So for bootcamp this morning, Stephany taught plyometrics.  I was trying not to do too much, but I think I still did, anyway.  My body is really tired.  Stupid recovery!!!  How long is this going to take?!?  :D

I had this brilliant idea to do my "long run" today instead of tomorrow, since we're thinking about riding the Gunlock loop on our bikes tomorrow.  My regular training schedule has me doing eight miles tomorrow, but it doesn't take into account the fact that I just ran a marathon and am supposed to be in recovery.  So I decided I would just run the 6 miles up to bootcamp this morning, and call it good.  I talked Britnee into joining me, and we left an hour before bootcamp was supposed to start.  Well, first I forgot to close the front door when I left, so we had to go back and close it...which cost us an extra .55 mile.  Then I realized that my legs were SO tired, I couldn't make them go faster than a 9 minute pace!  Plus, the entire way there is uphill, with a STEEP hill at the end of the run.  I could barely walk it by the time I got there.  And it was a tiny bit farther than I had anticipated.  So in the end, we ran 7.35 miles, and it took us 1:22:49....WAY longer than I had planned.  I have no idea how I'm going to pull off a 50-mile bike ride tomorrow.  :(

Whew!  That wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it was going to be!  Ben and I got up at 5:00 this morning, and were out the door on our bikes by 5:50 AM.  We met up with a group of friends and proceeded to do part of the IM bike course...including the Gunlock loop and the dreaded "wall" into Veyo.  I was pretty scared about the whole thing, but gave myself permission to call home if I couldn't make it all the way.  Little did I realize that I couldn't get any reception on my cell phone, or I may not have gone - hahaha!  Anyway, I really took it easy on the ride, because Ben had warned me that the hardest part about doing the wall is all the rollers before you get there, that tire out your leg muscles so you have nothing left to climb with.  What a surprise when I reached the wall...it wasn't the monstrosity that I had always imagined it would be!  In fact, except for the last couple hundred feet, it was a relatively easy climb.  Now I never have to be afraid of that silly thing again!  :D

I ended up doing about 60 miles total, in about four hours, not including stops.  I was a little negligent with my garmin, but that's my closest estimate.  When I got home, I decided to try out a transition run, so I immediately put on my running shoes and headed out to try my legs.  I did a 5K run in 29:05 - surprisingly not too bad considering I had just finished 60 miles on the bike!  I feel much more confident about doing the triathlon next month.  Now if I could just conquer the swim....

I was supposed to teach bootcamp this morning, but it was a no-show day. So I ran around the track a few times to measure it out, doing 1.11 miles, and then drove home to finish up my run with Britnee.  We ended up with a total of 5.5 miles in 52:20.  Then I had just enough time at home to eat and shower before heading out again to run a couple of errands.  After that I came back home and jumped on my bike, and headed off for the day.  I had rehearsals and another appointment, so I ended up with 30 miles and a total of 1:49:35 on my bike.  I arrived home in time to cook dinner, decide NOT to swim, and do some logins before bed.  Ahhhhh......!

I slept in today, and I liked it.  :D

So I had to get all of my workouts in this evening.  We went out to the reservoir with the tri club, and I once again tackled the open water swim.  It wasn't as choppy today, and I guess the water must be getting warmer, or I'm getting more used to it, because it didn't feel as cold as it usually does.  Anyway, I felt really good the whole time, and I think I may be ready to try going the full mile - yay!  As it is, I finished a half mile, with only very short stops at the rocks.  It was a MUCH better experience than last week.

After the swim, I hopped on my bike and did the very hilly loop around the lake and back.  I rode with my friend Gwyn, and we decided to add a few extra miles to the 15 mile ride, so we ended up with 20.25 in 1:21:22.

After we got back to the parking lot, I quickly changed shoes and took off for a transition run.  It was already late, so I told Ben to pick me up as soon as he had the bikes loaded, and I ran down the road.  I managed to get two miles in before he caught up to me, and I finished them in 15:49...a most pleasing time for me in general, not to mention after having ridden 20 miles of hills.

So, all in all, it was a good day.  :D

Tonight I met the tri club out at the high school track fro some speed work.  It was my first time doing this, but there were a bunch of other first-timers there, too.  Wow!  It kicked my trash - I loved it!  We did a bunch of sprints, accelerations, gliders, etc. and we had a coach there, Dennis, who helped correct our form and taught us about running technique.  I learned so much.  He said I had beautiful form - yay for me!  Now I know what my form is supposed to look like, I'll be concentrating more on keeping it that way.  All together, I ran a total of 5 miles in 39:08...clearly, it was in short bursts of speed - haha!  But it was fun to see those numbers on my garmin.  I'm pretty sure my legs are going to be very angry with me tomorrow... :D

I slept in...again!  Probably my last chance to do it this summer, so I took advantage.  This evening I went to Zumba class, and that "off limits" cinnamon roll I ate at lunchtime must have powered me up, because I felt FANTASTIC!!!  I was a dancing fool.  Then I went to Yoga class, and even though my muscles are sore, I felt really strong, and had no problem holding any of the poses.  Then Ben and I topped off the evening with a quickie trip to the pool, where we swam 50 lengths, just to keep it loose.  We celebrated our accomplishments by eating BBQ sandwiches at Q4U.  :D

Ben and I woke up bright and early at 4:15 AM, and were on our bikes an hour later, headed for Mesquite, NV.  We met up with a group of tri-club members and had a fantastic ride!  I wasn't sure how far I was going to get, knowing that doing 100 miles was a pretty big stretch for me (my longest ride to date has been 62) but we had my son as a support vehicle, and I knew that I could hop in the car anytime I wanted, so the pressure was off!  I made it all the way to Mesquite, and decided to push it just a little bit further, thinking that if I got 70-75 miles in, it would be enough.  When I got part of the way up the backside of Utah hill, with the sun beating down on me, I had reached 68.4 miles, and I had had enough!  So Joshua picked me up and drove me the remaining 10 miles to the top of the mountain.  I figured if I rode down part of the hill, I could get my 75 miles in, so I got out of the car and proceeded down the hill.  When I reached the bottom, I thought, "why not?" and I finished the rest of the ride to our meeting place at Sand Hollow Aquatic Center.  So I logged a total of 85.1 miles on my bike today, spending 5:25:44 on two wheels.  I feel so accomplished.  :D

Then tonight, after a huge late-night meal, I felt it nessecary to do a little running so that I could be justified in eating my Ben and Jerry's ice cream at 10:30 at night....since 5 1/2 hours of working out is not enough...and I ran 3.1 miles in 28:04.  Legs are tired.  :)

Some friends of ours were camping at the lake, so we went over this evening to visit them and BBQ.  While we were out there, the water was nice and smooth, so I thought I'd give NICE open water a try.  Holy Cow!  I had no idea how much I could LIKE swimming!  What a beautiful revelation.  I swam about 3/4 of a mile, and I could very easily have kept going.  Yes.  I like swimming when there is no fear of drowning in the waves.  :D

Ben and I woke up early this morning so that we could get a run in before our planned bike outing.  We ran the Bloomington Loop, and I tried out my new CEP compression socks.  I don't know if it was the socks or the chocolate chip cookies I ate last night, but apparantly I was running pretty fast for a Monday, because Ben was hating me.  He kept saying I was running a 7:40 pace.  Of course, I took my usual walk breaks so my overall time wasn't that fast, but I still did 5 miles in 44:46, which is decent for me.  My quads are still pretty sore, but I felt strong anyway.

The bike plan was to start in Saint George and do the Veyo loop, but when I could barely go up the hill to the Gunlock Reservoir, I knew I was toast for "the wall," so I called it a day after I biked through Gunlock.  I did 20.5 miles of uphills and rollers in 1:32:54.  My shoulders and back were screaming at me, and what I really wanted to do was lay down on the side of the road and take a nap, so it was a mental challenge today - especially the last few miles.  But I can do hard things!!!  And I shall live to bike again tomorrow!  :D