Beautiful British Columbia!!!

I love being home - I am a true BC girl through and through. It's been a whirlwind last few days - hence no blog posts- with lots of work, training and visiting family, but I'm loving every minute of it.

On Saturday I managed to get out for a looooong run. I needed to work off Mom's birthday dinner and the yummy wine we had the night before! The run was my longest of the year so far - of course I know there will be even longer runs in my future... I ran along the river through the trees and along the dike.

Things were going quite well until about the 1:20 hour mark. That's when I started feeling it. I managed to hang in there though and at about 1:35 got a bounce back in my step. It was likely because I stopped to pet a few dogs along the way - one of my favourite things to do when running. I met two great danes, a few heinz 57 mixes, a glorious little bulldog and a couple of Japanese dogs! Or maybe it was because I heard footsteps behind me and decided the two gals running behind me weren't going to pass me! Ha! I was in heaven - again. My total run time was 1:48 hours. When I walked in the door my loving father said 'Oh, you're home already??' Of course he had a devilish smile while saying that.

On Sunday I was on the the bike/trainer for a solid two hours. Admittedly around the 1:10 hour mark I started to fade. I guess I didn't eat enough the day before to have some energy that early in the morning?? Likely it was the effects of the run too, I really have to move my long run to Wednesdays!! I was folded over my aerobars at one point and for a nanosecond thought of getting off the bike. Then I realized how much of a mental game this is and challenged myself to push through it.

I needed one thing and one thing only to get through this - Buddha Mind! With no tv or radio to distract me I set about clearing my mind and focussing on my pedaling. I finished my LCS sets and started my 6/4 steady sets. I only had to get through two of them. The first one was tough, but I put my Buddha Mind to work. Then came the last set...I got to about the 5 minute mark and said to myself, 'I could give up now...or I could hold on and do a full 10 minutes.' Because I can be a sick little puppy, even though I was tired and wanted to quite, I held strong for 10 minutes. It was awesome!! I felt great after the ride!

Monday was gym day with my Dad. We were going to work out then meet the Dudes (my Dads' gym buddies who give him heck if he comes to the gym without me when I'm visiting) for tea.

Dad found out that the pool at the gym was 20 yards. My first question, uh, how far is that in meters?? My workout was 2200 m and dad calculated that to be 121 laps. If I had been smart I would have figured out how many laps my workout was in meters. But I didn't...

So I started off on my swim. The warmup was 600 m. The main part was sets of 200 m at alternating pace. I knew that 5 sets along with the warmup and cooldown was 2200 m, but that was in a 25 m pool.

I finished about 4 sets when I decided I should try and figure out how many lengths I'd done. Not an easy task for an engineer who is dependent on calculators and spreadsheets! I had thought I had it figured out. I would do 10 sets of '200', or four laps, and that should cover it.

I had started in the far lane, but an LOD (little ol' dear) asked if I could move over so she could be at the pool edge - she was a bit nervous in the water. I had no problem with this so moved over and continued on. Surprisingly I didn't lose track of my laps at this point.

Then came Noodle Man...

I was swimming along my merry way when I almost swam straight into a fellow with a noodle between his legs. Now, now...keep those dirty minds in check! He had a pool noodle and was running through the water. However, he didn't seem to realize that this was my lane - that or he didn't care. There are no lane ropes in this pool so people just kind of go willy nilly everywhere.

I moved over another lane and kept swimming. And that's when I realized I had lost track of how many sets of 200/4 laps I had done. Rats. Okay, I want to get in 2200 m of swimming...I need to do at least 10 sets...I have either done 6 or 8 sets.... sigh...I'm going to have to keep swimming and do another four sets, just to make sure.

When my dad got to the pool I was almost done either my 10th or 12th set. He asked how many laps I'd done and when I told him the range he just said 'holy shite!'.

When I finally finished my swim I looked at the clock...I'd been in the pool for 1:20 hour. At the mall while we had tea I set about trying to calculate laps and distances etc. After careful calculation and reasonable deduction based on swim times I realized I had swum 2600 m! Holy hannah!! The swim itself felt great and I wasn't super tired, which was good.

Today was an easier day - I had a high cadence spin on the bike then Mom and I were off for a mother-daughter spa day!! One word sums up our time 'aaaaaaaaaahhh'. It was a great afternoon with giggles, tears from giggling so much, relaxation and wonderful girl time.

Tomorrow will be a long training day so I'm going to kick back and continue my path of relaxation for the day.

I'd rub it in how beautiful it has been out here, but I'm not that mean. Suffice it to say it's sunny, warm and I saw a gorgeous sunset at the beach the other day. I love it here!!

Peace out my glorious friends!

Happy Friday The 13th!!!

I would love to say I'm vacationing in BC, but I'm here for a special occasion...more on that later. So today I was up early and on the trainer. Got a solid 1:20 hour in and felt it! My legs are going to love me for that workout!

Okay, now that I have all that triathlon news out of the way - the reason I am in BC is because it's my Moeder's 65th birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!

I'm so excited I could come here to be a part of the celebrations. My mom means a lot to me - a rather obvious statement I guess. She's absolutely brilliant! Here are some of the reasons I think she is the best mom on the planet...

• When I was around 8 or 9 years old she called me into the house for dinner. However, I was talking to Rob Gonzales and Phil Calvin, so replied in a rather snotty tone 'no'. Next thing I knew mom came outside and applied one of the stealth like judo flips she'd learned in her twenties on me, then grabbed me by my coveralls and brought me inside. For learning judo when girls didn't do that kind of thing, and for kicking my butt, which you could totally still do today, I say YOU ARE THE BEST MOM EVER!
• When I was in my twenties I was enrolled in taekwondo. One night my mom and Grannybear came to watch me fight. Unfortunately, the dude I was fighting didn't tuck his thumb in and when he threw a punch I caught the thumb in the eye. I squealed. Then turned to look at my mom and Grannybear who I knew would be ready to pounce like the mama lions they are. Sure enough, they were. For always watching my back and being ready to take someone out for me, I say YOU ARE THE BEST MOM EVER!
• When I was in college I was always scared I couldn't pass. In fact I thought that when I did pass it was a fluke and was sure someone would find out I was an imposter. No matter how many times I came home crying because I was scared I failed an exam or something, my mom was always there ready to encourage me and tell me I could do it. For always reminding me to be strong, and for being the reason I have the confidence I do today, I say, YOU ARE THE BEST MOM EVER!
• When I participated in my first half Ironman, my mom, dad, Auntie Joan and Uncle Lorne came out to cheer me on - all the way from BC I might add! As I ran to the finish line, completely exhausted and feeling rather icky, my mom started running beside me. Then she scooted a bit ahead of me and started dangling this wee bottle of Jack Daniels in front of me saying 'Come get the Jack!' or something like that. It was hilarious and I'll never forget that moment. For always getting me to the finish line and for appreciating the sacred abilities of Jack Daniels I say, YOU ARE THE BEST MOM EVER!
• Last but not least, when I have an important race, my mom and dad are always there. It doesn't matter that I'm almost mumbldy-mumbldy years old, they still travel far and wide so they can watch me race and they deal with the many long hours I'm out there. For being one half of the best support crew anyone could ever have I say, YOU ARE THE BEST MOM EVER!

Thank you for always being there for me, and for being an amazing example of an intelligent, strong and independent woman. Words will likely never express fully how much I love you, but I do. You rock my world. I hope you have a great day and I can't wait till our Mother-Daughter day birthday prezzie!

Peace out my wonderful friends - go give your Mom's a hug!

Wagons West!!!

'Wagons West' you ask? Where west?? Well British Columbia west that is!! Yup, I woke up at 4:45 am, got cleaned up, got in the car and headed west to visit the parental unit for a week. I decided to drive out this time so spent a good 10.5 hours in the car. Luckily the roads were in great condition as I had to go through a couple of mountain passes. I do love this drive though. It's so pretty in the Rocky Mountains, and the Coast Mountains are a close second!

Believe it or not, after spending that much time in the car I wanted to go for a run. Why? I don't really know.

Come to think of it, I do know.... a) I wanted to get some blood flowing in my legs and arse again, 2) I had a, er, uhm, small bag of M&M chocolate covered almonds (shhh!) to keep me awake and amused for part of the drive and c) the parental unit were taking me out for sushi - which means one thing in my world....pig out! So really, a run was in order!

Here's the awesome thing about my run this evening...it was 8 friggin degrees celsius out here!!!! Talk about bliss! No ice to dodge, no snowbanks to sidestep, no windchill to freeze my stickyouty bits!! I was in heaven. I felt light and airy as I ran. I haven't felt like that in forever. I savoured all the green grass, green trees and, are you sitting down for this, DAFFODILS!!! Yes people, the daffodils are actually up and open out here!

Why oh why do I live in the Antarctic again?! Not to mention, what a change from Christmas here when I was running in thigh deep snow! Oh, and there are people out EVERYWHERE! Kids playing ball, riding bikes, families walking and birds a chirping. I swear to Pete it's the middle of February and yet it's spring here already!

I think I'll check the weather in Alberta before I have to go back home, if there is a minus anywhere in the forecast I may just bunk out here longer. Afterall, I have my bike, running, and swim gear here! Not to mention I'm testing out the whole 'work from anywhere there is an internet' theory.

Heaven, I'm in heaven....

Peace out my bundled up friends!!!

Compromise...

Never compromise a dream.

Sure, take a step back, regroup, go bowling, but never compromise a dream.

Love ya,
The Universe.

Good Morning To Ya!!!

Well, there was almost an incident at the pool this morning...

Okay, so here's the story. I walked out onto the deck this morning only to find that all the lanes had two people in them. All but the far lane, which had one gal. Cool! I've swum with this gal before and we usually just each take a side of the lane and stay on it. No problemo...at least until Andrew the Trouble Maker showed up...

Okay, I lie, he's not a trouble maker. He's actually a relatively reserved fellow. Which is why I didn't think he'd do what he did...

So as mentioned above all lanes had two people in them - now that I had hopped in. I saw Andrew and mentioned that the fellow in the lane beside me usually is out by 6:30. So Andrew figured he'd swim in my lane until the dude left. Again, should be no problem. Except there was.

For some reason, even though the gal in my lane, we shall name her 'The Side Stroker' saw that there were now three people in the lane, she still maintained her protocol of staying on the one side. Hmmm... Now this was just not going to work.

Thing was I didn't figure this out until I went to start swimming my next lap. I just about made the move to swim and noticed that BOTH Andrew and the Side Stroker were coming for me. Okay, this isn't working. Again I give her the benefit of the doubt thinking okay now she really has to get that she needs to do the old clockwise trick, but alas, she doesn't. I said to Andrew, 'Maybe you could inform her of the rules??' (Cause I want to be the nice swimmer and not have her 'accidently' kick me as she does her breast stroke.)

What does Andrew do?? He waits until she's swimming towards us and he swims right for her!! I admit, I covered my eyes with my hands and peaked through. He, of course, didn't swim over her but did startle her. She just gave him a look and carried on. This I found rather hilarious to be honest. It didn't help our problem though.

What did was buddy in the next lane was finished so Andrew moved over and the Side Stroker continued on our merry single side of the lane way.

I learned after that Andrew was swimming behind her at one point and thought she was going to do the clockwise thingy but she turned right around and swam towards him. So that was TWICE there was a near collision and she didn't get it. Go figure.

Other than that I had a great swim and managed a solid 2100 m. I figure I'll keep my swims around this distance for a while, then bump up the mileage.

Later on in the day I had planned a lunchtime run. Just before lunch I started to get some sharp pains in my abdomen. Hmmm, must have eaten that banana too quickly. I decided I would run anyways so got all my gear on and was at the front door when I had a heck of a stabbing pain. Ow. Folding over now...

I decided it must be gas and the best way to get that out is to jump up and down. You know, kinda like when you were a baby and your parental unit would bump you on their knee to make you burp? I swear it works. This time however, I had even more severe pains so instead of going out for a run I ended up in the fetal position on the couch. Urgh. So sad. Taken out by gas pains.

The jumping must have helped somewhat because later on the effects too place that were required to make me feel better. No need for details here I'm sure...

I managed to get out for a run after work and had a great time. I was surprised I felt lighter on my feet than I had the last month, even with legs completely fatigued, in a good way, from the weekend. It was a short half hour run, but highly enjoyable. I'm glad I finally got out there!

Next time I will watch the speed with which I eat my food in order to prevent a recurrence...

Peace out my friends!

Bike...Ow...

When I woke up this morning I could feel all the muscles I used in yesterday's ski adventure. I had two choices. I could take it easy on the bike this morning, or I could push my boundaries. One guess at which option I chose...

I had a 1:45 hour bike and I was going to rock it. I had a 23 minute warmup, then got right into the gist of things. 5 x 5 minutes in a gear hard enough that the max rpm I could sustain was 60. After each set I'd do 2 minutes of squats, holding the squat for 2 seconds each rep. After that session I went into 6 and 4s. 6 minutes holding in high zone 2, low zone three heart rate, then easy for 4 minutes.

The 5x5's, surprisingly, weren't too bad. Although strength is, well, my strength. What I need to improve upon is holding that strength for long periods of time, which is what the 6 and 4s were about.

During my first set I realized I wasn't pushing it enough. I was tired but knew that this is the time when I had to dig deep and work harder. I had nothing to distract me, it was just me, the four walls and my dream of being a better cyclist in the dungeon. So I pushed harder. During the four minute set I didn't let up either. I wouldn't allow myself to drop it into a spinning gear. By the last set I was sweating so much that my bandana was saturated and I had a steady flow of sweat dripping onto my bike tire. I felt that was a pretty good indication that I worked hard!!

Pushing myself physically is all tied into pushing myself mentally. Breaking down the barriers of 'I can only go this fast' or 'I'm not strong enough'. Not always an easy task to do when you train solo, but I'm up for the challenge.

When I got off the bike, ever sooo slowly, all I could think was 'Bike. Ow'. I was smiling though. All of this is money in the bank.

I may not be the fastest or physically strongest competitor in Ironman, but I plan on having a bomb proof mental attitude that is going rock the race course.

Hooyaaah!!

Peace out my friends!

Ski Day!!!

After a lot of warm weather, for which I'm thankful for in this deep freeze, the snow conditions in the mountains have not been ideal for xcountry skiing. (The only bummer part about warm weather!) I'd planned to go to the mountains with a friend of Trudy's, Candace, so we could meet up with Trudy and go for a ski.

Originally we were going to do the Goat Creek Trail, but Trudy checked it out on Friday and it wasn't in good shape. Ice is sooo not good. So we decided we'd stick to the Nordic Centre up there.

As luck would have it Canmore got snow on Friday night! Not a lot, but just enough that the Nordic Centre would be in even better shape than it had been.

There were five of us heading out that day - Trudy was great in getting a small group together. So there was Trudy, Candace, Wade and Young Jordan. We were of varying backgrounds and experience, yet we were a good group together.

I, of course, ended up in the back for the most part, but I'm cool with that. I wanted to work on my technique a bit more. Jordan had only been out on skis three times, but already he was zipping along quickly. I'll chalk that one up to youth, haha. Wade's skis, and the skis he lent to Jordan were the super old school style. The ones with the 3 pegs that you put your shoes in. What was funny was he totally rocked them! Although he did comment that the bindings were wider than the tracks because the tracks were for the new fandangled skis. Candace was on skate skis, which I was hoping to try out later on in the day.

We headed out along Bow Trail, which would meet up with Meadowview Trail. The route was about 13 km. After having done the 29 km Cascade Valley Trail with Trudy I figured this would be relatively easy...

The day was stunning - clear blue skies, sunshine, fresh snow and mountain views. Can it get any better??? Well, perhaps clear blue skies, sunshine and an ocean view...but that will be a story for another time.

The first half of the route wasn't too technical. A bit of rolling hills, but other than that it wasn't bad. I didn't seem to be getting much glide going on with my skis. It can be tricky in warmer weather getting the right wax though. In my typical style I just kept plodding along trying to get a groove on.

I was really working my back and shoulders today. My left should has been bugging me, even in swimming, so I was hoping that by doing this I would start working on getting some more strength happening.

Heading back along Meadowview was another story. Can you say 'Climb Every Mountain'?? Trudy did mention something about a big climb.... This was the never ending climb! Trudy was keeping watch behind me now so I asked her what's the best way to climb in xcountry skis. She said I could keep walking up like I was, or do a little hop slide. As I didn't feel I was getting enough workout with the walk, I did the hop slide. I don't regret doing the hop slide, but holy hannah I'm feeling it now!

Hop. Slide. Pole. Pole. Hop. Slide. Pole. Pole. Every muscle in my body was getting a workout. In addition, my heart was pounding out of my chest and my lungs were starting to wheeze. I went as long as I could then did a bit of a walk slide till I could recover a bit, then kept going with the hop slide. I was happy that I was finally keeping up with the rest of the gang.

I have to say, I was totally impressed with Candace. She was on skate skis doing this. Let's put it this way, she was skating up a friggin mountain! Skating on flat is hard enough, but a friggin mountain!! She was a total rock star.

The reward for getting to the top of this climb was well worth the effort. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera, so don't have any pictures. But if you use your imagination a bit you can picture a snow covered mountain range with a back drop of blue sky. The Rocky Mountains are truly magestic!

There was still another climb after this little view, then it was windy path down to the lodge. All in all it took us about 1:50 hours. I'm pretty sure I spent about 3/4 of that time with a heart rate over 150 bpm. During the climbs it held at almost 170 bpm.

After a wee bite to eat it was time to try out the skate skis. It was at this point that I gained an appreciation for Candaces ability to go uphill in them! Within about 2 minutes of having them on and skating, I could feel my butt and abductor muscles working. If I could figure how to go uphill in these things it would be a killer workout!

I was fine on the flats as I zipped past the biathlon athletes practicing their target shooting. I tried the wee hill that was there, but alas could not get the skate action to work going up. So back on the flats I went again. Everything was hunky dory until I tried to use the poles in conjunction with the skis. Why are the poles so long for skate skis??? I swear, they were taller than me! I was using Trudy's gear too and we are the same height.

Finally I got the poles going too. Skate, skate, pole. Skate, skate, pole. That's when Candace said I had to try the hill. I got there in good enough time, then did skate, skate, WHOA! and nearly fell over. Urgh. Then there was a bit of clomping with the skis, sticking the poles in to try and push me up, then a forced effort to ski. I sort of got it, but it will take more practice I'm sure.

I was thoroughly exhausted by the end of the day. A good exhausted though. I can't wait to get back out there to try skate skiing again, not to mention to better my xcountry ski skills.

What a great way to spend a Saturday!

Peace out my friends.

It's Too Early To Think!!!

As always during the week I was up before the sun. On Tuesdays and Thursdays it's pretty easygoing though as I don't have to get into a vehicle and drive while half awake to the pool. Nope, this morning I just had to make sure I could get my legs and brain awake enough so I could navigate the two flights of stairs into the dungeon. Then I groggily got on my bike and slowly woke up through the warm up.

This morning; however, I would be asked to use my brain before it was fully functioning. This could be dangerous. I was happily spinning along while perusing my workout plan. Five minutes easy spin. Check. Single leg drills. Check. Gear Pyramid. Whoa! What the....

Gear Pyramid?? The next bit said 90-100 rpm at 39/21: 2min, 39/19: 2min, 39/17: 2min, 39/16: 2min, 39/17: 1min, 39/19: 1min, 39/21: 1min. Oh for pete's sake. For one thing there are far too many numbers on this page. Secondly, which gear is 39??? Not to mention which of my back cogs is 21, 19, 17 and 16?!

Sigh. I should know this. I should know what is on my bike. I do know that I think I have a compact crank. At least I'm sure I heard that term thrown about regarding my bike. Well, there is nothing left to do but get off my bike and attempt to count the little nobby thingys on the cogs. Now how to remember where I started... 1, 2, 3...

For starters I learned that my cranks are 50/34. (At least that part was stamped on the cranks!) I guess I'll just stick with the 34 then? Next the tricky part. Counting the back cogs. Needless to say I counted wrong, as I know now after having done some research on what the heck they are. So I started one cog higher up than I should of. C'est la vie, non?

Once that little business was done and I was fully alert it was time for the fun stuff. Low cadence (50-60 rpm) for two sets of 4x4. After each four minute rep I was to do a minute of squats, no easy spinning after either!

If you must know I was in the 50/13 and 50/12 gears for the workout. Yes, it was hard. I am sure I could have filled a bucket with all the sweat coming off of me. All that said, it felt really good! Apparantly I am a sucker for punishment.

I have an inkling that I'll be feeling this workout tomorrow. I did feel it a bit when I had to walk up the stairs later on...

I managed to squeeeeeze some core work in as well. Nothing too much, but I'm hoping by doing this I can get rid of this niggly in my low back. I hate nigglies...

Peace out my friends!

The Itch Factor...

It was a rousing swim this morning I must say. Okay, perhaps not rousing, but hey, it was a good swim. The drills were minimal and the sprints were plenty so my heart was definitely pounding and my lungs wheezing.

Interestingly, the pool was rather empty today. At least the snorkel lady, whom I now know is Fran, and my bud Leslie were there. It's always good swimming in Leslie's lane because if I have a lap where I'm behind her I try and keep up in the hopes I will one day get faster.

If she is swimming behind me, well that's another story. Usually she reaches out and tickles my feet, which invariably results in my squeaking and then laughing under water. This of course leads to my snorting vast amounts of water into my sinuses. It's pretty hilarious actually.

On one of my later laps I had just passed by Les at the end of the pool. I was sure she still had a lap to go and was about to start swimming behind me so the anticipation of having my feet tickled was heightened. I felt like Nemo swimming away from the shark as I tried to swim faster and faster just waiting for that moment when I'd feel 'tickle, tickle'.

The really funny part is when I got to the other end of the pool and turned around and saw Les was still at the far end. She'd finished her swim so was just getting her stuff together. Maybe she should swim behind me in races because then I'll go faster?! I don't think she'd agree to that though as she's out really quickly in the swim!

The rest of the day I spent feeling itchy. I hate pool itch. You think you've scrubbed off all of the chlorine, but undoubtadly you have left a miniscule amount on you which leads to a day long itchfest.

It's not bad enough that I live in the Great White North where every winter I shed a layer of skin due to the dry air. Now I also have to deal with the dry skin that comes with swimming. I do my best to lather on the body lotion after, but alas, there are spots I just can't reach. Oh! I just thought of something....surely they must sell those wee back scratchers still? You know the ones - those little mini hands on a long stick that you could use?? Just thinking about it is making me drool...

Oh well, in the meantime I'll just have to be like a bear and use the door jam to rub up and down.

This evening I went for my run. I really haven't been getting into the groove of my runs, which is a tad bothersome. I just feel rather leaden and afterwards my hips are creeky. Not to worry, I will of course hang in there and just like Stella, I too shall get my groove back.

I managed an hour even in the headwinds from hell. This time there was no sprinting up my bonus hill, but I did keep a steady pace.

Too bad I'm still itchy even after shower number two...sigh. Darned itch factor! Scratch, scratch, scratch.

Peace out my friends.

Is This A Test???

I think the Universe was testing me this morning. Testing to see if I was still grumpy that is. I am doing okay though. Nothing that running up a hill till you want to hurl and talking/having a wee cry on the phone to a friend can't cure!!

I got up bright and early somewhat ready to tackle my bike workout. Granted, it probably took me about five minutes to actually wake up even though I was making the motions of doing my morning routine and then hoofing it to the dungeon.

I got on my bike and started pedaling while I read what the workout plan was for the day. It would appear that instead of the low cadence workouts I had been doing last month, I would be doing high cadence work. Intervals of 100, 105 and 110 rpm.

I was just getting into my warmup, yawning the whole time, when I realized I would have to adjust my bike computer so I could read the cadence and the time, rather than the speed and time. That's when I made the fatal move of touching one of the buttons on my bike computer...

With one push of the button the display read, 'Language'. Shite. Okay, don't panic. Panic never solves anything. I pushed another button. 'ODO 1'. The next time I tried pushing a combination of buttons. I never knew I had a light on this thing!! I admit, I almost got frustrated, but stopped myself.

'Good Morning Universe. Is this a test to see if I am still grumpy and if I lose it? Cause I'm not going to you know. I'll just do something else instead of the high cadence workout now that my computer is reading everything but the normal display and I can't get it back to how it was. So there. Nah. You can't trick this gal! Nope.'

So I cranked the gears up a bit and settled in for an hour of steady state riding. Of course the engineer in me couldn't let go of the fact that I couldn't work this we computer, so the odd time I would continually hit random combinations of buttons. Nothing worked. I did manage to get it so that whenever I hit one button the light would come on and stay on as the display would change! Not that I know how I did that so it will likely never happen again.

At about the 45 minute mark I looked down at the display and was just about to make another vain attempt to figure things out when I noticed that it had flipped back to the normal time/speed display. Huh. Interesting... I stopped pressing the buttons then.

At least it was still in English. One time I somehow changed the language to Italian. That was fun...at least I know bike terms in Italian now! I wonder how I ever got it back into English???

Time to look for the manual - I know I saw it around here somewhere....

Peace out my friends!

Grumpy Gus...

Yup, today was not the best day. Little Miss Sunshine turned into Grumpy Gus. It started out when I woke up. I tried to shake it off in the pool, but did nothing but spray water everywhere.

The swim started out fine enough. I did a 300 m swim warmup, then started in on the drills. 600 m of sets of sculling. Not really the best thing to do when one gets up on the wrong side of the bed. I skipped the last 200 m of drills and added that to a swim set. Then I tried to get into my speed intervals.

I used my grumpiness to fuel the drills, and it worked for a while. Unfortunately I couldn't dig deep enough to finish the sets. At least I managed to get in an hour of swimming, that had to count for something right?

The grumpiness followed me home. It was there that I realized I was more sad then grumpy. Or rather I was grumpy because I was sad. Seriously, I have nothing to be sad about, or grumpy about for that matter. I love my life. I am grateful everyday for everything I have: my work, my friends and family who love and care about me, a nice home to live in, my furry feline Mr. Cringely, I am in good health and I'm surrounded by beauty. Could you ask for more??

Today though, I got caught up in the future. You see, I have a friend who has cancer. It's one of those cancers where they give you an end date. She's been valiant about fighting it and continues to do so. The thing is, things aren't looking as bright as they may have a few months ago. Which really really sucks - to put it very mildly.

I let that thought get to me and thats when I made the slip of not staying in the present moment, but rather projecting into the future with a bunch of 'what if's'. This made me very sad. When I realized what I was doing I got really ticked off. Afterall, I am the one continually reminding myself and my friends to 'stay in the present' or 'be in the now'.

One of the things I like to do when I'm ticked is to hit and kick the snot out of a punching bag. Problem was, I don't have one at home and I no longer belong to the gym that had one. So I did the next best thing...

I ran.

It was a gorgeous day out but for the wind that was blowing at mach 10. I started my run at a normal pace. Then the wind started to tick me off. So I ran a bit harder. It likely helped that I had the punk tunes blasting on my mp3 player. As the negative future thoughts infultrated my mind I started running even harder. At points I was having troubles breathing as I was also fighting off some tears. That just made me run even harder. I kept thinking to myself, 'Come on Suse, it's time to HTFU!'

I only had the second half of the bonus hill to run up to finish my run as I had deeked into neighborhood at the halfway mark. As I started to run up the hill I could feel the wind pushing me back. This is when I let it all go. To me the wind symbolized my grumpiness, sadness, cancer and everything that was icky in the world. So I pushed back.

I looked up towards the top of the hill and I ran as hard as I could. I kept thinking to myself 'be strong!'. My lungs were burning, as was the the hot curry soup I had for lunch that was apparantly still in my stomach. I started telling the wind where it could go...along with my friends cancer.

By the time I reached the top of the hill I was gasping for air and was positive the curry was going to make an appearance. Thankfully it stayed down. I felt a bit better though. I was also thankful I didn't have a long run today because there was no way I could keep up the 'angry pace'.

I just thought of another thing I'm grateful for - the ability to run. Without it I'd have to figure out another way to blow off some steam and work through some thoughts. This one is easy though, I just put on my sneakers, run down to the bottom of the hill and sprint back up it till I feel like I'm going to chunder. Easy.

Peace out my friends and don't forget to stay in the now!

Bad Week???

Yesterday was a strength workout, so I chose to torture myself with an hour of P90X core. One word captures the workout, 'holymotherofallthingsnastypainful'! Or, to sum it up, OW!


It's a damn good workout. Lots of pushups and planks and holding yourself in some sort of banana like position. I couldn't do all of the repetitions but I pressed on until I grunted, collapsed onto the floor, then curled up in a yoga child's pose until the next set.


If it's the last thing I do I will master this workout! Well, maybe second last. It depends on whether or not I master the plyometrics workout first. At least it's keeping things interesting!


For my fellow athletes who weren't having the best of weeks, I can assure you, you were not alone. The other day I walked into my bedroom and noticed a lump underneath my duvet cover. Hmmm...I'm pretty sure I smoothed out my duvet when I made the bed this morning...and what is Spencer the teddy bear looking at???

This is what I found upon further inspection...

'Hey little buddy, you ok? Life so rough for you that you have to now hid under the covers for hours on end every day??' Poor pumpkin...

Apprantly, my furry feline buddy Mr. Cringely has found it exceptionally stressful to now have me working from home everyday and therefore in his presence at all times. Therefore, he's decided, on a daily basis, to hide under my covers. It's either that or he's trying to tell me the house is too cold and turn up the heat!

Granted this has nothing to do with triathlon. Unless you consider the fact that I am allergic to all things furry. Of course, this doesn't stop me from stopping during my run to pet every dog in the dog park, or owning a cat. Typically, though he doesn't go into my room, however out of the blue he's now taken to burrowing under the covers.

What does this mean for me? This means that when I wake up in the morning I am unable to breath through my nostrils and there is a high pitched wheeze noise in my throat. Always a good way to start out your morning workout. A-a-choooooo!

All that said, I wouldn't kick him out of there for the world - he is just too darned cute!! Yep, you know now who rules the roost in this household...

Peace out my friends and may your weekend be exhilarating!

The Slug...

What is it about recovery week?? It's been so long since I've had a 3 week build and then a recovery week I've forgotten what an absolute slug I can feel like.

How is it that for three weeks no matter how tired I am I can get into the workout with enthusiasm and then push myself through the workout, yet as soon as recovery week comes it takes everything in me drag my sorry butt to my bike, my sneakers or the pool. Sigh.

This morning I was driving my buddy Andrew to the pool, as his Mrs. takes the car into the city. At 5:47am I called him to say I would be there in about 15 minutes or at least I tried to. My voice was all frog like and I wasn't quite awake yet, but I must have said something relatively coherent cause the frog on the other end of the phone said he'd be waiting.

As I stood in the pool getting my goggles ready I thought to myself 'Holy hannah how am I going to get this workout done??' It didn't help that I grabbed the wrong workout and instead of the 1600 m balance (read a lot of drills and not too challenging, which is good for how I felt) workout, I picked up the 1600 m endurance (read a lot of sprints and somewhat challenging, which might not be so good for how I felt) workout.

I started my warmup. Just a nice easy pace. I did 50 m and noticed that Andrew was still hovering at the pool edge. 'Uh, you going to swim today or just hang out??' Apparantly he had to watch me swim 50 m then he would be able to swim. Go figure.

Luckily he was somewhat paying attention to what I was doing because I had done two laps of kicking when I stopped, looked at him in a quizzical fashion and said, 'Was that 50 or 100 m of kicking I just did??' It was only 50. Sigh. How is it that one can lose track between 50 and 100 m??

Then it was into the sprint intervals. I gotta say, I was gasping for air. I pulled out everything I had mentally, though, and pushed myself through those intervals. Perhaps not so much on the moderate swim intervals...at least I didn't let the side stroker pass me!

There were a couple of hairy laps in there too. Literally. I was swimming back to the 'start' end when I spotted it...a floating, brown, hairy mass. Okay Suse. You know the drill. Do NOT panic. Do NOT hurl or gack. Just gage how close it will be to your body when you swim over it. Can you float over it? Will it be anywhere near your skin? Or heaven forbid, your mouth?? Do you need to walk like Jesus on the water to get away from it??

Luckily it was deep down so I could swim over it, all the while praying nothing touched me. As I swam back over it I made sure to kick hard in hopes that it would float into Andrews lane. Yes, I'm that nice. Hey, all's fair in love and hair!

Apparantly Andrew is a stronger kicker because when I got back it was floating back in my lane. EEEEEEK. Okay, one more time, kick, kick, kick. Try not to chunder! Eventually it disappeared. My hopes was that it was in a filter and not on the top of my swim cap.

Thankfully the rest of the swim was hair globule free. I don't know how I managed to finish off my swim, but I did. I felt pretty darned good afterwards too, so I was glad I pushed as hard as I could. I mentioned to Leslie, who was also swimming, that I felt so sluggish this week. She reminded me I was supposed to - it was recovery time. Huh. I'm going to have to remember that for next month!

Oh the things we forget after not having trained for six months! Ah well, I'm sure there is more to relearn, but it's all in good fun. Man do I ever love this sport!

Peace out my friends!

Run, Sweet Run...

So it's been over a week since I was able to run. Finally the blister/festering wound has healed enough that I can just cover things with a band-aid and head out. Yay!

Aside from the fact that I was looking forward to the run, just for the sake of running again, it was also sunny out. At least it was when I started getting ready for my run...by the time I was about to go outside the sun had dipped behind the mountains. Ah the joys of living in the foothills of the Canadian Rocky Mountains! Thankfully, it was still quite bright out.

I started off slowly trying my best to get into a groove. It's always easy to get in a groove when I run down the bonus hill, the trick is staying in that groove when I get to the hilly bits and the flats. Unfortunately today I just couldn't find my rhythm - so no run, sweet run. Perhaps it was the time off from running, or perhaps it's the nagging pull I have in my hamstring that stopped me from feeling comfortable?

This pulling started yesterday - hmmm, maybe I over did the squats?! Nooooo, not me.... At first I thought it was my IT band, but it's actually further back than that, so I think it's my hamstring. No worries, I had a shorter run than planned, but I was glad I got out there.

Tonight I'll stretch the crap out of my legs and hope that this goes away. At least it's recovery week so it's no biggie if I don't get any long runs in!

Peace out my friends!

The Clapper...

My first three week build of the season is finito as of this morning. Phew. I felt great through this build, but could use a bit of recovery time. I have to say, I'm totally impressed with how things are going so far and sure do hope that it keeps going this way.

This morning I hopped onto Eleanor who was on the trainer. For those that don't know...and have dirty minds and may think something else...Eleanor is my bike's name. She's named after the sweet Shelby Mustang in 'Gone in 60 Seconds'. Hot car - hot bike.

I had another low cadence workout mixed with squats today. Five minutes of LCS and 2 minutes of squats x 6. After the third set I decided to mix things up a bit. Instead of doing 2 minutes straight of ball squats (where you roll down the wall with a fitness ball into a seated position) I decided for the first 30 seconds I would hold the squat position.

To say that I felt some burning in my quads towards the 30 second mark would be a bit of an understatement. I held it though and practiced some deep meditational breathing! I then did 30 seconds of squats where I'd hold the squat at the bottom for 2 seconds. Then held another 30 second squat. This one was killer compared to the first. Bascially my arse cheeks were quivering so much they were clappin'!

I did this for the last three sets of my workout. Surprisingly the first set where I would hold the squat got easier. This was not the same for the last set. You'd think I was in labour with the amount of deep breathing I was doing!

Look out world, I've got quads and know how to use them!

During the LCS sets I really focused on making sure my legs were balanced in the amount of strength I was using. I don't have a T.V. or radio on when I'm on the bike so I find I can really concentrate on this. It's pretty cool when you can tap into exactly what your body is doing.

The last 40 minutes I did a steady state ride. For part of this bit of the ride I figured I'd give me Moeder (Mom) a call as we hadn't had a chat in a bit. She understands the heavy breathing when I'm on the phone so it's cool. We had a great chat and I had a strong finish to my workout.

Next week is a recovery week and I am looking forward to it. I think my heel has healed enough I can even run on Monday - YAY!

Peace out my friends.

The P Stands For...

Still no running for me. That's okay though - I have my secret weapon - a smorgasbord of DVDs to choose from as supplemental workouts. Twelve of them in all and can you guess what I chose to do?! That's right! PLYOMETRICS BABY! Again.

Why? Cause I'm not good at it, which means I have to master it! This white girl can jump dammit! Just not jump and squat a million times in a row...

I am happy to report I could do more of the workout in comparison to a week ago. One reason is likely that I didn't have a strength workout on the bike in the morning before I did this. Also, I didn't eat 30 minutes before doing it. This however did not seem to stop the process of expelling any gas created by the chili I ate three hours previous. THAT is how intense this workout is - it brings up anything you ate in the hours prior. At least it was just burping this time...

I have to bring up one thing about these DVDs...I swear the dude who is leading the exercises has a side job for a 1-900 phone job. There are times when he gets this low growly voice going as he says 'Ya baby, that's it. I can feel that.' or 'Oh momma'. Seriously!! Then there is his heavy breathing...

I was telling my friend about that tonight because he wants to get these DVDs as well. I was like 'Dude, I gotta tell ya...the guy on the DVDs sounds like he could be on one of those 1-900 numbers'. He says to me 'What? You watching porn?? So then I start laughing cause he's says maybe that's what the 'P' stands for in P90X. Of course then the fact that there's an X in the title started another round of laughter.

Through it all I had an awesome workout and my quads were screaming through most of it. My heart rate was way higher than it would have been for my run, but that's cool. My hope is that I'll be out running again on Monday. Well. If it's not minus a gagillion out again. Sigh...

Peace out my glorious friends!

HIYA KARATE CHOP!!!

Okay, okay, so I forgot to blog yesterday. Sheesh. I'm a busy gal. I'm actually amazed it wasn't until 7pm tonight that my mother called to say 'Where is your post?!' I would have expected her to call last night.

In fact, last Friday Mum called asking where my post was...apparantly she felt I didn't need a rest day. Come to think of it, this almost feels like when I was a little kid and I had to take accordian lessons and I was asked if I practiced. By the way, who the hecks idea was it for me to take accordian lessons anyways?!

I must say, I can understand the need for an update as the parental unit live in another province; therefore, this is a way to keep up with the goings on of their only child, or as I refer to myself, their loving daughter.

So here's the update. Yesterday I managed to bandage up the ongoing festering wound that once was a blister in order for me to get my bike workout in. I had a great workout and am continually impressed with how good I feel after each workout! I was still feeling a bit of muscle fatigue from my ski on Sunday, so opted to do a short core workout titled 'Ab Ripper X'. Now if that title doesn't make you want to workout, I don't know what will. Although the workout was short, the title was apt and I felt the burn!

Today I was back in the pool. After reading some other posts I am thankful that I did not have to put up with hairballs, gack, wet tissue, gag, floating bandaids, spew, or anything of the sort. (My bandaid stayed on thank you very much!)

I did however almost get kicked in the face by one of my bestest friends, Leslie. She is a great swimmer, so I often try to keep up. It's good for me - or so I keep telling myself. I was doing intervals of 50 m drill / 50 m sprints today and on one of my sprints was hell bent on catching up to Les.

I got to the far end of the pool, pushed off, sped ahead and EEEEK! had Leslies feet almost kicking under my chin. BRAKE, BRAKE, BRAKE!! Turns out she did a 25 m swim, then went into a drill so had slowed considerably. That'll teach me not to sight!

Again I had an amazing workout. I seriously hope this is how the majority of the season goes. I feel so much stronger than I did at the same time last year - it's tres cool. I think part of the reason is having a couple of seasons under my belt now so I'm pushing myself more. Last year was also a major turning point for me in the mind game so I know I can take it both physically and mentally. For some reason I feel like growling now...well, maybe more of a Tim Taylor growl.

Total distance today was 2300 m, in an hour. Oh, I forgot to mention one of the drills - a personal favourite of mine - the one arm swim. For someone who's butt wants to sink down to the bottom of the pool and therefore must flail all limbs in order to stay afloat, I am always amazed that I do so well at this one. I really hope nothing happens to one of my arms, but if it does at least I know I can swim with one arm! Yay!

A shout out to all the peeps giving me tips on how to keep track of laps in the pool - thank you! I'm almost embarassed to say that it's not the long swims that I'm losing track of....I actually lose track doing 100 m. Yes, I'm hanging my head in shame. It's just that I'll be swimming along my merry way and remembering what lap I'm on, then I'll think about my technique and focus on that, and that's long enough for my sieve of a mind to forget where I was. So really, it's possible that I swim an extra 50-100 m each workout. Sigh...

As mentioned above, the festering wound that once was a blister, is still healing. Slowly. Very slowly. The red part is half the size, and it's itchy. I think that means it's healing?! But I still can't put on a shoe with a back, so there was no way I could run tonight. One guess what I did instead?! Yup! I flipped through the old P90X DVDs, which are really paying off, and chose one that I thought would give me some good cardio - Kenpo X.

What's that mean? It means Law of the Fist baby! (This is where I do my Bruce Lee war cry...WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH)

Have I mentioned I love martial arts?? It all started when I was a wee lass in Japan watching samarai movies. I then graduated to Bruce Lee movies, which are still my favs. Then I moved on to Jackie Chan. My near brush with fame came when I was a martial arts student and was called to do stunts in a martial arts film. Unfortunately they needed five foot nine of fury, rather than my five foot two of fury. Yes, I'm still bitter. I'm sure I could have done the stunts in stilettos!

But I digress. So I put the DVD in and prepared to be slayed as I had with the plyometrics DVD. However, slayed I was not. This dude has nothing on my former master instructor! All was good though, I punched and kicked for about 50 minutes and realized that my core is way stronger than it was when I was actually in martial arts. Translation: I have more stability when punching and kicking - so I can do those things harder. Very cool.

Look out world, the inner ninja princess has surfaced. HIYA KARATE CHOP!

Peace out my friends!

Remember To Kick!!!

I am proud to say I made it to the pool this morning and had a really good workout! Why am I proud? True, I would have gotten to the pool, but my muscles were tired from yesterday so I could have slacked off, but instead I chose not to.

Not only did I not slack off, but I did 2100 m of endurance today. The majority of that was freestyle, with a few drills thrown in here and there. Oh, and let us not forget 200 m of kicking at the end.

I like to say I'm a lazy triathlete who doesn't kick because I can wear a wetsuit. However, that's not really why I don't kick. I don't kick because I actually forget to. I'm so focused on what my head and arms are doing that every once in a while I think 'Oh! Gotta kick!' and do a few flutter kicks, then go back to forgetting.

Because I had so much freestyle to do I decided to spend some of the time focused on my arms and the rest on my kick. I have no idea if I went faster or slower with this, but I did feel a little more balanced. I also managed to get my workout down in under an hour, which is pretty cool.

It is possible I did more than 2100 m. I have a bad habit of losing count in my laps, and if I do I do the extra to make sure I'm not cheating.

I was hoping to do a run this afternoon, but the pool loosened up my blister skin so now all that's left is just a patch of raw, new, exposed skin. I can sum it up in one word - OW! There will be no wearing of shoes with backs on them for a while. My swim buddy, Andrew, got a good giggle at watching me try to walk in sneakers this morning. Hopefully, by tomorrow I can stand having a patch on it and getting on the bike as the last time it didn't seem to rub or press on it when I pedaled. I really hope this heals soon. I promise I won't go skiing again till it does!

Instead of running tonight, I pulled out a P90X DVD and did the stretching routine. I could feel some tight muscles from the ski, and from swimming this morning, so figured this would be a great alternative. I can't believe I pulled off 50 minutes of stretching!

My idea of stretching is spreading my legs, leaning forward, coming back up, grabbing the top of one foot, pulling my foot to butt, then the next leg, stretch the calf, stretch the other calf and that's it. That quickly too.

The stretches they have are great and do hit all areas. Not to mention you actually hold them long enough to get the stretch in. My only issue with this workout was my beloved cat who wanted to join in...

A note to my feline, Mr. Cringely: When I am doing downward dog, please do not head butt my boobs. It's distracting, not to mention a wee bit ticklish. And giggling is not allowed in stretching. Also, I'd prefer if you didn't walk on and then stand on my hands. I need to move them from time to time and having to flick you off them makes me feel bad. Perhaps you could find another place to lie down, and stay there. Rather than every time I'm hovering above the ground, placing yourself under my body. Then again, this is better than the boob head butt. Lastly, if you are going to stand in front of me while my head is near the floor, I'd prefer if you were facing me, rather than facing away from me. No one wants to see your little onion that close up. I promise. Thank you and I love you little buddy.

Peace out my friends!

Cascade Fire Road Ski...

Just got back from an AMAZING ski day! Xcountry ski day that is. Had a brilliant time with my buddy Trudy on the Cascade Fire Road. It starts at the Lake Minnewanka day area, just north of Banff - in case anyone wants to check it out.

Total trip distance was 29 km. After a short descent from the parking lot there is 22 minute of climb (which leads to much fun on the way back). Not a bad climb, just a steady one. I kept up a steady pace and in my head had a toy soldier theme going on as I thought, 'Trudge, trudge trudge, trudge. Trudge, trudge, trudge, trudge.' It actually kept me in good rhythm.

The next part of the trail is relatively flat with a short downhill that takes you to the first bridge. This area is just gorgeous. Well, the whole trail is gorgeous actually becuase you are in the Cascade Valley surrounded by glorious mountains and trees. Can you say Susi happy place?!

After that section there is a bit more flat then more undulating hills and climbing. Actually there is a lot of climbing on the way in. The turnaround point for us was the second bridge, 14.5 km in.

I felt really strong in my skiing - although I'm pretty sure I'm going to be feeling my back and shoulders tomorrow in the swim. The legs...well, the legs are still feeling the P90X a bit, and the two subsequent bike rides, so they will continue to be fatigued. At some point I will rest them I'm sure.

Trudy gave me a few tips, but said overall my technique wasn't bad. I was pretty stoked about this because I'd been watching peoples skiing and trying to imitate them. I do this with most activities as a way to try and learn. Apparantly I was watching the right people skiing! (Most notably Trudy who kicks butt out there!!)

We stopped at the turnaround point for a quick bite. Trudy took a couple pics of my new IMCDA Finisher bike jacket that I was wearing. I JUST got it!! It's awesome as a ski jacket too.

The way back was much quicker with all the downhill, but I was struggling on some of the flat bits because of the sun/shade affect on the snow. In some areas it was a bit of a slog and in others it was quite slippery. I was kicking it on the downhill though - two pole twice then tuck and go! I loved it.

It took us less time to get back, which was a good thing because the only bummer of the trip was that I could feel my blister again - which I had covered with physio tape, and I could feel a toe on my right foot. Well, a nail really. I find it truly hysterical that I have been in three half Ironman races and two Ironman races and have never had as much trouble with my feet as I have on the last two ski trips! It's crazy. When we got home I took a look and found the tape ripped the skin off the remainging blister, and my toenail is black, so there is the possibility I might lose it. I submit Exhibit A and B for your viewing pleasure.

Huh. Third toe on the right is black...oh and look, I see I have another blister. Will it ever end?!

Have no fear though, I took a ton of 'nice' photos to share with you the view that I had for a good portion of the day. The photos are actually from the turnaround point back. We skiied straight out without stops, but on the way back I took photos. Man I love it out here! Oh, and hopefully this clears your noggin' of the previous two photos.

Peace out my wonderful friends and enjoy the photos!!

The view from the second bridge and turnaround point for us. Trail continues on...

Looking back at where we skiied from.
The snow crystals were HUGE and made it look like wee diamonds were everywhere in the snow.
Plants in the shady areas still had frost on them. It was hard to capture how sparkly they were with the photo.

Heading back over the first bridge - that's Trudy out in front.

Looking west from the bridge. Here's where I pretend I'm Ansel Adams (my favourite photogragpher) and start with the black and white photos.

Looking north at the first bridge.

Almost back to the parking lot now. This is Cascade Mountain.

Hold The Elevator Please!!!

I need an elevator. Yes, an elevator for my two storey house. Wait! If there is a basement, does that mean it's three stories?? It would seem that today, stairs are my mortal enemy.

All I can say is I pray that the cat does not get in front of me in a way that necessitates me having to jump or leap or sidestep the wee guy, cause it's SO not going to happen.

As you may be guessing, my legs and butt muscles are a tad sore today. Not that I'm complaining. Honest! I love this kind of pain because it means I'm working hard. I've had this kind of mentality since I was a kid working at Gold's Gym. I firmly believed the t-shirt I wore with the big, muscular green monster that read 'No Pain, No Gain'.

So I made it through the mega jumping squats and lunges workout last night, and was up bright and early this morning to do my bike workout. In hindsight perhaps I should have left a few more hours between workouts?

I had a sneaking suspicion that this mornings bike workout was a low cadence one, which meant pushing the pedals hard and doing more squats. Sure enough it was. I was impressed this morning with the strength I had and got through the workout fine. The legs were screaming a bit on the squats, but nothing unbearable. I did five sets of the LCS/squat sets, then did a steady pace until the one hour mark.

Everything was fine until a short while later - after I'd been sitting on my butt for a while in my office. I went downstairs not to badly to get a wee snack, but when I tried to walk up the stairs boy could I ever feel every muscle in my quads and butt!

So inadvertantly I have dedicated this month a strength building month. Good thing thats one of my, uhm, er, strengths?? All those years in the gym are paying off. Or at least I hope they will and this pain will be short lived.

I had this afternoon off from training and will rest up tomorrow, with the exception of a swim. I will likely take advantage of the pull buoy and not use my legs much so they recover for the weekend.

Looks like the inner quadzilla in me is coming back!

Peace out my brilliant friends.

P90X...

Well it finally arrived...the P90X workout 'system'. The system has a nutrition plan, workout plan and 12 DVDs. I was mostly interested in the 12 DVDs because I wanted something different for my strength workouts, now that I can actually fit them in this year!

I lovingly brought my package home from the post office, laid it on the counter, sliced through the clear packing tape that held down the flap, flipped the flap open and gazed inside...

This is what I saw...

What I did next is what any self respecting triathlete would do...I ignored the big stop sign warning, tossed the stack of 'read this first' books aside and gently picked up the stack of DVDs. Aaaaah...

I promptly pulled out the DVD that I wanted to start with first...plyometrics. I have no idea why I am so obssessed about doing these, but I am. I think it may give me some sort of edge this year in my races. Of course, I have no scientific proof that this is true.

I ran upstairs, got changed, ran back downstairs, grabbed my yoga mat, moved the cat and the coffee table, put the DVD in and waited with anticipation...

So the dude leading this little trip is a tad dorky. Nice bod though - of course. One of the first things he says as we start warming up is DO NOT EAT AT LEAST 60 MINUTES BEFORE THIS WORKOUT. Hmm, I just ate two rice cakes with peanut butter and banana downed with a cup of chocolate almond milk about half an hour ago. Bah! I'll be fine.

One thing I like about this workout is its done in sets of two. So it keeps things interesting - not that all the jumping squats, jumping side steps, jumping leaps and jumpity jumpy jumping activities wouldn't. Note that there is a lot of jumping stuff in here.

It didn't take long before all this jumping started to help me process my wonderful dinner. Before you knew it I was making some interesting sounds. The top end went first. BRRAAAAAAACCKK! Oh my. Excuse me...

The longer the workout went on, and the more the food was jostled through my intestinal system, and then the bottom half of my body decided to get in on the game. VVVVVVEERRRPPPPP!

Good thing the cat is now deaf or he would have been startled out of his wits. Heck, sometimes I was startled by the noises coming out of me! Add to that my knees were cracking with each squat. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.

I was my own one woman band!

The workouts got more intense and I must admit I could not go that low with some of the moves. But hey, this was my first workout so I know I can only get better!

By the end I was pretty pooped, had sweat dripping off me and my legs were feeling it. I think the photo below sums it all up.

This was a darn good workout, with lots of room for improvement. I look forward to scoping out the other DVDs in there...especially the martial arts one that is just calling the name of the ninja princess!

It will be interesting to see how my legs are tomorrow for the bike workout...

Peace out my friends!

Spin, Spin, Spin!!!

I have to admit, I used to think spinning was easy, but now that I've decided not to be a lazy arse on the trainer I have to say....DAMN THAT'S HARD!

I'm not sure what's harder, the low cadence spinning or high cadence spinning without bouncing! Either way I'm pushing my bike skills this year and am loving every bit of it.

Really not much to write about todays workout. I did a sets of four, then two, then four 0:20 sec spin / 1:40 recovery with some 'easy' recovery sets in between. I made sure I didn't wuss out on the recovery either and by my second set of 0:20 second intervals I was full on sweating. Wait, I'm a girl...I glisten. Profusely.

The workout was to end at 0:44 minutes with a cooldown, but i decided to push it to an hour. I cranked the gearing up a bit and just did a steady ride. My legs were feeling it after, but they were very happy at the work.

Too bad the remnants of my blister aren't happy. Stupid thing is really sore. I think it's the combination of my run last night and my bike this morning wearing only a bandaid on it. There is no liquid in it anymore, it's just doing it's healing thing, but it really friggin hurts. And has a pulse. And is warm. But it's not ooozy yet, so I take that as a good sign and will fix it before it gets there. I promise. In fact, I'm going out right after I type this in order to buy the Moleskin pads that many people, including my beloved parental unit, have insisted I purchase. No need to tell me more than four times! I think I finally get that I need them...

Peace out my lovely friends!

Balance...

It is almost fitting that the biggest goal of my year is to continue finding balance in life...and my second swim of the year was titled 'Balance 1900 m'.

I managed to zip through my warm up of 100m swim/100 m kick/ 100 m swim/ 100 m kick. Nothing too exciting there. Oh, except for the fact that I managed to whiz past the older gal in the snorkel and fins. Phew!

Next up were 3 sets of balance work and swim. It was broken up into 50 m segments. In other words, 50 m kick / 50 m swim. 50 m 6 count side kick / 50 m swim. 50 m one side kick / 50 m swim. Then the pièce de résistance.... 50 m side kick NO ARMS / 50 m swim.

So lets start off with the 50 m side kick no arms. Seriously??? Once again this is some coaches way of trying to drown a triathlete. I foiled thiee plan though and somehow managed to stay afloat AND avoided drinking copious amounts of water. While on each side my butt and hip wanted to drag along the bottom of the pool, but I kicked harder so I would keep moving. Picture how a dog swims with just a portion of their head above water...but on their side...and you will know how I was swimming this set. Hmmm, can't remember if I passed the snorkel/fin gal whilst doing this or not....

My 50 m swim intervals rocked, if I do say so myself. I am really focussing on my technique now and boy did I feel it! My upper back and shoulders were working hard right from the get go. I felt a lot faster as well. By the end of all the sets (I also had 4 x 50 m at the end, then a 200 m cooldown) I felt as though I was slowing down a bit, but I fought to keep my technique of really catching and pushing the water away. The trick now will be to keep that up for 3.8 kilometers. All in good time though.

After work I got an hour run in. I felt a bit sluggish which may have been due partly because of the skiing and strength bike workout on the weekend. Still, it seemed to go quite quickly and I managed to ignore the slurpie headache I got from the cold. No, I was not wearing a toque...just ear warmers. Yes, I expect a comment from the parental unit on this. Oh, just to score points with the parental unit I DID run with my yellow safety vest. So there.

And so the amazing training continues!!

Peace out my friends.

The Blister and The Bike...

Last night before bed I carefully removed the band-aid that, earlier during my ski fun, I had placed on what was left of a blister. What I found was somewhat frightening...a blister that had formed with the flesh that had been remaining from the previous blister. Yipe.

I also noticed that the flesh that had been the original blister peeled away with the band-aid. Ew. The new blister must have formed on the ski back to the lodge. It now had some liquid and was the size of a quarter, as illustrated below. (No comments on how rough my heels are please...these are the heels of a mighty triathlete, not a beauty queen!)

The trick now would be to figure out how to cover that up so I could do my bike workout in the morning - especially because I don't wear socks in my bike shoes.

By the time I woke up this morning I had a semi plan for tackeling the blister issue. I just need to search for a band-aid big enough to cover it! Easy schmeasy. The search turned up a sterile pad I could use...but no steri strips to put it on with. Hmmm. Faced with such a dilemma, I requested the gerbil in my brain get off his hookah pillows and hop onto his treadmill in order to start working out option.

After only moments on the treadmill, the gerbil - brilliant that he is, shouted out 'DUCT TAPE!' Excellent....now where did I put the duct tape?? Unfortunately, I couldn't find it, so I used the next best thing - clear packing tape. My handy work is illustrated below.

It was a bit tricky putting my bike shoes on, but everything seemed to work out just fine. Now the big test, was I going to feel the blister with every pedal stroke???

Thankfully the answer to that question was no. All that was left to do now was to start pedaling!

Todays bike plan was another low cadence workout. After a 23 minute warm up I got right into the LC sets - five sets in total. Each set contained four minutes of pedaling at 70 rpm (using a hard gear to make it 70 rpm of course), then two minutes of squats.

The squats were done by placing an exercise ball against the wall, behind my back, and rolling down until I was in a seated position and my thighs were parallel to the ground . Then I'd hold it there for two seconds, then come back up again and with no rest at the top I'd get back down into that seated position.

The first 55 seconds of squats always went well, then the burn would kick in. There was a lot of mumbling and very big exhales as I continued in the sets. I tried to keep things interesting by changing the position of my feet for each set. This would work a different quad muscle each time.

Once my sets were done I continued on with 37 minutes of steady pedaling. The total workout time was 1.5 hours.

The workout itself was great. I felt like I had a lot of strength and because of the sets and switching things up the workout also went by quickly.

As for the blister, my clear tape system worked just fine. I could tell it was coming off my skin the more I would sweat, but my shoe was snug enough that it held the pad in place. The only time it hurt was when I had to walk from my bike to do the squats.

Of course all that sweating made the blister even bigger, so I had to do the dasterdly deed of popping it. Have no fear, only sterile appliances were used for such an operation.

Here's hoping it will heal up quickly because I have a run tomorrow evening. Oh, I just thought of another thing...hopefully the wee puncture hole will heal up before my swim tomorrow too because we all know how clean pools are!! All together now 'EWWWWWWWWW!!!'

Peace out my lovely friends.

The Ski Lioness...

What a great day to go xcountry skiing! After being in a deep freeze for too long, the chinook finally blew into town. Actually, the winds REALLY blew last night, so driving on the TransCanada was a little dicey in spots because of all the snow that blew onto the roads.

I headed out to Pocaterra ski area in Peter Lougheed Park with my wonderful, amazing friends (and adopted family) Esther and David. David and I are back into training mode so we were substituting a ski for a run today.

After a brief stop at the lodge we put our skis on and headed out. But not before saying hellos and giving hugs to uber triathletes Katie, Shannon, Chris and Jill, who were also out for a ski. There was a pretty good sized group of JackRabbits (young skiers ~6-7 years old) that had just headed out on the trail. I really hoped that I could pass them and they wouldn't out ski me. My fitness ego is rather fragile these days!!

Thankfully, we got past them and made our way to the Pocaterra trail. I've skied part of this trail before but today we were going to go a little bit farther.

Before we really got going with the skiing we had to stop for some photo ops - of course. Here are David and Esther!


Here's yours truly in her new Christmas prezzie from the parental unit. The toque was the HIT of the trails. I had a ton of people ski by saying 'love the toque!'. I knew Mum would be happy with that. The best was this little girl back at the lodge who said 'I like the lion on your head!'. Too cute. I was somewhat surprised to note that I was the only one on the trails with a fun toque - what's up with that?!

The trail itself was in great shape. The first part was mostly flat, but then we started to do more climbing. Every once in a while I'd stop to take a picture or two.



It felt great being out there today. Every once in while we'd be in an area where the wind would rip through the trees and blow all the snow. It was hilarious because there were big soft balls of snow falling off the trees so it felt like the trees were playing with us and throwing snowballs! As all the snow came down I couldn't help but laugh as we tried to ski through it.

I decided that today I would try to work on my ski form. I realized I wasn't extending my arms enough and not going through a full range of motion. I was also working on my weight transfer. I am hoping to see my friend Trudy, who is an amazing skier, in a couple of weeks and will ask her for some hints and tips how to improve things. Sometimes everything feels smooth, and other times it's a bit awkward and choppy.

Part way along our skiing I had felt a 'hot spot' on my heel. I stopped and did my boots up tighter, but by then it was too late. I tried to ignore what felt like skin pulling from my heel for as long as I could. David was in front so I yelled to him asking if he had a bandaid - I figured I'd had a whopper of a blister going.

We pulled over at this one area where the trees broke up. We were met with an unbelievable view - of which I took photos of course!

I took my shoe and sock off to inspect the damage. It was bigger than I thought. A blister the size of half a toonie had ripped open on my heel. Ow. I managed to find some bandaids and put them on. We'd skied about an hour by then and decided to head back. I was bummed about having to turn around, but I was past the 'grin and bear it' stage of the blister. Thankfully, Esther and David said they were ready to go back then anyways. Phew!

Blister or no though we had a great ski back to the lodge. All the uphill we climbed was now downhill and we zipped along. I really worked on extending my arms, digging in and pushing my poles. The bliss of being out there took some of the pain of my foot away.

We all had big smiles on our faces when we got back. The ski may not have been as long as I had hoped it would, but I got to see some new trail and have plans to come back and finish up that ski trail! Not to mention I was out in Mother Nature with two of my closest friends - you can't get much better than that!

Peace out my friends!

Muscles? What Muscles???

I have been reminded that I possess certain muscle groups called triceps and quadriceps. It is quite apparent that they have not been used to the fullest extent in the last little while because I can really feel them today after one swim and two bike workouts. Yeowza!

Thankfully it isn’t an excruciating pain, just a ‘Hello. Thank you for using us again pain. Here’s just a little bit of payback for ignoring us the last few months.’

It took me a bit today to feel my triceps, but I felt my quads as soon as I tried to walk downstairs. My vastus medialis to be exact. (Yes, I did have to look that up!) "Oh hello there Mr. Vastus Medialis. Thank you for stopping in and reminding me that I haven't been working out much. I'd greatly appreciate it if you would get used to what is going on quickly so that I am able to walk up and down the stairs without such discomfort."

This may take a while to happen because although my quads were a wee bit sore, I did a low cadence workout on my bike today. Just to spice the old bike workout up a bit, I threw in some sets of squats.

In all honesty, it was a great workout and I felt strong throughout. I did a 15 minute warmup, then started in on the sets. Three minutes of low cadence work, one minute of ball squats, and one minute easy. All of this four times.

Throwing ball squats in the workout really broke things up and added an extra little challenge. Surprisingly, my legs didn't feel tired at the end...until I tried to walk back up the stairs out of the dungeon and up to the top floor.

At some point during the day I thought, hmmmm, what is that strange feeling in the back of my arms. OH! Triceps! Right. Forgot all about you guys. Guess I really was pushing the water yesterday. Excellent.

I take this little bit of soreness as a good sign. I'm putting effort into my workouts and my body is feeling it. Progress is being made. Soon enough I will be back in fighting form. Nothing can stop me now!!!

Well, except for the rest day that I have tomorrow, which I am going to take and I make no apologies for it!

Peace out my friends!

Surpises...

I was up bright and early to hit the local pool today. Oh how thankful I was I could just get up and go and not have to worry about wearing my swim clothes, packing my work clothes - don't forget the undies and bra!, pack my breakfast, pack my lunch etc. Instead I was just able to walk out the door with the essentials. Trust me, I give thanks everyday to be able to live this new lifestyle of mine!

I found an old training plan of mine from a couple of years ago. There were some really great swim workouts on there so I decided to do them in order and chose the first one. Gulp. My eyes grew slightly large as I read 'Endurance Swim, 1600m'. Holy hannah when was the last time I swam 1600 m?!

As the most I had swum in the last bit was 15 minutes worth, I really wasn't sure how I'd feel in this swim. I was more than willing to give it a go though! My last few workouts have really gotten me in the groove of training and I feel great.

I slipped into the water and started my warm up - 100 m swim/100 m kick/100m swim/100 m kick. My swim felt comfortable and my kick felt like crap. Aaaah. Just like old times!

As I was coming back during one kicking set I noticed someone at the end of the pool. Hmmm. Wonder if that's one of my fellow townie tri-geeks? My goggles are a wee bit cloudy and the person had their cap and goggles on already so I couldn't tell. My name is on my pull buoy though so I figured if they knew me they'd see that and say hi.

The next time lap of kicking I saw the person touching my pile of stuff at the pool edge. Hmmm. What this all about? Perhaps they were reading my swim program that was stuck to my water bottle? I should add I was willing to take them out if they tried to make of with my program or pull buoy! As I got to the pool edge I took off my goggles to see who this person was. I was tickled pink when I saw it was my amazing friend Leslie. YAY! What an awesome surprise!

Turns out she is going to be swimming on Monday and Wednesday mornings as well. I love that she will be there because she is one of the most kick butt swimmers I know. Already today she has given me a pointer that I'll be working on. So cool.

After a brief chat with Leslie I started the main workout. This consisted of sets of various lengths at a moderate and fast pace. For the most part I felt pretty strong, but part way through one of the fast 100 m sets I was thinking, ow, I can feel my shoulders. Need air. Not getting enough air in. So not doing flipturns in this set or I'll drown! How did I ever swim 4000 m last year?? Do not panic. Your race is many months away and you will be able to swim the distance by that time! Breath dammit, breath!

There was some gasping at sputtering at the end of the set, but at the same time I was smiling because I was gettin' er done.

I was surprised again when I finished the workout. I swam 1600 m and it felt not too bad! How cool that I swam that far for my first real swim workout?! This is a very good start to the year. My swim goal this year is to better my technique so I can swim faster! Kind of a given for most triathletes I think.

I also got a run in this evening. About the half hour mark I realized I hadn't had enough food today because things started looking a little woozy. Eeep. Rather than endure the first bonk of the season, I stopped in at Esthers, my other amazing friend. I gratefully endured the giggling at my situation in trade for some sustenance to keep me going. Phew.

Another great training day. Here's hoping this year is made up mainly of these types of days!

Peace out my wonderful friends.

Just Call Me Hef...

Ah yes...there is nothing like waking up, strolling downstairs leisurely to sit down for a nice, hot, well balanced breakfast, then strolling back upstairs and starting your days work - all in the comfort of your fuzzy warm flannel pj's.

At the end of my workday I changed into my bike clothes and headed for the dungeon. My workout tonight was a short one, just under an hour and involved spin intervals.

I did a ten minute warmup, then five minutes comprising of 30 seconds standing and 30 seconds recovery. I gotta tell ya, I'm still feeling my quads from this one. As I was standing I tried to make sure that there was no bounce and that my pedal stroke was smooth. This meant using a lot of muscle and control. I'm proud to say that no obsenities passed my lips during this exercise...although there were a couple of fffffffff sounds before I restrained myself and reminded myself how strong this will make me.

The remainder of the bike workout consisted of spin work. I did sets of 20 seconds high spin (no bounce) and 1:40 min of recovery. One would think this would be relatively easy. In comparison to some workouts it was, but I was still sweating at the end of it. My legs were feeling it as well. That may be due in part to the fact that I was working the recovery spins, not just lazily spinning my legs around.

I felt really good about this workout. I love it when I can feel my muscles working - it's such a rush! I'm really stoked about my bike work this year as I want to build on what I developed last year. One day I will be ready for Lanzarote!

After my workout I went upstairs, showered and put on a fresh set of warm fuzzy flannel pj's. Good thing I have many sets!

Yup, you can call me after the pj'd man himself, Hef. Not that we have anything in common other than our love of being in pj's all day. Afterall, there's only one blonde bunny in this mansion!

Peace out my bunny friends!

Layer Up!!!

Let the show begin...I'm back into training and loving it! On Saturday I had a brilliant run with Leslie. The scenery along the river was breathtaking - all the trees were covered in an shining white frost. It was a bit chilly out though and when we ran into an area that was in the shade certain bits that I possess started to freeze...

When it's cold out the three areas on me that freeze first are the three areas that stick out the most - my butt, boobs and nose! Mental note: next run make sure they are covered better!

On Sunday I was on the trainer...not much to say about that. I got on my bike. I spun my legs. I looked at the walls. Truthfully though, it wasn't a bad workout! I did some various intervals to keep things interesting.

My first official day as a working-from-home-entrepeneur was spent downtown at one of my clients office. Slightly ironic, I know. It was all good though as I get to work with some truly great people. However, working downtown meant I had to do my short run in the dark and cold evening, rather than the warmish sunny day. At least I think it was sunny today...I was in the deep dark back boardroom for most of it.

It was a bit chilly when I got home and I wasn't sure how much more the temperature would drop, even though it was warmer today than it has been in a long time. I decided not to risk a reoccurance of Sunday and layer up!

The layers...jog bra, long sleeve shirt, long sleeve fleece sweater, wind breaker and glow in the dark safety vest. (Musn't forget the bright yellow reflective safety vest that Mum gave me! Cause you know the day I do forget to wear it, is the day I get bumped off by a car or truck!! It's just like when I was a kid and she'd say to wear my coat because it was cold, and I didn't cause I was too cool, and then I'd freeze...) But I digress. On the legs were a pair of shorts covered by my double layered winter gortex front leggings, and socks. This ensemble was topped off with ear covers and my purple dragon toque. (That would be a hat for anyone reading this outside of Canada.)

I LOVE my dragon toque - it doubles as a puppet and has googly eyes and everything! As the eyes face back I always say that Monty (the name of my dragon) watches my back. So very cool.

I didn't end up covering my schnoz, although as I was running I did remember that somewhere in my house I have a red clowns nose that may come in handy on the colder days! Can you imagine the sight of that?!

Overall, the run went quite well. As I was running from my house down the bonus hill I was glad for my neon yellow vest as there was a ton of traffic coming towards me. No one seemed to want to move over either, so I started to wonder if my vest really was reflective and whether or not I'd have to dive into a snow pile to avoid being hit! I kept a good eye on all the cars.

Shortly thereafter, I discovered that the vest was visible because when I got to the road crossing two cars that were going to turn, and therefore intersect in front of me as I crossed the road, stopped. Problem was I stopped too because I couldn't make eye contact (it was dark out) so I didn't know if it was ok to go! We finally all worked it out okay.

As I ran in one of the neighborhoods I was met with a dog...that barked at me. BARKED AT ME! I'm the person who adores all creatures great and small dammit! Especially the cute, furry, fourlegged ones! How dare he bark at me?!

I actually sensed that he wasn't a super friendly dog (the kids walking it had let go of the leash so he was wandering in front of them, then approached me barking) so I stopped running. Likely a good move. He didn't stay interested in me for too long though as he caught a scent, went past me and stuck his nose in a snow drift...must have smelt the scent of Eau d'Yellow Snow!

On the way back I had the pleasure of witnessing the sky turn a most stunning, awe-inspiring colour. Or rather, colours. It was a deep dark azure that blended into a midnight blue, then went to black. Not to mention the stars and moon that were dabbled in there. I made sure I made a wish on the first star I saw tonight too! Can't tell you what it is though or that will break the wish...

I focused on the brilliant sky as I huffed and puffed back up the bonus hill. I learned quickly that it is harder to run uphill in the snow rather than downhill! Who knew?! Throw in the headwind that I had and I felt as though someone was trying to push me backwards! It was great resistance training for the end of my run.

It feels oh so good to be back training!

Peace out my glorious friends.