Becoming too tough to kill

Just as we suspected, last weekend was a tad brutal and a little crazy. Scratch that-a lot crazy. I got very excited as my run on Saturday was "only" 45 minutes! "Whatever will I do with myself?", I thought, until I looked ahead to Sunday. Sunday was "race prep day" and after I got out my trusty calculator to add up all the hours, realized we would be doing an "almost" half Ironman. For training. WTH? Our training plan called for a 1 hour open water swim, 4 hour bike ride, and 2 hour run. For those of you who have trouble with math like me, that's 7 hours of movement. In one day. Kill me now.

5 miles into our walk. I need an ice bath just looking at this! Gorgeous scenery but dear Lord it was hot!!

My friend Ann, also training for her first Ironman in Boulder, called me earlier in the week to make a plan for this race prep day. We decided that Aurora Reservoir would be the perfect place to partake in this madness. The water is clear and cool, we can park our cars in the lot to stage our transitions areas, there is already an existing bike route from the reservoir, and there is an 8 mile bike path around the reservoir. Perfect!

Freddy got called out on a very busy one day trip on Saturday which had him leaving our house at 5am and not getting home (if he was lucky) until around 10:30 pm. After my group run with Runners Edge, I had a wedding to attend downtown beginning at 6:30pm, so knew between the two of us, Sunday would be tough.

Sunday morning, Ann, Dan, Freddy and I left our homes before the birds were awake to travel to Kansas, er. Aurora.  We arrived at the reservoir and were giddy when we saw we were the only people around. We put on our wetsuits, jumped into the reservoir and started our day. On about lap 3, we noticed a very large school of fish started hanging out with us! They were huge and had horns on the tops of their heads and were not bothered by us in the least! After swimming in our rec center pool, Boulder Reservoir and Grant Ranch, they were a very welcome sight!

After an hour, we got out of the water and made our transition to the bike ride. We were all feeling pretty good as the temps were still cool and we were still fresh. We decided to ride the Harvest Moon bike course. I've never done this course but Freddy and Dan had and they warned me it was tougher than I envisioned. Hogwash, I thought. It's Aurora. Aurora doesn't have any hills. Good thing I'm a fan of roller coasters, because that's exactly what this course was. You were either going up or going down.  No flats in this part of Colorado! Crazy! The road was so beat-up that I was literally out of my saddle and squatting for most of the ride to try and save my bike from all the pounding in the pot holes!  There was no shoulder on most of the route which made me too nervous to eat while riding, so I had to pull over to eat. Then the wind came. And it stayed. Then it's friend, oppressive heat came with a vengeance. And it just got worse. The only saving grace about this ride was that we were in farmland and that made me smile all over. I only saw two other cyclists the entire ride and other than that, it was me, the cows, the farmers, some ducks and lots of tractors. I felt like I was home. I went through the entire John Denver collection in my head until I got to "Annie's Song" which made me tear up, so then had to quickly switch my soundtrack. Three hours and 45 minutes later I arrived back at the reservoir, tired, HOT, and hungry. Not good when you have a 2 hour run still to come.

Freddy and I drank an ice cold coke, dunked our heads in some ice water (which evaporated before we even left the truck) and headed on our way. Coach Marco had sent us an e-mail the day before after looking at the weather forecast (the high for Sunday was to be in the upper-90's) saying there was no shame in backing our bike down to 3 hours and our run down to 1 hour. He did not want us being hero's out there. Not today. So, with this in mind, Freddy and I decided we would break up the run in small segments to re-evaluate. We took off on a slow run but quickly realized the heat was zapping us of our energy fast. Our plan was to go out 1 mile, turn around, go back to the truck to get more water, and continue this trend until we couldn't go anymore. Our mantra was "No hero today. We save it for August 3." We got in 6.5 miles and called it good. We arrived back to the truck and promptly jumped back in the reservoir to cool off. When we got home and looked at our data, Freddy's Garmin said the temps had reached 100 degrees. I wouldn't argue that-I think that's probably about right!

During our 6.5 mile march, I shared with Freddy one of my favorite marathon sayings:

In my re-cap about the day to Coach, I told him he needed to try a little bit harder to kill us. He wasn't successful on Sunday and I promised to pull out all the stops on Aug. 3. There were no heros in Aurora on Sunday. But Boulder better watch out. We are comin'!

Enjoy the Fitness

It's happened. The nightmares are becoming more real. It must be close to race day-I get nightmares before marathons and now before Ironman. And the other night's was a doozy! I woke up in a panic at around 1am after a horrible dream about race day where everything that could go wrong did. As I tried calming myself down, I had a horrible thought. Race day is 39 days (oh crap on a stick!!!) away and after factoring a 3 week taper, that means we have less than one month of training left. This thought had me up all night as I reviewed every second of my training since February. As many times as I tried telling myself to trust Coach, trust the training and trust that I've done everything right, I couldn't shake it! So, needless to say, I had a very sleepless night which led to a slug-fest in the lake the next day!

As always, our training is steadily increasing week by week. Our swims, rides and runs keep getting longer. Three weeks ago, Freddy did his first century of the season with a big bunch of our Runners Edge of the Rockies friends and coaches while I joined my girlfriends for the Skirt Sports Half Marathon. Unlike me, Freddy was born on his bike and would be perfectly happy if he could be on it all the time. But he said the ride was brutal. It's in Castle Rock, which makes for a tough course anyway, but the winds that day were horrible and made it that much tougher.

Freddy and some of the gang at Elephant Rock. I think he lied-it doesn't look that windy!

A couple weeks ago, my friend Shannon and I (who is also training for her first Ironmanm but she's super bad-ass and decided she wanted to do Lake Placid) decided to ditch the guys and do a girl's ride, just the two of us. Shannon did awesome and kept squealing in delight over how much fun she was having, which made for a very fun day for us! We logged 75 miles on the bike and followed that with a 20 minute run. We loved riding together and decided that we should do it more often. We may or may not have discussed doing our next Ironman together. But not anytime soon!

Freddy traveled to Iowa to run in the Marathon to Marathon with his dad, Claire. Claire has become quite the runner and will call us occasionally with a challenge for us to join him. Sadly, my work schedule kept me home for the weekend, but Freddy had an awesome time with his dad and I'm SUPER PROUD to report that Freddy PR'd (again) with a time of 1:58 and Clair took first in his age group! I could not be more happy for those two and am thrilled they got to spend the weekend together!

Freddy & Claire. Two of the speediest guys Iowa has ever seen!

This shit's gettin' real. I just opened up my training for the next couple weeks and had a mild panic-attack. My friends Jay and Frank, both accomplished Ironmen who will be joining me in Boulder, warned me last week that the next couple weeks would be brutal. They were right! Coach Marco knows how to keep me in check. He will make notes like "enjoy your 'easy' day by doing something you haven't done in a while", or "rent a funny movie and watch with friends", but a favorite of Freddy and mine is "enjoy the fitness". So, my mantra for the next month will be just this. I am enjoying the fitness. Every early morning, gu-filled, Bonk Breaker Bar, rice cake, leg-pounding second of it!

Pants on fire....

I fear I've lead you all astray. Before you reach for the closest rotten tomato to hurl my way, please let me explain. In the past couple weeks, I have met with many friends and have heard some version of "you are so chipper! Sounds like training is a piece of cake for you!" I'm of course flattered that people think I'm in a good mood all the time and that this training is a breeze, but sadly, this is not the case! There are days when I'm just flat tired of training. Luckily, those days are few and far between, but I'm human. Some days the couch is calling my name so loudly I have to spin a little harder on the trainer to block out the noise.

Take last weekend, for example. While "normal" people looked forward to a relaxing 3 day weekend, I honestly was facing it with a bit of dread. I knew what was on our training schedule and that come Tuesday, I'd wonder what happened to our weekend. Saturday was a 9 mile run with my group, Runners Edge of the Rockies.

Saturday with my favorite runners. Don't be fooled. We aren't always this well-behaved!

Sunday, Freddy and I again woke up at the crack of dawn to do our first OWS (open water swim) event of the season. After days of cold weather and hail, the water was frigid. Freddy did a one mile loop while I braved a 1.5 mile loop. The swim was followed by a 45 minute bike ride which was followed by a 1 hour long bike skills course.

Umm, is this the law or only a suggestion?

Monday, again the alarm went off way too early, and we headed up to Boulder for a 58 mile bike ride with friends. On our way to Boulder, I was a little grouchy. There is nothing easy about getting up every morning before the birds and getting our tails out the door. Nothing. But you wanna know a secret? We chose to have a good attitude about training! And guess what, it makes it much easier. Life is what you make of it. Sure, we could bitch and moan about how hard it is but why? After all, we knew what we were signing up for. We knew there were sacrifices we would need to make. Truth is, we love the challenge! What gets us out the door are two things: 1) we have many loved ones right now that couldn't train if they wanted to. We are so blessed to be healthy and able to train and 2) visualizing the finish line of the Ironman and hearing our names with the words "You are an Ironman" after them. That brings tears to my eyes every single time I think of it. EVERY TIME!!!

Ironmen to be times 5!

Friends, no matter what you do, do it with passion. I promise you if you add passion to your task, it will become much easier!

There is still time to donate and make a difference! Follow this link to our Davis Phinney Foundation page. Every Victory Counts!

2 Races, one weekend

Last weekend was a blur. A fun, crazy blur!

Freddy proudly representing our tribe-the Davis Phinney
Foundation!

Friday night, Freddy did his first ever sanctioned bike time trial in Superior!  Freddy loves speed and has always wanted to race in an official time trial, so with a little encouragement from Coach, he signed up for the Superior Morgul Classic.  I picked up my mom and traveled to Superior to cheer him on for his 8.2 mile loop-keeping an eye on the skies that were beginning to look ominous. Freddy got to the starting line, took off, and immediately the heavens opened and it started pouring. My mom worried about the slick roads. I assured her Freddy was in his element and would be just fine. Freddy, Coach and I all had our predictions about how fast he would do this TT (time trial). Coach thought maybe 27 minutes. Freddy was hoping 25-30. I told both of them Freddy would sub-25 it.  They both raised their eyebrows and thought I was high. 23 minutes after Freddy took off, he came screaming across the finish line-which just so happened to be atop a very long, steep hill.  He loved every second of it and is trying to figure out how he can retire and become a sprinter. We bought two lottery tickets that night. We didn't win, so we are working on plan B!

 

Conquering the giant beast of a hill at the finish!
Mom thought it wasn't very nice of the race
organizers to put that hill there at the end. 

Freddy and my mom celebrating an awesome finish!

On Saturday, Freddy got to rest and I got to head out with my girlfriends for a girls' ride from Sedalia to Palmer Lake-one of my favorite rides! Ann, Molly, Shannon and I arrived bright and early and excited about the day. Until we looked at Shannon's brand new tire, bulging at the rim, exposing her tube. After all of us gave our expert opinions on the state of her bike, we all agreed that she best ditch the ride and head straight to the closest bike shop to get the tire taken care of. And then we were 3. Ann, Molly and I took off and had a lovely ride through the country, chatting, discussing race day strategies, and how we would all have to starve ourselves the next couple months to not look like sausages crammed into the very un-flattering tri kits. It was a great ride-no flats, no drama, no crashes, only some annoying wind and a dead snake to contend with! 

Me, Ann & Molly at our turn-around point. We look so happy because it's all downhill from here!

Sunday morning, Freddy and I awoke again at o-dark-thirty to run the Colfax Half Marathon. I've done some version of this course several times and was looking forward to doing it on the new course. This was Freddy's third half marathon and was busy figuring race day strategies. I told him not to sweat it-that he would once again PR and he once again thought I was high. I don't know why these guys never listen to me!  We arrived in time to cheer on my friend Jill, doing her first full since a nasty foot surgery and recovery. While I was waiting in the corral, I got a text from my friend Natasha who decided at the last minute to jump in and do the half. I was thrilled as I didn't have anyone to run with! The new course was great. It traveled through the zoo, literally through a fire station, had one stretch with all the firefighters from the Denver Firefighter Calendar shoot, scantily-clad, and had a lot of great crowd support along the way. It wasn't a great race for me-it was a humbling day for sure and made me seriously question what I've gotten myself into, but I'm proud to report that I once again predicted correctly and Freddy PR'd by 11 minutes!  He had a great time and I was thrilled that he did so well. After the race, we enjoyed taking it easy with our Runners Edge of the Rockies teammates while sipping on bloody mary's. Overall, it was a lovely day in the park!

This weekend, while all the "normal" folks are sitting on their decks eating brats and drinking beer, we will be logging 6 hours on the bike, doing our first open water swim, and running. So, please, have a brat and beer for us!

Find your inspiration & kick 'em in the balls.....

I didn't want to go to the pool yesterday. Not even a little bit. When the alarm went off as it always does at the un-Godly hour of 4am, I hit snooze and did what I always do when I'm procrastinating: check Facebook. I was scrolling away when I saw that a running acquaintance Vince had updated his blog. Vince is battling stage 4 brain cancer with more strength than I could ever imagine. I read the blog, wiped the tears from my eyes, and got my ass to the pool. As I was swimming, I thought about how lucky I am that I have a choice to either lay in bed or workout. I have many loved ones right now battling any number of issues who would give anything to be able to get out of bed and swim.

During my swims, there is a lot of time to think. I mean, honestly, there's nothing to look at in the aqua treadmill. There are no hazards, no mountains, nothing to do but think. Some of my best thinking is done in the pool. Which is sad-if that's the best I've got! During a lot of my swims, I think of my Papa. Papa and I would spend hours in the pool when we were younger-only coming out for food or the bathroom. Then, after our business, we were right back in. Even when Grandma and mom told us to wait 20 minutes or we would drown. We didn't care; we were willing to take our chances. Papa would cannon-ball into the pool which I thought was the coolest thing ever and I would dive to the very bottom to see if I could find any sharks (I was convinced that Jaws lived in the drain). We would play Marco Polo, I'd climb all over him like he was a jungle gym, and just be silly for hours upon hours. These memories make me so happy-I credit Papa for my love of the water. I also credit Papa for getting me into the world of endurance sports. So, all this training is his fault, really.

Several years ago, in an effort to turn me into a cyclist, Freddy found a ride that he knew I could not say "no" to. It was the Copper Triangle: a loop course beginning and ending in Copper Mountain, and climbing 3 mountain passes. Honestly, it wasn't the ride that got me excited (the thought of mountain riding made my ass twitch). It was the non-profit who benefitted from the ride: the Davis Phinney Foundation. A very quick summary on Davis Phinney: he and his wife, Connie Carpenter Phinney, are cycling royalty. Davis was the second American to win a stage in the Tour de France. Long before Lance, long before our feather-light bikes with more gears than we can count. Connie is a highly decorated Olympic cyclist. Davis was diagnosed with Parkinson's at age 40 and since then has began a crusade on helping people with Parkinson's live better today. Our first year riding in the Copper Triangle, we made the top 5 in fundraising for the Davis Phinney Foundation. Each year since, our goal has been to increase our fundraising goals. And I am happy to report, that each year we have exceeded our expectations!

Freddy, Davis Phinney and I after our first Copper Triangle!

Freddy and I at our last pass-Vail-during our very first Copper Triangle! Yep, you're eyes aren't deceiving you. I am indeed wearing a camelback. I was such a rookie!

Over the past 6 years, we have come to call the Davis Phinney Foundation our friends. We truly believe in their mission and have created great bonds with the staff, volunteers and members. My Papa has been battling Parkinson's for over 10 years now and every day amazes me with his humor, strength, and resolve.

We are not only going through this Ironman journey for ourselves, but to raise funds for the Davis Phinney Foundation in honor of my beloved Papa. His brave fight everyday is what gets me out of bed, gets me to that next mile and will get us both to the finish line on August 3. There are so many wonderful causes out there and it's impossible to chose just one. But this is the one closest to our hearts. Every little bit helps and we appreciate any donation, no matter how small or large! If you would like to donate, please visit our donation page.

Ironman training is tough, no question. But life is tougher. My Grandma taught me at a very young age that if I ever face an impossible challenge, to "kick 'em in the balls". Every day, find your inspiration and go kick 'em in the balls.

Growing gills

I've been "swimming" since I was 6 months old. When I was just a wee little sprite, my mom signed me up for "Mommy and Me" classes where the babies were held over the diving boards like sacrificial lambs and tossed over-board to their moms; who were waiting patiently in the pool. I'm pretty sure in today's world, the mommy and me classes are a bit more civilized. But back in the 70's, we were tough and could handle it. I am so thankful to my parents every day for getting me in the water at such a young age. Because of this, I'm a fish. I may not be a graceful fish, but I am very comfortable in the water and could swim all day (or at the very least for 2 hours, 20 minutes-the cut-off for the Ironman swim). The most common thing I hear when talking about Ironman is "I HATE swimming! I could never do that!". Most people dread the water. I love it! Good thing, too. The past couple weeks, our swimming has sky-rocketed! So much so, that I recently told Coach Marco that I was growing gills. He replied with "gills make you faster!". Awesome! Maybe I will come in well before the swim cut-off and give myself a nice little cushion for the bike!

Our workout volume has continue to grow ever so slightly. In fact, I didn't notice how much our volume had increased until I was looking over our weekly training logs a couple weeks ago. Sneaky, sneaky coach we have! Freddy and I are handling the increase pretty well, if I do say so myself. Luckily, Freddy hasn't had to fly too much but when he does, is usually able to squeeze in his workouts by taking a run around whatever city he is in at the time. My work schedule has increased, but luckily I don't sleep much and when I do, I'm an early riser, so can typically get my workouts in before work. 

Easter Sunday, Freddy got called out on a trip. He was bummed, but we both expected with the holiday that this would happen. I felt sorry for him until I got this photo from him:

Yep, Freddy logged a gorgeous 13 mile run across San Francisco & the Golden Gate Bridge while I rode around Boulder. Boulder is lovely, but it's no San Fran!

I would have been really impressed if he decided to swim from The Rock back to the city, but he said he's afraid of the current or sharks or something. Pansy.....

Today marks our longest swim ever: just over 3,000 yards or 1.70 miles (Ironman is 4224 yards), followed by a half hour run. I haven't done it yet as I'm procrastinating. I'm sure I can find something that urgently needs to be done, like taste-testing my wine for tomorrow's recovery day, wash clothes, play with the cats....

Springtime in the Rockies

There is a tree right outside our window that we see all the time. It's just there, taunting us. We have watched calmly it as it lay dormant all winter. About a month or so ago, we noticed a tiny bit of green on the branches. Oh no! Then a couple weeks ago, those green spots turned into buds. NOOOOOOO! Now, those green buds have turned into full-on flowers. There's no mistaking it. Spring is here. Winnie the Pooh had the Honey Tree, Shel Silverstein had the Giving Tree. We have the "Oh crap. It's blooming. That means spring is here. That means only one more season until IM!" tree. To us, this tree has been like the hour glass the Wicked Witch of the West gave to Dorothy in her castle. Slowly ticking away, reminding us that while we thought we had all the time in the world, Aug. 3 will be here before we know it!

After several days of gorgeous spring time weather, we woke up Sunday morning (at the butt crack of dawn) to a nasty snow storm. You know, those spring snow storms that bring wind, sleet, snow, snain, just all-around nasty. It was Horsetooth Half Marathon day in Ft. Collins, and boy howdy, was it a different experience than the first time I did it two years ago! We loaded all our winter gear into the car and headed up to Ft. Collins, white-knuckle gripping it the entire trip (well, Freddy was driving and he loved it. I had to close my eyes a few times). When we got to Horsetooth Reservoir, the wind was howling, sleet was blowing sideways and it was just frigid. We both just kept cracking up that while normal people were hunkered down with some hot cocoa in their pj's, we were bundling up to go run in this crap for a couple hours.

Once we started, we had a great time! It was perfect running weather and the conditions made the course even prettier than the clear, hot day I had in 2012. Plus, the best part of those conditions is we were guaranteed not to see any snakes! In 2012, a rattlesnake decided he wanted to join in the fun and made his way onto the street while we were running. Luckily, I was too busy taking in the scenery to notice him-I just heard people around me commenting on the snake that joined the race. Some days it pays to gawk-had I seen it, I would have died. And that would have made for a bad day!
I stopped many times along the course to take pictures which slowed my time, but I didn't care. This was a training run and it was just so pretty, I wanted to take it all in.

I crossed the finish line within 30 seconds of my time from 2012, 2:22 (which was an average pace of 10:48/mi/mi. EXACTLY the pace Coach Marco had predicted for me. Kind of freaked me out). Freddy was waiting for me at the finish line with a time of 2:13-a new PR for him! I couldn't be more proud of him. That is a monster of a course and only the second half marathon he's ever done!

I got home and was so excited to download all the photos I had taken only to find out that NONE of them turned out. Not one! Then I was mad-had I known none of them would have turned out, my pace would have been way better. Alas, the photos below are all I've got for ya!

The view from our car. Yeah, it was THAT cold!!! But goodie, we get to climb that hill in front of us!

I was super excited about the pint glass at the end. I would have been more excited if a shirtless fireman gave it to me after he filled it with a margarita. But we can't always get what we want all the time. 

Freddy, on the other hand, was most un-happy with his lack of medal. I felt sorry for the volunteer who handed him an empty pint glass instead of a medal. 

Freddy and I at the finish. Weather was great until we stopped. We are freezing our tushies off!

We are coming off our biggest training week so far, topping out at just over 11 hours of training since last Sunday. My legs will tell you they have trained at least 20 hours more, but my mind says "get ready, this 'aint nothin!" We did two time trials this week: one in the pool followed by the bike the next day. I actually enjoy time trials. For me, they are more mental than physical. I'm used to running time trials, I've been doing these for years with my running group, Runners Edge. The pool and bike are way different though and while I feel these trials went much better than last time, I clearly have a long way to go!  This weekend, we are looking forward to much better weather for our ride and runs. I'm ready to pull out my warm-weather running duds!