IMFL photos

Blogger is acting stupid again today. I wanted to follow Shawn's example and put up a couple old photos from Ironman Florida. It seems like years ago, and it hasn't even been one whole month yet. Here's me, about 3 hours before I was looking much, much worse:

And our whole fabulous crew! Top row L-R Dianne, Kathy, Me, Shawn; couch potatoes (JUST KIDDING!) L-R Linae, Ellie, and Dawn.


In totally unrelated training news, I'm looking over this 3-days-per-week running plan from Runner's World for marathon training. That looks like a manageable plan, even in the midst of triathlon training while I'm trying to do some cycling and swimming too, as long as there's enough daylight to get in two weekday runs! Right now I can't do more than about one hour after school before it gets pitch black, which only gets me about five miles on a good day. Less on a lazy day. But I could do most of the plan up until the 6th week. Hmmmm. 21 days until the winter solstice, then things start turning around again.

What we've come to

Once upon a time my husband and I had normal adult conversations. You know, about movies, politics, the weather, trivia, current events, etc., the normal kinds of things adults discuss with each other.

Since he works two hours away four days per week now, we have webcam conversations online 3 or 4 nights per week.

But after 3.5 years of parenting twins, we no longer have many of those adult conversations. Not with agile little toddlers scrambling into my lap to talk to Daddy at every opportunity. Now our conversations usually center around the girls, of course. And the attention of our girls normally centers around their #1 most favored stuffed animal: Tiger. So this was a screen shot of most of our conversation tonight.

Pool time with Catherine

On Monday and again today I took Catherine over to our local YMCA pool. This is the "warm pool" where they have a nice long shallow ramp leading into the water that she can play on. We have quite a fun time there and she's starting to get accustomed to blowing into the water (instead of breathing it in). It's not much of a workout for me, but it's ever so much more fun than doing laps.

There was a woman in the water with her newly adopted 14-month-old daughter from China, who had just been in the country one week. What a cutie! The baby looked a little confused about the whole swimming thing, but was having fun too. She reminded me of my niece Beth, whom I haven't seen for 3 1/2 years and I miss.

Sometimes a run is just a run

Sometimes - like yesterday - I get out there when I don't really feel like it and run. I want to write up some huge self-congratulatory post about the huge ordeal and how epic it was and how I fought off wild bandits and thunderclouds and epileptic fits and the slings and arrows of doubters and naysayers and evildoers and still got it done against the odds.

But sometimes - like yesterday - it's just mindless circling around the track. Twenty laps in about an hour. Watching the sky get dark. Wondering how many more laps that I'll still have enough light to be able to see the sides of the track. Watching the deer family come out to graze one by one at the edges of the forest.

I guess that's special all by itself. It doesn' t have to be epic to be a satisfying, healthy run. Sometimes I run because that's just what triathletes do.

Emaciated models

It turns out that some of the photos of emaciated models that have been making the rounds have been digitally altered for dramatic effect.

Snopes.com shows some of the before-and-after Photoshop photos.

The one to the left is an actual model photo, which looks plenty too thin to me even without being altered. Is there even a single muscle on that girl?

Still can't decide

. . . whether to do a spring marathon. Or not. I should decide fairly soon if I'm going to give the training that I need to do for it a real chance. I'm just not quite ready to jump right back into high mileage training.

But in the meantime, I signed up for the National Marathon Half Marathon in Washington, DC on March 24th. My time of 1:04:31 at the 10K a year ago barely squeaked by the qualifying standard for either the marathon or the half marathon by 29 seconds (1:05:00 for a 10K). But hey! This year I blew it away by well over a minute and a half in two separate 10Ks! Woo hoo me!


But I don't want to be the straggler at the tail end of this marathon, because I don't know that there will be good course support out there after 5 hours. I'd rather play it safe and tackle the half marathon on this day and finish up while lots of people are still out on the marathon course.

Still under consideration:
B&A Trail Marathon or half marathon on March 4th, 2007
Lower Potomac River Marathon on March 11, 2007

Hooray for Dr. Thorburn!

Bronze medalist at the World Time Trial Championships in Salzburg, and full-time Stanford M.D. Plus she's in her late 30s. What a woman! I'll be cheering for her at the Beijing Olympics when Dr. Christine Thorburn will be approaching age 39!

I sure wish we got better coverage of women's athletics in the USA! There are some great stories out there that never reach the mainstream press.

Bike workout with the Garmin Forerunner 305

Here's what I did today: 24.1 miles on the bike (an out-and-back starting and ending with a slow section through town; stop at the turnaround for a snack). I did a 5-mile warmup and then a series of "stomp" pickups for 1 minute every 5 minutes, visible as the regular heart rate spikes in the graph:


The heart rate meter seemed to work much better this time (perhaps the conductivity was better because I was sweatier and not bouncing up and down as I do when I run), but I'm not impressed with the plotting software. I can't seem to find a way to adjust the scaling of the speed (right vertical axis). That thin squiggle between 15 and 20 mph isn't very helpful!

The average speed from the Garmin only said about 15 mph, while the bike computer average speed said well over 16 mph. That's a big (9%+) discrepancy! Total distance measured seem to be fairly close, though.

While it's nice to also have a little map plot of the workout, I can also do that with gmaps quite easily - plus switch to satellite view also, so that's no big advantage in the Forerunner. Yeah, the cadence function would be interesting, but I didn't have that today and that's still more $$ for the sensor unit.

Yeah, the product still has some drawbacks. It does lots of things automatically quite well, but I need the ability to customize it a little more if the automatic functions don't work how I want.

Weather was pretty nice for the end of November! Not much wind, sunny, about 50*F. I'm enjoying it while it's here, because it's sure not to last!

Run for Hospice 10K

Today was the annual 10K put on by my YMCA, and there are very few organized road races in the immediate area, so I feel like I really should support it each year. It was a beautiful day for it - nearly 60*F, even a little too warm for running! I ran this 10K course last year in 1:04:31, but this year I beat that by over a minute and finished in 1:03:24. Seven seconds slower than my 10K PR from last April! Soooooo close! But I'll still take a course record!

It was a scenic one-loop down a rural road into a nice waterfront neighborhood and back to the Y. It probably drew about 60 runners again this year. They gave out very cute full-color Santa shirts (bad photo at left) that I'll probably wear a lot!

Indulge me for a moment while I go over my splits:

Mile 1: Last year ~10:21, this year 9:58
Mile 2: Last year ~10:21, this year 10:07
Mile 3: Last year 10:40, this year 10:43
Mile 4: Last year 10:28, this year ~9:54
Mile 5: Last year 9:47, this year ~9:53
Mile 6: Last year 11:11, this year 11:15
Mile 6.2: Last year 1:41, this year 1:32

So I guess I started out a little faster this year. It was a small race and I was already last by the first quarter mile!! (There was a simultaneous 5K which I think attracted most of the slower-paced runners.) I stayed a little faster in the middle but finished up at about the same pace. I was eventually able to pass 5 other people during the race who slowed down while I stayed fairly steady (for the terrain). I still walked briefly at the 2 water stops in order to wet my whistle.

I even won a post-race door prize - woot, a t-shirt!!!! Yay! I won something!!

I was encouraged to run (for me) a pretty fast 10K just 3 weeks after my DNF during the run leg of Ironman Florida. That tells me that I don't think it was my run training that was so deficient as I thought - that part was probably up to the job. It was the previous two legs that wore me out!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Testing the Finis SwiMP3

Just last week I bought a Finis SwiMP3 for $138 from SwimOutlet.com with 128 MB of storage, which is used for playing music while swimming. Now I see that there is a new version with 256 MB of storage for $180. It appears that the hardware is the same, however.

I should note I am NOT an audiophile. This is my first MP3-playing device (and in fact I'm militantly opposed to wearing iPods, etc., while running or cycling on the roads or trails). I just wanted something to ease the boredom of lap swimming a little bit. Get in harmony with the water, become a mermaid, and all that.

Initial impressions:

The device comes with big rubbery goggles, which are okay, but not my favorite type. It did not come correctly mounted on the goggles, though, and when I took the straps out of the goggles to assemble it, I couldn't get them back in for love nor money. No big problem because I plan to use my own Speedo Vanquisher goggles with it anyway, but it was still annoying to unsuccessfully fight to reassemble the goggles that came with it.

The unit is kind of weird and bulky and ugly to wear. It seems like it really should be smaller, considering the small storage capacity, but perhaps that will happen in the next generation of hardware. The wires attached to the cheekpiece speakers seem flimsy and probably easily broken. It also uses an old 9-pin type connection (covered with a rubber plug which is not completely watertight) for connecting to the computer, which also seems like a strange choice and an easy place for hardware failure to occur. The directions say to dry out the unit completely before plugging it in.

The music software that comes with it (MediaMonkey 2.5.4) is available as freeware, and it was also annoying to immediately get solicited to buy a software upgrade when I installed it. The interface seems fairly cluttered and cumbersome to me, too, compared to the iTunes program. But I was able to get it to work and sorted out some music to listen to and downloaded it into the unit without too many problems.

It held about 1:45 worth of songs, I believe, which should be plenty to get me through all my planned swim workouts. However, if I want all new music, I'll have to reload it after almost every swim. That may be a big reason to pay the extra $42 for the 256 MB version, to have to reload it with fresh tunes every 3 swims or so. Personally, I find sorting through music on the computer a fairly tedious process.

It uses the plug into the computer to recharge (not separately into an outlet). The battery life is supposed to be about 4 hours. The red charging light switches from fast blinking to slow blinking when fully charged - I'd like to see a green light or something a little more definite.

First tryout at the pool: It fit a little tight and pulled my goggles hard against my eye sockets - I need to loosen them a bit! I didn't really notice the back-of-the-head unit, but perhaps I might if I did flip turns. I occasionally hit my shoulder against the cheek pieces, but it wasn't really an issue. At least you always know the unit is securely on your head, since it's attached to your goggles.

The sound is tinny and hollow out of the water. But IN the water, it's nearly perfect. Doing freestyle you always have one ear in the water, so it's perfect for that. In breaststroke, with both ears coming in and out of the water, the sound is kind of choppy.

But the bottom line?

Swimming with music is a THING OF BEAUTY. It is INFINITELY BETTER than just staring at the black line and getting bored out of your skull. Especially when you hit a song that has just the right tempo for your stroke and you can really swim along with the music, it's just like skating. Or dancing.

If you find lap swimming excruciatingly boring, buy one. The $138 model gets you plenty enough tunes for swim workouts of an hour or more. Load it with happy music. No Jaws theme.

I suspect that prices on the 128 MB model may go down from $138 after Christmas when retailers try to unload their stock, now that the 256 MB model is available. If you're in doubt, wait a few weeks and see if you can find a more tempting price.

What will my 50th Year Challenge be?

I turn 50 next June.

F*CK!!!!

No, wait, it's a celebration. Beats heck out of the alternative, and all that.

Any suggestions for me on some special personal challenge to celebrate it?

NO 50-mile ultras. Not even a 50K ultra. NO 50 marathons. No five marathons, even. I'm still not even sure I'm going to do ONE marathon in 2007. I'm trying to restructure this little hobby of mine next year so it does NOT involve any training days over 5 hours!! Just maybe a few events over 5 hours.

I'm trying to cut the "this really sucks and it's stupid besides" time down to just a few miles per event. Not like 30 or 40 miles of "this really sucks".

Right now I'm thinking along the lines of:

Swim:
Fifty 50x25 workouts
Maybe five 50x50
Maybe even one 50x100

Bike:
Fifty 50km workout rides

Run:
Fifty 5k workouts

Events:
5 triathlons (probably different distances, though)
5 x 5k road races, each one faster
5 x half marathon
5 cycling centuries

Other ideas for me? I want to get this figured out in the next few weeks so I can get the 2007 calendar blocked out. I need something that really captures my imagination.

Thanks in advance!

Trainers and their credentials

Do you use a personal trainer? A coach?

Do you know what his/her credentials are?

Has he/she undergone any objective knowledge testing by any accredited agency to become certified? Does he/she actually have a college degree in the field from a reputable institution, or is he/she working on little education and a sketchy understanding of the science of fitness and performance?

Check this out. You probably would want a certified mechanic to work on your car, why not on your body?

Here is information about the accreditation procedure of the National Academy of Sports Medicine. There are some other reputable associations which offer certification, but not many. Be an informed consumer and don't be misled by scientific-sounding association names on a resume or fancy claims of degrees from obscure "institutions" that you never heard of.

About triathlon coaches, here is the information on Level I and II certification in the US, and here is information on Level III certification. Note that a Level I coach needs to (primarily) just attend a clinic and pass a written test. Personally, I'd recommend using at the very least a Level II coach - but also double-check their educational credentials and verify exactly what services they will provide before hiring them. (I counted only eleven Level III triathlon coaches in the USAT nationwide listing, so it might be difficult to find one of those in your immediate area.)

And perhaps I should add on behalf of the trainers and coaches out there doing a great job on not very much money - if you hire a well-educated genuine professional, be prepared to pay them a fee that is in line with their credentials, expertise, and time spent on providing services - just as in any other field of specialization. Fifty bucks a month doesn't buy many groceries for anyone!

Full disclosure: No, I haven't hired a coach yet. When I find one that has more scientific knowledge about exercise physiology and sports biomechanics than I do, combined with lots of success with the Masters Clydesdale/Athena athletes that he/she already coaches, and that I can afford, then we'll talk.

Another track workout with Garmin Forerunner 305

Went over to the track again with my training buddy David for some running with no special plan in mind, just do a little faster-than-normal running to remind my legs that they have to carry me through a 10K this Friday. Again, the heart rate readings (red) look kind of flaky (higher in some of the walk intervals than in the faster run laps), but the speeds (blue) are fairly straightforward.

• Jog 1 mile to warm up.
• Walk 1 lap = quarter mile.
• Run faster 1 lap (I had planned 2 laps for ~800m, but died and stopped at 1. Still, it was a quarter-mile PR: 1:55 or 7:40 min/mile pace. Yay!!!)
• Walk 1 lap.
• Run faster 1 lap (slowed to 2:05).
• Walk 1 lap.
• Jog 1 more mile for what I planned to be my warmdown.
• Walk 1 lap. Then David told me he wanted to go for an hour.
• Jog 4 more laps until it was too dark to read the Garmin.

I'm not sure how I feel about this 10K on Friday. This is the sum total of any speedwork I've done for at least the last 6 months. It's at my local YMCA so I have no excuses not to show up. It's supposed to rain. It might be a long cold slog. Then again, it might be a bracing fall road running adventure. We'll see!

I do like the Garmin Forerunner 305 and can see how it would get highly addicting (even without reading the manual or trying out some of the fancier features like auto-lap or virtual running partner). I'm going to try to postpone buying one until the number on the scale says 25 pounds less. Unless I can't stand it any more and JUST HAVE TO HAVE ONE NOW. Unlike Mipper and Bolder, I'm not real big on this Delayed Gratification crap.

Meanwhile, in other Fun Toy News, my SwiMp3 ($138 on sale) arrived yesterday. I'll try to get it loaded with music tomorrow. This is my FIRST MP3 device, since I'm militantly opposed to using them while running and especially cycling, so I have to accumulate some songs on my computer now from scratch. I hope to have it ready to swim with on Wednesday, and subsequently I'll post a full review.

Testing the Garmin Forerunner 305

My training buddy David kindly let me borrow his Garmin Forerunner 305 ($247 and up) and I tested it out on our local high school track. It's a wrist unit that combines readings for time, position via GPS, and heart rate (with chest strap). I was able to get it up and running quickly with just a few glances through the manual.

I put it on the "running" setting, wore it over to the track, started up the timer and ran a mile (4 laps), walked a quarter mile (1 lap), reversed, ran a mile including three 50-yard pickups, and walked a quarter mile.

Loading the data analysis program onto my computer was seamless and I was able to look at the charts (YAY! CHARTS!) of my workout easily within five minutes:

First impressions:

• Manuals and setup are surprisingly easy and user-friendly.
• The wrist unit feels a bit big and clunky, but I could get used to it.
• There is some 50 feet of play in the position data, even though I ran in the same inner lane every lap.
• Total distance ran a bit high - distances measured around the track ranged from 0.25 miles to 0.28 miles. It probably would work better in straight-line running. It really got mad when I reversed on the track.
• The heart rate meter was a little flaky at times (notice some anomalous readings in the red line, plus it started beeping at me for low heart rate once while walking), although it did find the 3 brief periods of elevated heart rate in the pickups I did in my last 3 running laps (while the pace data was too variable to pick out these increases).
• The pace readings were a little high because the unit was measuring distance about 6% long.

Still, it was fun to play with (I love CHARTS! Even though it seems to auto-calculate the axes to include the anomalous data spikes, and they don't seem to be user-scalable) and I think it would be helpful for heart-rate based training - especially for running on local roads and doing followup post-run data analysis. I also think it would be fun to use during races. There are tons of features that I haven't tried yet - like the virtual running partner to help you pace yourself with, or using it on the bike. I wish it were waterproof enough to use during pool swims or open water swims, too.

I may just buy one for myself as a reward toy for reaching a weight loss goal. But that will have to wait a while until I actually reach said goal, about 25 pounds from now.

My big brave girl

Our twins will be three and a half years old in another two weeks. Today Catherine did something completely new.

Elisabeth had a cold last week and Catherine took great interest in recommending "medicine" for her. In the past Catherine has fought and gagged whenever we've tried to make her take any medicine orally. She watched quite intently this week when I forced Elisabeth to take some liquid Tylenol or cough syrup amid much screaming and carrying on.

Today, though, Catherine started sniffling from contracting the same cold and had a hard time getting to sleep. Her father asked her if she wanted some medicine. Much to his surprise, she said yes.

So he brings her out into the kitchen for Mean Mommy to administer the Tylenol with decongestant and cough medicine, which tastes absolutely awful. Catherine sat down and I said "The medicine is going to taste bad, but it will help you feel better. Do you still want some?"

She nodded.

So I gave her half of the dose in her mouth in a syringe. She blinked and swallowed it and I told her there was some more. She opened her mouth and accepted it willingly, and then came in and snuggled on the couch with us until she got sleepy.

I was astounded! She's always fought like a wildcat to keep from taking it in the past.

I was so impressed and proud of her!

Then the other night when the girls were supposed to be going to sleep I came in their bedroom to try to get Elisabeth to settle down and Catherine darted out the door and ran down the hall. I looked around the house for her. She had hidden in the living room in a cubbyhole behind the couch and underneath the TV. Her giggles gave her away, though, and she knew that the gig was up when I pulled her out and she willingly marched back to bed. That's the first time that I can recall her anticipating my movements and trying to look at things from my perspective in advance.

It's so neat to see them developing new capabilities every single day. My little girl is quickly becoming all grown up right before my eyes!

The girls still don't quite have the pedaling action down yet on the tricycle, however, partly because they're small and it's really too big for them. They need a professional bike fit! But we'll do a technique session tomorrow over in the big high school parking lot and see how they do.

Colder ride

Today I whipped Buttercup back into shape, putting the pedals back on for the first time since she was shipped home - and I bundled up in my cold-weather gear and set out on a morning ride down to Tilghman Island with the Dastardly Duo preparing for Ironman Coeur d'Alene, David and Chuck.

Naturally today had to be the day I decided to do another one of those graceful failure-to-clip-out falls on my side. What a klutz. I ended up laying on the asphalt with the contents of my aerobottle spilled all around me. Fortunately it was just water.

I only went 36 miles with them - there were some fairly strong winds and in the colder temperatures today (about 40*F) I got pretty tuckered out battling them.

Somewhere along the way - probably in shipment to or from Florida - BOTH of Buttercup's aluminum water bottle cages behind the seat got broken. I think I'm going to just remove the whole apparatus. I don't really need to carry that much fluid with me until the hot-weather rides next summer. I still have the aerobottle and one bottle cage on the down tube. Who needs that extra little bit of drag? Besides, one of my online buddies said, "Take 'em off, they look geeky when training."

God forbid I should look geeky when I'm tipping over sideways at a standstill on my bike.

We're back

We're back - the Canada geese, me, and Ellie.

The geese are getting their workouts over a few thousand miles. It's just getting to the time of year here where there is a long skein of them overhead almost any time you look at the sky, flapping and honking away. Sometimes you even hear them pass overhead in the middle of the night.

Ellie was back running today, and so was I. My legs have been weird and my knees achy - I suppose they're getting to like this long layoff and telling me they want it to continue indefinitely. Sorry, you two slackers! Out the door you go and onto the track! Only 9 laps today before it got dark, and the first 2 or 3 felt positively awful. But then I warmed up and my knees stopped hurting and it just felt the normal, regular old amount of awful.

Ellie sent me a couple links relevant to our discussions here of late:

A dietician who also believes in real food for real triathletes - but she talks about healthy stuff like Kashi and spinach when I'm thinking Tater Tots.

Also a nice summary of P.I.S.S. - Post Ironman Stress Syndrome. Only they don't call it that, exactly.

My husband brought Buttercup and my big red duffle bag back here tonight, so my bike is finally home after doing her job well in Florida. Good girl, Buttercup! I'll put the pedals back on in the morning and take her out again for 50-60 miles with my training buddy David and another local triathlete, Chuck, who are both getting ready for Ironman Coeur d'Alene next June. Here we go again!

We're also all doing a 10K at my YMCA next Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. If today's run was any indication, I'll start out stiff and stay slow, but be happy to be outside and in motion in the crisp autumn air.

New Annapolis Triathlon next year!

I'm SO in! I just heard about this, and it sounds great to me! Another Olympic in a great venue - right in my backyard! They don't mention the sea nettles that will be our swim buddies, though. And I sure hope they don't route the bike course over the cobblestones in the old part of town!

"The inaugural running of the Annapolis Capital Triathlon will take place on September 9, 2007. Presented by the Annapolis Triathlon Club with race management by the Columbia Triathlon Association, this Olympic distance race will introduce participants to the charms and history of the Capital City of Maryland, also known as the "Sailing Capital of the World". Home to the United States Naval Academy, framed by two great tidal rivers (The Severn River and South River) and situated along the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay, Annapolis is an ideal spot for a triathlon."

"Swimmers will negotiate the picturesque waters of the Severn River, as they navigate the 1.5K swim. The 40K bike route will take participants through historic Annapolis, past the oldest, functioning state capital building in the country and through the neighborhoods and rolling farm lands of Anne Arundel County. The 10K run course incorporates stretches of the nationally renowned Annapolis Ten Miler course that is both challenging and beautiful. Participants will run through city streets lined with cobble stone sidewalks and historic homes, and beneath the Naval Academy Chapel dome, before finishing in the heart of town."

Constant vigilance

That's the price I have to pay to be leaner - with my huge appetite, love of food, and efficient fat-gainer metabolism. The only way that I lose weight is to pay extremely close attention to food intake. The workouts don't seem to make the teensiest dent in the scale readings at all, for me, unfortunately.

After my taper and a few weeks of unmonitored eating I was back up 5 pounds. Gawd, can I gain or what!?

So now that I've recovered from the Ironman Attempt of 2006 I'm back in that Seventh Ring of Hell logging all my intake. OK, let's get a more positive attitude here, shall we? Seventh Ring of Heck.

I just bought the Fitday.com PC software for $20, which seems to offer a few advantages over the online version (mainly you can keep the window open and don't have to log in every time you go back to it). So I'm logging all my caloric input and expenditure into that again now - at least 5 days per week.

It works when I work it (all told, I'm down about 20 pounds from the spring). In 3 days back at it now the scale shows an encouraging 3 pounds off, even when eating over 1750 calories each day. That's much more than my expected rate of loss - a pound per week or so is what I can do without seriously restricting myself. But it's a nice little encouragement and pat on the back for getting back on track.