Thursday, March 31, 2016

March Round-Up

I officially am DONE with my workouts for the day, so I can do this blog. On time! What the what?!?

Onward:

Swimming: 21100m (13.1 mi)
Cycling: 269.56 mi
Running: 62.04 mi
Lifting: four sessions (:48)
Other: three yoga sessions (:58)

In my February recap, I was hoping for more progress and less exhaustion in March. Progress was definitely a thing (about 6k more in the water, 100 more mi on the bike, about 30 more run miles), but less exhaustion? Ha. There are moments.

I did get sick this month - a cold finally overtook me - and that knocked me out for several days and made me cut a few workouts short. I think I'm finally learning my lessons from years past, though, and didn't push through and took it easy and oh hey, I'm still not sick three weeks later like usual!

Growth. It's a thing.

In general, most of March was 8-9 hour weeks. This week, the month-straddler, I'm scheduled for a little over 10 and so far, so good. Hello, Ironman training ...

And because these posts get BORING, I leave you with this horrible, awful, British earworm that y'all can thank my dad for emailing me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pgPq4FGWfk

YOU'RE WELCOME.

Monday, March 28, 2016

Back with Skirt!

I've had the announcement ready to go with this for a while, but since I FINALLY went through with my idea for said announcement ...

skirt

That giant collection of Skirt means that yes, I'm a Skirt Sports Ambassador again this year! More importantly, I was chosen, off the recommendation of my fellow Skirts, to be an Ambassador Captain. As I don't have the biggest social media reach (as all 20 of you who read this know ...), I was a little worried about this, but it just proves that there's more than how many blog readers or Instagram or Twitter followers (@tgeist23 for me for both ...) you have sometimes.

So! If you've ever wanted to try a running skirt - the original running skirt! - or get some cute capris, or the brand-new-and-I-can't-wait-to-try Not So Cheeky shorts (shorts with attached compression underneath to eliminate chafing), use my personalized discount code (TG20AMB; also found on the sidebar to your right) to get 20% off your next order.

Monday, March 7, 2016

Happy with myself

Yesterday I was out on a long-ish bike ride (1:45:00) by myself.  I mean, not totally.  The trails were packed, but I was training solo.  It was definitely a beautiful spring day.  Mid 60's in temps, sun was out for the beginning of my ride, and it just felt awesome to not be at work and be outside.

If you follow our blog/life, you know that shortly after I upgraded to Captain and discovered the joy of making lots of money, it kind of took over my life.  And the ironic thing is, the more I made, the more I wanted to make.  It took an intervention from T to remind me that "I am enough".  And while I have believed that I am enough, certainly a lot of factors have come along to remind that maybe I'm not enough.  I mean let's face it - I still haven't landed my dream airline job, despite having gone to numerous job fairs.  I didn't finish either 1/2 Ironman I did last year.  And I'm still working to pay off my debts.  So yeah, am I enough?

At some point on the ride yesterday, I felt a calm come over me.  I smiled to myself and realized that while my life certainly isn't perfect or where I want it, I wouldn't trade it for anything.  I'm very happy with who I am and what I have.  

I am enough.

Thursday, March 3, 2016

Race #2 of the Season: Chilly Cheeks Duathlon #3

So way back on February 20, I finished out the Chilly Cheeks series and finished up with racing until April.

Unlike the first two races of the series, the weather for this one seemed ideal - high-40s at start; I could race in my tri kit with only some arm warmers to help with some chill on the bike. Love it!

I got to the race start early, as always ... even though I clearly didn't need to. Whatever, it meant I was going to be bored and take pictures.

cc3
Pre-race look. Fake Uggs with compression socks and my tri kit ...


cc3_2
Transition.

Since I got called into work that evening, I was super happy I got slotted into one of the early waves - B (out of V (so 2nd of 22)). Race #3 is a bike-run - 10.8 mile bike followed by a 4 mile run. Coach Corie didn't really give me a plan for this race, so I figured I'd go out pretty hard on the bike and then see what I could hold on to for the run.

The Bike:

Bike course was the same as last race, which is nice - through Cherry Creek State Park, tower loop, back.

Now the winds in the park tend to swirl and in general, be really dumb. Today, however, the winds were such that it looked like we'd have a tailwind on the way back to transition (that is, the way you'd LOVE to have the tailwind, but never ever get it). I was pushing pretty hard and was SUPER happy to feel that yes, the wind was a cross but mostly at one's back riding "home."

Time: 35:53 (7th division, 17th gender, 70th overall)

T:

I already had my race belt skirt on - decided to save some time, yo - so all I needed to do was swap out my helmet for my TriSports trucker hat and my bike shoes for my running shoes. Lace 'em up, and get the hell out of dodge.

Time: :58 (9th, 16th, 42nd)

The Run: 

Oh, run. My legs might be okay with you, but my lungs really still hate you. Story of the run was run when I could, walk when my lungs hated me too much. I was able to run more often than not over the first three miles, but mile four ... I kind of fell apart.

Plusses were running into facebook buddy Jeannene on the run (and chatting with her afterward) and a woman in a Betty Designs kit yelling out "Go TriSports!" also on the run ... which makes me glad that I was lazy and delayed this recap because I found out much, much later that she's part of the Team TriSports group. 

The run was also long by at least .18 (what I had; others had similar distances), which never freaking helps.

Time: 42:12 (12th, 28th, 85th)

Overall Stats:
Time: 1:19:04
10/15 division (F30-39)
22/45 gender
76/111 overall

There were a couple HUGE positives to this race: 

- I chopped a good 15 minutes off my time from the last time I did this race waaaaaay the heck back in 2012. 
- I had my first ever transition under a minute (woo!). 
- I'm 99% sure I had my first race bike split of 18mph (HUGE for me).
- My bike split was about 3:30 faster than last race ... which yeah, some of that is due to the favorable winds, but STILL!

Now to hunker down and train, as I've got about a good two and a half months until my next multisport race ...

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

February Round-Up

I still have my final Chilly Cheeks recap to do, I know. I'm getting there! This first, though.

I have things to say about February, but let's go for numbers first, shall we?

Swimming: 15500m (9.6 mi)
Cycling: 160.17 mi
Running: 35.12 mi
Lifting: three sessions (:44)
Other: two stretch sessions (:18), two walks (4:30), two yoga sessions (:28)

This month was higher in mileage with swimming and running, but not so much in cycling (although it probably should have been). The numbers appear decent, but I know that I've skipped a few workouts and cut a few short due to a possible few things:

- me adjusting to the work
- my typical thing of my body fighting progress
- February is just a stupid month

Who knows. I'm hoping more progress (and less exhaustion!) keeps on coming in March. No planned races, so just a lot of work ...