Three Days to Triathlon

While my first week of Kindergarten was largely successful, and I have a great group of 5-year-olds, I am still really glad it's a three day weekend. I'm going to be honest with you: I went to bed at 8:45 last night, and it was all I could do to make it that far. I also woke up [10 hours later] with a sore throat and a stuffy nose, so...that's awesome too (and not very surprising. Kindergarteners not very concerned with personal hygiene. Or personal space.) I am not going to write too much about my students, because I could then just end up writing page after page of anecdotes, so I am going to TRY to stick to the topic at hand: my triathlon.

Because the triathlon is on Monday, this week was a pretty light week of training. Thank goodness for that, because I spent a lot of time at school. I considered it as a "win" if I left before 6:00, which didn't happen until Thursday, and I was there by 7:00 every morning. Add in the 20-25 minute commute there, the 35-40 minute commute home, and the pure exhaustion of hanging with 20 feral children all day, and you might understand my lack of enthusiasm for training. I skipped my swim on Monday, mostly because the window of time that I had to use the neighborhood pool was too small for me to fit it in before school, and that window closed at 10:00 AM. If I had really cared to, I could have rejoined L.A. Fitness and gone in the evening, but it would have only been for that one swim, which just seemed silly. I did my scheduled bike ride on Wednesday with Rob after we had dinner (he cooked that night, bless him) and I will be doing a short run today and a short bike tomorrow.

I wish I could be more excited about this triathlon, but with so much going on the last three weeks and with such a packed schedule, training has been on the back-back burner. I'm finding myself dreading Monday rather than being excited about it like I have been for my other events. It's not that I think I can't do it, I just don't think I can do it as well as I could have if I had really been more disciplined this last month.

I think I'm also nervous about transitioning. One of Rob's bosses was talking to him about triathlons and was asking him if I had a body suit (no), waterproof socks (no), etc. (mostly no). I didn't think about the fact that my feet will be wet after the swim, which will probably result in blisters when I switch to the bike, unless I take the time to dry them off. That's what I am going to end up doing, I guess, because I really don't care about my time and blisters are no bueno, especially for a girl on her feet all day long.  I think I will probably stick to purely running or purely biking events from now on. It just seems simpler to me to not have to switch gears partway through an event.

I shall write a race report, so keep an eye out for that:)

Three weeks to go!

I'm really starting to slack here! Stuff has been crazy. On Wednesday of last week, I finally heard from HR. First, let me give a little bit of background: each state has their own awesome, unique way of judging whether or not a teacher is qualified to teach in that state. In Alabama, I was required to take 2 tests to prove that I was smart enough to teach elementary school, and I had to take the tests before I could be certified to teach in Alabama (hence the reason I didn't get a job in AL-- no time between UF graduation and the start of the school year.) I was thrilled when I moved to Texas and realized they offered a one-year temporary certification for out of staters like myself. Basically, I have to take 3 tests here for a standard certification, but if I paid $150 extra I could be certified almost immediately and start applying for jobs. Then I had a whole year to take those three tests. So that's what I did and I thought I was all set, but then HR informed me on Wednesday that in order to be "highly qualified" (a caveat of No Child Left Behind) I needed to take one of those tests before they could write me a contract. Lovely.

So I scrambled to find a test within an hour or two driving distance and the soonest one I could find was on Monday near downtown Houston. I passed, got my scores on Tuesday, but HR didn't get my scores until Thursday (and they wouldn't take my word for it, of course, even though I sent them a copy of my score report.) Then on Friday, after they got my scores (again), HR told my principal that they needed ANOTHER reference, from a "supervisor" and the supervisor had to be someone who supervised me in relation to teaching. I had already given them the only people I've actually worked for in the last 4 years related to children, so I gave them my study abroad supervisors name from when I taught 3rd graders for a few weeks in Plymouth. She is on vacation until Monday, so I can't go to the new teacher orientation Monday morning. It is such a racket, but I still have a job, so I am just trying to take it all in stride. I am going to be going in on Monday afternoon to get better acquainted and meet everyone, which is fine, but I'm going to have to do the orientation at some point, I assume.

Training has been going smoothly, and my neck healed rather quickly. I did end up biking the Saturday after my last post with minimal pain, and it feels 98% better now. This week has been pretty grueling, and I'm not scheduled to have another off day until next Thursday (my last rest day was on Sunday.) But some of the workouts are so easy that it almost counts as a rest day. Yesterday's swim, for example, was only 1200 meters at an easy pace, and no more than 300 m without a 10-20 second break. I also redid all of my time trials to see how they compared to the ones I did a few weeks ago, and, much to my disappointment, only my bike time improved (I shaved close to two minutes off of that!) My 400 m swim was slower by 10s and my 3k run was slower by 31s. I guess overall my time improved though, so I'll just think of it that way:) Also, this training plan says "aim for your race pace" during the test runs, and my race pace is "moving." I'm not aiming for a particular time, so as long as I'm moving I'm "on pace."

Today was pretty rough, partly because I only got 5.5 hours of sleep last night, but partly because it was another "BRICK" workout, and I find transitioning from one discipline to another very difficult. I have no idea how people do ironman competitions...or even half iron mans (iron men?) I biked 17.08 miles and then ran 2.82 miles and I was totally beat by the time I got home.

Rob is off golfing with his friend Andrew, who is visiting from Birmingham for the weekend. They are going go kart racing later, but I think I might opt out for a nap:)

Sprained neck

I know, it's been a while. I just seem to have lost my desire to blog about every training session. I have still been very active, and this week was particularly taxing. Yesterday I reconfirmed the fact that running far after weeks of running 1-2 times per week is extremely difficult, even if I've been biking or swimming on the other days. I ran 5.55 miles yesterday in exactly one hour and it was a challenge. Part of that may be due to the excessive heat and a part of it may be due to the fact that I sprained my neck the night before while biking to get froyo with Rob. I accidentally went through a pothole, on a road bike, at top speed. I felt the whiplash on my neck, but it didn't really hurt...at least not that night. But when I woke up the next morning, I couldn't move my head more than a few degrees in any direction without feeling some excruciating pain. I thought maybe I had just slept on it funny, so I did my run anyway (probably not a great idea.) During my run I made the connection between the pothole and the pain, did my research when I got home and voila! I determined I had a sprain. Rob confirmed my self-diagnosis when he woke up, him being a veteran of sprained necks and all.

Doctors (online) say it will take up to a month to heal, but personal testimonies say a week or so is more like it. I did skip my bike ride today, and this next upcoming week was supposed to be a recovery week anyway. So, I'll just have to take it extra easy. I will still probably do my easy runs and do stationary bike rides instead of rides on my [way more fun] bike. I will probably skip the swims though, because swimming requires me to turn my head pretty far around. For now I just need to manage the aching until it subsides. They moved the triathlon to Sept. 2 because of a lower-than-expected number of participants. So rather than have the Sprint triathlon on the 1st and the Olympic triathlon on the 2nd, they are just going to do them back-to-back. So I really hope the sprain doesn't take a month to heal, because the race is only five weeks away!

Which means that the start of school is only four weeks away, and I still have not received my official offer from Barrington Place. So, I haven't been able to set up my classroom or meet with the Kindergarten team... nothing. I'm REALLY hoping they will get it all taken care of this week, but even still, it will be a stressful start to the school year :\ But it's good. I have a job, and it's a job I wanted, so I am grateful!

New Job! Training updates.

Hello! I hope everyone is doing well this Wednesday morning.

First of all, as many of you have seen on good old Facebook, I finally got a teaching position! I had just resigned myself to substituting until I made myself known in the school districts, when I met an Assistant Principal at a church cookout. She asked me in for an interview, which took place yesterday morning. They called me about an hour after I left to offer me the position! Now I just have to wait for the paperwork to go through the district and the state before I am given an "official" offer. I will be teaching Kindergarten, which wouldn't have been my first choice, but it wouldn't have been my last either! I am so excited to start organizing and decorating my little classroom, and to start planning with the kindergarten team. Today I will be heading to Goodwill to look for bean bag chairs, lamps, and bookshelves, and kindergarten level books. I have also already created a sister blog for my classroom, mostly for the purposes of parent communication. That might mean this blog will be eclipsed, but that is okay because I was only writing to inspire myself to finish a marathon, which I have now done.

I skipped my swim yesterday, because it was raining outside, so I couldn't use the neighborhood pool, and my gym is going through a remodel, so I couldn't use their indoor pool. So I had two rest days in a row, but I think that was necessary. I did a long bike on Saturday (2 hours) and a long run on Sunday (50 minutes) and my body was begging for a break. I really thought incorporating low-impact swimming and biking would help my body stop hurting, but it just makes it hurt in different places. Swimming makes my ankles hurt and my shoulders sore. Biking makes my wrists hurt and my quads sore. I also haven't been stretching as well as I should after swimming and biking, which is probably part of the problem. I also stopped foam rolling altogether until last week and these last few times on that blue torture device have been especially excruciating.

I just did a nice little 30 minute jog. There are only 46 days until the triathlon, and after that I am going to do one of those 5k obstacle races ("Houston Jailbreak") in October. Then I will start training for the half marathon that I am signed up to do in Birmingham in Feburary (the one I was supposed to do last year.) I hope that once I start teaching I don't get too overwhelmed and stop exercising. I need to make sure that doesn't happen, because I'm pretty sure that will help keep me sane. But I know how easy it is to say "I'm tired and busy and just don't feel like exercising today" several days/weeks/months in a row. But my dear husband asked me to divvy up the housework, now that I also have a job, so that he can do his share (isn't he great??) He said he'll do whatever I need, as long as it isn't laundry, which will give me time to squeeze in some runs during the week:)

As always, thanks for reading!

Theory Debunked?

Hello, readers! If you have been reading this blog for any amount of time, you might remember this post, in which I expressed my skepticism about the need to run 40-50 miles a week to be a "good" runner. I wrote, "I would think that as long as I have the cardiovascular capability to keep my heart-rate at a 160-180 pace for an extended period of time (which can be attained in ways other than running 4 days per week) and more importantly the muscle strength to carry me through 26.2 miles (which can also be attained in ways other than running) I should be able to finish the race, right?" After just two weeks of triathlon training, which includes only two very short runs per week, I have to admit that I was wrong.

When I swim or bike, my heart and breathing rates do get very high--even higher than they do on my usual mid-to-long runs, and I have been doing one of those three activities six days a week. Nevertheless, I have still noticed a serious decline in my ability to run comfortably at even a 10:30 pace. My breathing comfort zone the last month or so of marathon training was a four-in-three-out cycle, but when I tried that pattern today I found that I simply didn't have the lung capacity for it and I had to switch to a three-two pattern. Let me reiterrate: It has only been two and a half weeks since the marathon! It is truly alarming how difficult my run was this morning. It was supposed to be an "easy" 30 minute run, but I ran it pretty hard. If not for my Garmin, I would have sworn I was running 9:30 miles, based on my breathing and heart rate alone. My overall average was, in fact, only a 10:24. My only source of pride from today's run is that I ran it in a "negative split" which is runner talk for running the second half faster than the first.

This past week was a week of time-trials. I'll do the same distances again in a month or so and see if I have improved. I swam 400 meters in 7:54 (I have no idea if that's any good or not), biked 16k in 35:18 and ran 3k in 16:54. My shoulders are definitely feeling the hard swims from this week, and my glutes are definitely feeling the biking, but over all I feel good. As much as I love running, it is nice to be mixing it up a little bit.

Personal notes:

• Still no job yet, but I have gotten several more leads this week. Hopefully one of them pans out!
• Rob and I drove to Florida last weekend. We went primarily to attend a wedding reception dinner thing (They had actually already been married, twice: once in a Muslim ceremony and once in a Christian one--fascinating!) but we spent Friday night in Pensacola with my favorite redhead, Lucy, and managed to squeeze in a second dinner with my parents on Saturday night. I always love to see them:) Sunday was terrible--it took us close to 16 hours to get back home, because traffic was really heavy. Listening to East of Eden the last 4 hours or so was very helpful though. We'll be making the drive back to Pensacola in a couple of weeks for another wedding, and the weekend after that I will be flying to Jacksonville for another wedding. Weddings galore!
• We won trivia last week. I have never been on a winning trivia team before, so that was kind of awesome, I must say. We are going to go back next week and spend our winnings and play again.
• Atlas had her last round of puppy shots yesterday. She was supposed to be spayed as well, but we just can't afford that right now. Turns out she wouldn't have been allowed to anyway, because she has developed a heart arrhythmia that may or may not go away as she continues to develop.

Some Firsts

I couldn't sit still for very long after the marathon. As soon as I started to feel mostly normal again, I started doing triathlon training. On Tuesday, I swam 1,000 m, mostly freestyle but also some backstroke during the first and last 200 meters. The 600 m in the middle was my "real workout." Right now I'm just trying to get comfortable in the water and with the fact that I can't just breathe whenever I want to. Eventually, I need to find a lake around here that I can swim in so that I will be prepared for the lake in the actual race...but that can wait a couple more weeks.

On Wednesday, I biked 13.34 miles (50 minutes) and discovered some of the more biker-friendly roads near our house, because I can't just ride around in circles around our neighborhood for that long several times a week. I swam 1,300 m on Thursday, very easy. I don't quite have that flippy thing at the end of the pool lane quite down yet, so I have had a tiny break between every 25 meter section...something else to work on in the next couple of weeks.

Today I did my first "BRICK" workout, which is a combination of any two of the triathlon sports. I have no idea why it's called a BRICK...I feel like "BRIM" would be more appropriate (Bike-Run-swIM), but who am I? Anyway, today I did a 40 minute bike followed by a 20 minute run (10.93 mile bike and a 1.91 mile run). That was also my first run since the marathon. I have to admit, the whole transition from biking to running was a lot more difficult that I would have guessed. I figured my leg muscles would be warmed up from the bike, so the run should be a breeze. True, some of my leg muscles were warmed up, but not the same muscles I needed for running. I wish I could say that after a few minutes the run was a easy despite the transition, but it wasn't. I was huffing and puffing the whole way, and never really hit my stride. I kept thinking, "I cannot believe I did this for 5+ hours a week ago. That's completely insane."All in all, I have enjoyed my first week of triathlon training. Nine more weeks until race day!

Personal Notes:
I haven't had any luck on the job front, really. I had an interview for a public charter school on Tuesday, but I didn't get the job. While that might be a blessing in disguise (it would have been about an hour commute each way), it is still discouraging. I have been approved to sub in two counties, but that doesn't feel like a huge accomplishment. I have been pretty spoiled thus far in life; most things have come pretty easily to me. So I am trying to embrace this struggle and not pout about it, because I don't think everything should be easy all of the time. That leaves very little room for growth. I know the right job will come along eventually!

It's been lovely having Rob home again. He took me out on a fancy date last night for no reason other than he likes me. Today we are going to go pick out curtains with our leftover money at Bed Bath and Beyond (from gifts we returned) and go to a cookout with some of our church friends.

The pups are doing well too--They both know "down" now, and Atlas is growing so fast! I swear her legs have doubled in length over the last 10 days. I'm kind of excited for her to be full grown, even though she's so cute now. I didn't realize how awesome mastiffs are until I decided to get one. We love her a lot:)

Seattle Rock 'n' Roll Marathon Race Report

I did it! I finished my first marathon. My time was just faster than those who walked the last 5 miles, but I don't care--I'm just happy to have finished.

I arrived in Seattle at 4:25 PM local time. After picking up my bag, our friend Brian picked me up and we went over to the race expo to pick up my "Swag Bag" with my bib, shirt, and other random goodies in it. Rob's flight wasn't due to arrive until 9:30, so Brian and I had some dinner near the expo. We were also right near the Mariner's ball park, so we decided to scalp some tickets in the nosebleeds. I got to see ex-Philly Raul play, still going strong at 41 :)

While we were there, Rob found out that his flight would be delayed an hour, so he wouldn't get there until 10:30 (poor guy--let me remind you that he was traveling from Denmark so he was beyond tired). Brian and I headed to the hotel after the 6th inning so that I could try to get some sleep before our 5AM wake up. He and Rob ended up getting back around 11:15 (I think?) I couldn't thank Brian enough for being our chauffeur/host all weekend. He even stuck around for the 7 hours it took us to prepare for and run the marathon!

5:00 on Saturday came way too early for all three of us. The race didn't start until 7:00, but we needed to pick up Rob's bib etc. before we started. That was the first lesson I have learned about big marathons; Even though the actual race started at 7:00, our "corral" (yes, like we're cattle) wasn't released until nearly 8:00--the 7:00 start time was for those runners who are actually talented.

The weather was absolutely perfect! It was a rare sunny day in Seattle, and the temperature was in the mid 60's. Rob and I stuck together for the first half of the race. It started at the Space Needle, and wound through downtown and a nearby park. I was having some digestive issues (naturally) so I had to stop in a porta-potty twice during that first half. I was also running much slower than Rob wanted to, so I finally just told him to go on ahead--I was getting stressed feeling like I was holding him back! Soon after we split up, the worst part of the race began. They shut down a section of I-90, where it crossed Lake Washington. The bridge was designed for cars, so it was way too cambered for my taste. I spent the entire six or so miles fretting over the state of my knees. It was also out and back, so I was very discouraged by the multitude of runners coming from the other direction who were way ahead of me. It was also just so vast--we might has well have been in the middle of a desert. There were no trees, only tunnels. The tunnels would have been nice except that my GPS went out while in them, so I had no idea how far I had come. Miles 19-21 on this bridge were the worst. I wasn't sure I could finish. I desperately wanted to walk. The only upside was that a LOT of other people had started walking, so I was finally the person passing people, rather than the person being passed. I was relieved to get off of the bridge somewhere between 22 and 23 miles.

My watch had been fairly in sync with the mile markers all through the race, even despite the loss of signal in the tunnels. So when my watch told me I had hit 25 miles, I really picked up the pace (all things are relative: "picking up the pace" meant running 11:25). My watch told me I had hit 25.9 miles, but mile marker 26 was nowhere to be seen. I had just started thinking that I had somehow missed it when another uphill section started (so cruel) that ended with a curve. I thought, "Surely around that curve I will be able to see the finish line." No. There was another curve and another curve after that and there were people yelling to me that I had "less than half a mile left." Finally, when my watch was at 26.25, I came into the final stretch; the finish line was in sight! By the time I crossed the finish line, my watch read 26.48 miles. Brian and Rob were waiting for me at the finish line. Rob finished almost exactly 20 minutes before me. My official time was 05:32:41, but according to my Garmin only 05:02:59 of that was "moving time." That means I wasted nearly 30 minutes at water stops and porta-potties.

My body has held up okay. I had no serious injuries, but I was pretty pathetic on Sunday. I wobbled around Bellingham and Mt. Baker with Rob and Brian as best I could, but I would really like to go back there when I am good for something and can actually explore the town. My biggest problem was actually my hip flexors...they hurt so much that it was hard for me to sleep on Saturday night. Everything started to really feel better yesterday as Rob and I traveled back to Houston together and today I feel almost normal again.

I came in 82nd out of 105 in my age/gender group. But at the end of the day, I ran a marathon so I am quite proud. The whole point of this blog was to write about my journey to my first marathon, and now it's over. (26.2) milestone reached. So, the question is, "what next?"

Welllll...since I have a snazzy new road bike, I thought I'd give a Sprint Triathlon a go. I signed up for this one on September 1 here in Houston. It's a 500 m swim, 20 k bike and 5 k run. I don't think I really need to train that rigorously for it because it's so short, but it will give me something to work towards that won't totally wreak havoc on my poor joints. Maybe I'll try marathoning again next year with a time goal instead of a "I just want to finish" goal. Who knows?

If you're interested in looking at other (highly flattering) photos of the race, you can see them here. As always, thanks for reading!