Two Updates in One!

It's like a BOGO sale...only not.  Haha.

Summer was supposed to be great for training since I have extra time in the mornings and evenings. Apparently, Summeritis is contagious.  Those early morning alarms are easier to dismiss and going to the pool is more about hanging out and socializing than it is getting laps in. I completely forgot to update last week so I am way behind but I tracked it nonetheless.

Week 18 looked like this:
 (Another rainy week complete with flood closures and a sick baby to boot)
M - Work from home with sick baby - rest
T - Work from home again with healthy babies, daycare closed due to flooding.  Big kids babysat and I managed a 7 mile run at lunchtime.  They say running in the humid heat builds endurance so...yea I've got that going for me. :/
W - I have no idea what happened but I know no workouts made it to the log.
Th - ditto Wednesday.
F - Was feeling pretty low about how unaccomplished the week was until hubby (who got a new road bike) asked if he could ride with me. Yay!!  Our first Friday afternoon ride date!! 20 miles in and excited that this could be our new thing. :)
S - a blur.
S - An early start and a Father's Day gift for my dad...a double date ride!  34 miles and a stop for burgers on the way back.  Sweet!!

Not an active training week but 60+ miles is nothing to frown upon!

Week 19

M - getting the hang of resting on Mondays.  Sorta.
T - Sunset swim with hubby.  Coached him some and got 1700 in.
W - 5.2 run at lunch...the hardest time of day during a Houston Summer too.  (building endurance, right?)  :p
Th - Managed to get up early to meet Rox (it's been so long!)...2000Y swim (the shorter pool is much warmer and tolerable for this wimp)
F - Date ride!!  24 miles!
S - I could only muster a little over 4 miles...I felt beat and still had a weekend of swim meet heat exhaustion coming.
S - The intention to early swim or hit the Hot Yoga class at the gym was just that.  Intention.  By evening, my energy had returned but going outside for a trainer ride or run seemed painful so I somehow convinced hubby to do day 1 of P90X3 Synergistics with me.  "It's just 30 minutes!"  I had the pleasure of peeling the plastic off the package...it's been sitting in the console drawer for...I dunno.  I lost track.  I am not sure if we'll venture to do the whole 90 day program but I am certainly curious as to what the workouts look like.  Synergistics was fun and hard and covered some things that I am familiar with (yoga poses - chair squats, flying warrior, crescent lunges) and also some things that I despise that I really need for strength (varied push ups/pull ups).

Overall,  I got 5700Y of swimming, almost 10 miles of running and 24 miles on the bike and a strength workout too.

I am juggling as usual and hoping to get a few races in over the summer to prep me for 70.3! Officially training starts next week so...stay tuned to see my progress!  Fingers crossed that I can fight the urge to SLEEP and lounge around like the kids.

Hope everyone is enjoying the summer!  Happy Monday!

Valerie

Week 17

Again this week I tried to follow the training plan I will be using soon as a preemptive measure. My first thought is that it seems light to start which means good news, I've created a strong base for my starting point. Bad news, how incrementally challenging this plan gets may blindside me if I don't read ahead. Yikes. Secondly, I have decided that Monday rest days don't work for me. Just as before, it feels great Monday morning but by late afternoon, I feel like the week is already busted. I know, that's ridiculous thinking but such is my brain sometimes. 

For illustration, here is what the plan calls for:

This is how I altered it to fit my schedule/brain demands. ;)

M - Fine, I'll rest but I won't be thrilled about it. :/

T - 1800M and 4.5 mile run (because I felt behind). I was planning on running at least 6 but it got really dark out. 

W - Spin early morning & Hot Yoga at lunch (I love this class). Doubled up in case traveling hubby's schedule would creep up on me and I'd fall short. 

Th - morning & evening workouts were out w hubby gone & swim meet late  so the plan was to run at lunch. Had to run errands at lunch...thought run was scrapped. Late notice of canceled swim meet opened evening back up for run! 5.5 miles

F - morning plan to meet up w Rox for swim & run didn't work out so I knew I'd have to squeeze a lot into my afternoon. Went on a fantastic 23ish mile ride and was hoping for a swim AND run but project at work tied me up a little longer than expected. Settled for a half hour in the pool for 1100M (because I wasted another half hour searching for my goggles that my kids "borrowed". And subsequently lost. Btw, swimming in junior goggles is quite painful. My eye sockets are still sore. :/ 

Saturday - hubby is gone and the swim meet was rescheduled early. Plus, baby was up at 3 with a fever so I was guessing this would just be a rest day and at best, id get on the trainer during naps or late night. I lucked out that both babies went down for a hard nap and my son was willing to keep watch. 5 mile run!!

Sunday - I have surpassed the week's goals thus far by a 3 mile ride, 20 mins on the bike, .7 running mile, 500 swimming meters and a Hot Yoga class.  I think I'm good. :)

Week 16 recap

Week 16 was an odd one.  I loosely followed a training plan that has Mondays as rest days. Obviously, I started the week doing nothing.  This did not fare well with me.  I felt by Monday night that I was already behind in the week.  I am glad this was not an "official" start to training because I would have already failed miserably.  However, knowing my feelings about Monday, I know that I should alter the plan to better suit me.

There was a whole lot of stuff that happened and we are still in a place of uncertainty (mine, anyway) with regard to race registration, so the big "reveal" will come in a couple of weeks.  We want to be SURE that the route we are attempting to navigate is feasible before I start posting it all over the internets.

So the week's workouts ended like this:

Monday - rest day
Tuesday - 30/30 bike/run brick at lunch.  Two things:  1- mute texts & calls while running post drama filled morning. 2- Texas Summer IS HERE!  Riding my bike on the trainer in the backyard & running at lunchtime felt like I was doing so inside an oven.
Wednesday - Hot Yoga at lunchtime plus a quick 2 miles after work because I was feeling like that Rest Day on Monday was shorting me for some reason.
Thursday - School is officially out and with not having to get up early, well...I didn't.  By the time I did, I only had 30 minutes at the gym...so I swam 1000M and darted off.  On the positive, I swam in the outdoor pool...it felt like a mini vacation. :)
Friday - So not only is school out, the daycare was closed today too.  Hubby and I were going to either split the day to watch kids or...let the older kids babysit? Um.  All day?  No.  I decided to get my run in before work, shooting for a long run...maybe 8?  But then, a text that implied my presence was necessary for the other parent to leave the home base for work came through.  A quick sprint to finish at only 4.4 miles.  Sigh.  Half day of work and honestly, the rest is a blur.  I think there was some physical labor later in the day but I can't remember right now.
Saturday - BIKE RIDE OUTDOORS!! YAY!!!  Can you tell it's my favorite? I was really excited about a 'ladies' ride that was organized for Saturday morning weeks ago...one that I didn't think I would make because I was supposed to be in Austin for work for the week.  Lo and behold, things change and I did make it and it was fantastic.  28 miles, thanks to my friend's devices not crapping out mid way like mine, which by the way, I am so done with my Garmin 305.  I gave it yet another chance and it died mid ride.  In addition, I somehow got the arm of my cadence sensor moved while riding and at roughly 23 mph (Garmin was alive then), it clipped a spoke and went flying.  The sound it made beforehand however, scared the begeezus out of me thinking I had burst both of my tires. Luckily, that was not the case but it was definitely was cause for a pause.  

Boo hoo, wahoo. :/

While waiting for the group to reassemble (some were leaving, some adding on) I decided to Periscope the dam where water was being released post flood.  The funniest thing happend...a group of folks that seem to be part of some photography class asked if they could take my pictures.  As soon as I said yes, a dozen cameras went up and started clicking away.  It was a little weird and everyone that rode past probably wondered who the heck I was.  Haha.

My very own paparazzi.  Lol.  (screenshot from periscope)

My dad joined in towards the second half of the ride and added the power oomph to the workout. Calling him coach Joe would be appropriate as he had us do hill sprints at the park and ride ramp. Ouchy.

Heading back down the ramp to do it again.

That's a racing stripe on his jersey...hard to catch up to him.

 Sunday - I did a little swimming during "adult swim" at the pool.  And when I say a little, I mean almost not at all.  Of the 15 minute window, I spent a good 8 trying to explain to a 3 year old why she had to get out of the pool.  This obviously was not working out well so I let dad handle it and I literally, jumped in the pool and started swimming laps.  A measly 250M as I got caught up with a tri friend in the other lane and got to chatting.  Whoops.  I did learn that swimming in a salt water pool is much more enjoyable that chlorinated. I'll have to revisit that.
Later, while hubby was out riding with my dad (more on that later!), I decided to also get a run in to make up for the one cut short earlier in the week when he returned.  I was shooting for the 8 again but I lost light and it was getting late so I cut it to 6.  Too bad too because I felt like I could go forever. Oh well.  C'est la vie.

This was somewhat of a recovery week and because it was so confusing anyway, I didn't fret with how many hours or workouts I did.  I think I ended up with a decent week nonetheless.

Bike - 2 (28 miles  out + 30min trainer)
Swim - 1ish (1250M all outside)
Run - 4 (15.4 miles total)
Other - Hot Yoga + mountain bike with kids around the 'hood

Approx 7+ hours

Time to work on how week 17 is going to look.

Hope everyone has a great week!!

Valerie

It's a mixed bag.

So, this post was supposed to be the pivotal earth shattering (not really) decision announcing one about whether I'd be registering for a big race or not AND which one if so. Right?

Well, hubby threw an amazing (but utterly confusing) curve ball last night. So much so, that I'm still wrapping my head around it and I'll have to postpone the announcement for the BIGGER announcement?! Uh. Yea. 

So hang tight y'all. I'm so sure you've been on pins and needles. Lol. (At least I entertain myself!) 

In the mean time, keep on moving and talk at ya soon! 

Valerie

Holiday-Flood-Teen-Birthday Week Round Up

To say this was a soggy week is an understatement.  Much of our beloved State of Texas was under water from unprecedented rainfall that began over the Memorial Day holiday weekend and into the next weekend.   In addition, our baby turned teen and her request for celebration was an overnight slumber party at the beach.   Flooding and beach weekend don't really go together so I waited literally, until the last minute to throw it all together.

Here's how the workouts faired considering all of that (oh and hubby traveled for half the week too)!


Monday - Memorial Day holiday...double up with a 1650M swim & 5k run w Rox (pre-rain)

Tuesday - is there such a thing as a negative workout? If so, today qualified as just that. Schools and the office was closed due to severe flooding in the city. I decided to be a complete & utter couch potato binging on hours of House of Cards with the hubby with intermittent child play. There was a moment when we considered "doing" something. I suggested a bike ride to get the babies to the park in the afternoon when things seemed to be drying out. Hubby took the baby outside to kick the ball and came back inside decidedly that he'd rather binge some more rather than bike ride (muggy and mosquitos were out like crazy!).  Later, I felt guilty and set up my bike on the trainer. However, after a few loads of laundry & building an enormous fort, I was good with letting the day pass without a workout. 

Wednesday- back to routine...1800m am swim (cut short when the flood alerts starting screaming out from my phone on the side of the pool!) + 3.5run before baby pickup (had to make up for Tuesday)

Thurs - hubby still out / hot yoga lunch

Fri - Half day but LOTS of Bday prep, squeezed in 2100M in the outdoor pool...the sun was OUT!! Yay! Had to skip out on run to get to niece's graduation party.

Sat - Galveston Bday weekend with 8 girls...that's enough of a workout! We lucked out with missing the rain...a storm threatened in the evening but never came. :) 

Sun - 5 mile run in am while teens slept, pool all day & 15.5 miles on the bike trainer in pm back home (in laws visited while I was on bike...probably thought I was nuts. I jumped off to walk them to their car towards the end & MIL said while looking at my legs "at least you're getting muscles" ha! At least I've got that. I'll take it! :)

Bike-1:15

Run - 11.7m

Swim - 5550M

Hot Yoga

Total time= ~ 8 hours 

Not too shabby all things considered.  Next week, decision time!!  Tune in to see if I pulled the trigger on turning this base building workout thing into something more official.

Have a great week all!

Valerie