New Addition to the Family...

We decided that we needed a new, more efficient family member. Pedro drives to work and with his truck he was needing to refuel about every work day. With the cash for clunkers going on, we figured we could get more for the truck than what we paid for it originally.

We looked at a few cars, even a few that were cheap but came with no radio, air conditioning, power anything, no little storage compartment in the car. Yes, car's without a/c or radio...I didn't know that was possible!

After researching and looking we decided on a new blue Nissan Sentra (much better than the one I had in high school)!

Here she is!



We have only had her for 1 day and Pedro has already washed her!

Week 1 recap.

This was officially my week 1 training toward IM Florida, in Nov. I forget how "easy" it is on week 1, but with my knee bothering me I decided it was best to start at the bottom.

The week started off with a trip to the lake with Kurt, Dena and kids. We spent most of the afternoon there tubing and knee boarding (no wakeboarding for us this time). I decided the tubing is the most fun! I was laughing so hard that my abs started to hurt! It was a lot of fun going off waves and flying in the air! I never let go of the tube, but Pedro flew off after hitting his face on the tube. You might be able to tell by the picture but I was bracing myself with my arm so that I wasn't "flat" on the tube.


Pedro and I about to tube (my new hair, much better in person!)


I also experienced knee boarding for the first time. I was a little worried with my knees, but it was way more fun then expected!


Pedro on the kneeboard..soon he will be trying tricks!


Week 1 of training has gone like this:
Monday 3hr bike ride.
Monday 1hr run with run club. This was my long run time for the week, so instead of doing my run the next day, as scheduled, I had to make this my long one..ooops!

Tuesday 25min easy run
Tuesday weights
Tuesday 45min easy bike
Tuesday 1200m tempo swim

Wednesday 2,200m swim (with swim club)
Wednesday 30min stairmaster (extra workout)
Wednesday 1hr10min tempo bike (with pedro)

Thursday 1hr35min mod bike
Thursday 35min tempo run (2min fast, 1min jog)x8

Tomorrow is "legs off day" so I have a 4,000m swim.
Saturday I have a moderate run with run club.

On Weds, Pedro and I met Linzy to have our usual mexican food. It is only the second time I have seen Linzy during her pregnancy. She is due very soon!



This weekend I have to coach in our last college coaches viewing period tournament. Pedro is back to working nights, which is a lot better for us!

Hard week...

After 10 straight days on the road (ugh!) I am happily back at home. On Weds (I arrived home late on Tues), I decided to start my working out slowly. I went for a 38mile bike ride, which was horrible. My heart rate was very high and I was feeling tired. I decided that I needed to get that out of my system and figured my evening run (with run club) would be much better. It wasn't. I ran 4.2 miles and was very tired. It felt like a LONG run. It didn't help that it was about 90 degrees and I haven't acclimated much to the heat.

The next day I went for another 4mile run. Again, figuring I had got all of my bad workouts in already. Wrong again. I wore my heart rate monitor this time and my hr was around 180 the whole run. It was hot, but I was struggling. Not good. My knee didn't hurt, so I will take whatever positive there was.

Friday I just swam. Swimming went well. I figure next week I will get back into full training mode. I also looked up my "altitude" and you can begin to lose red blood cells after 10 days, and I definitely feel like I have!

Saturday I ran with run club nearly 6 miles, in cooler early morning temps. I ran an 8:55 pace and didn't feel like I was going to die, though if I wore my hr monitor I'm sure it would say different. Then came WORK.

I had basketball practice right after run club. That wasn't work compared to the rest of the day.

Pedro and his stubborn ways decided he was going to pull our tree out front, that was dead. I tried to help, but was then informed I was no help. So, I sat and watched him try to pull the tree out for about 2hrs. He didn't want to ask anyone else for help either. Finally, my neighbor came out and got my other neighbor to come over and help. We ended up with four guys and one stump of a tree.

One of the neighbors had an electric saw and helped saw out the roots, so we could eventually get the stump out.

Four guys one stump of a tree:


Pedro trying to pull the stump out:


How many guys does it take to get out a stump?? Maybe if they ALL worked!



After all the work we had to get a new tree. We didn't want to spend a lot on a tree. We looked at a few places and finally decided the tree was going to cost at least $70. Until...Pedro found a tree on clearance!!! Yes, a tree on clearance...? It has a one year warranty so it couldn't be too bad?! We bought the tree, which is about 10 feet tall and a baby evergreen for the backyard.

Check out our new additions!





Besides that I got my haircut today...no pictures, you have to see it in person :)

On the road...

The worst part of my job is now. Ten straight days on the road. The annoying part for training is that I am not going to run until my leg is better. I am not sure any of the training I am doing is fine for my knee either. The days may not seem bad to some people. We have played three games a day since arriving in oregon. We spend time going to games, playing and eating.
I can't explain it but you are so tired. Not tired like after a five hour ride..but maybe worse. I guess it would be mentally exhausting. So I want to sleep a lot.
For working out I have done elliptical and stationary bike. But the most amazing thing is I have gone swimming twice already. The problem is that the first pool was just cleaned and was only about two feet at one end. It was also cold..a few others got in and out quickly. The next swim I went to a different gym. This one was disgusting! The water was so gross that I could barely see the lane line. When I got to the wall I had to guess it was approaching because I couldn't see the wall until I was right there. None the less, I swam about two miles in the gross water.
We have tomorrow off then leave for chicago on friday. The time change of two hours should be fun.
I'm hoping my leg is better I am missing running and training.

4th of July weekend!

Without being able to run and without Shamu I had a short week of workouts. Shamu is back and in a clean working condition...we had a nice ride today before I leave for ten days.

This week we went to the boat with Kurt and Dena (will post a picture later). Pedro and I wakeboarded. I got up on my 3rd try (not for long) and on my 4th try and Pedro got up on his 5th try...however, he stayed up for a lot longer than I could. He also kneeboarded, which he thought was great! We can't wait to go again!

Friday night (3rd) we went downtown to a nice steak dinner at Willie G's, it was a nice filet and Pedro, of course, got the porterhouse. After dinner we walked around for awhile and then grabbed a coffee and went down to watch the firework show at coor's field.

Here is Pedro enjoying the fireworks:


Pedro and I waiting for the fireworks to start:


I tried on this hat (looks pretty good!) Pedro thinks I look like I belong at a Polo match or in Cape Cod or something...



On Saturday, Pedro wasn't feeling great and I went out for a four hour ride. Later in the evening we went to Kurt and Dena's house to watch the kids light fireworks and have a bbq. It was Pedro and I, Kurt, Dena and their kids, my parents and Craig, Lisa and their kids. The kids had fun lighting all the fireworks and surprisingly no incidents (like lighting fireworks inside!). It was a cool evening for the fourth.

My dad in his "superman" blanket:


We looked like an old couple in the cold, watching the fireworks:


Pedro, Katie and I..


Pedro lighting a "roman candle"


Tomorrow I leave for nearly 10 days. The ten days a year that I have to "work". I'm sure the dogs will miss me (not sure about Pedro!).

Sprint Report

This weekend I decided to do a sprint race. Sprint races, at this point, are a more fun tempo workout for the day. Besides you can never have enough open water swim practice, since I won't go open water swimming besides a race.

The race report is as follows:

I have run about 5 times total in the last month. To say I am concerned about leg pain and running, is to say the least. However, I know my knee hurts at about 30 min and I figured I shouldn't be still running a 5k at the 30 min point.

I arrived at the race to find the parking for this race was about a mile from the start. I was happy I wasn't pushing the time, like usually. I arrived at the race and watched the people all in some kind of a panic about what to do, how to do it, etc.

I was in wave 9 so I watched the first few waves start and then went down right before my start. When you look at buoys out in the water it always looks further than it really is, distance wise. The water was cold and I was immediately thankful for my wetsuit, even thinking I might have benefited from my long-sleeve one. I got up in the front for the start of the swim. I have learned that even though I am not the fastest swimmer, I am not a scared swimmer. Contact doesn't bother me and I prefer having some people pass me than be in the back and have to swim around more people.

I started the swim and quickly realized that this was similar to swimming in a mass wave start. It was a wave start, but the waves in front were about 2min ahead and most were slower swimmers. I came up on people very quickly and was trying to swim around people. Eventually, I had to swim "over" quite a few people that were swimming next to another person. Besides the slower people the annoying problem was that it was kind of wavy. The buoys were also orange on both sides of the rectangle and there were a lot of swim caps that were orange. It made sighting kind of annoying. The best idea is one color buoy out and one in this way there is no mistake. I passed a lot of people on the swim and wasn't sure where I was in my age on the swim, but couldn't see many people in front of me.

I started the bike, my favorite part of racing. Sadly, it was only 10 miles which doesn't allow me too much of an advantange. It was rolling hills and again in races it is difficult when you are passing many people and nobody is passing you. You are not sure if you need to push more or if you are going fast. I tried to go as fast as I could. I have no idea what my time was for the bike because my race split is missing from the results.

I changed into run shoes, without socks (trying to make transition faster for a sprint) and ran. At about 1.5 miles I was passed by a girl in my age group. I tried to keep her in my sights to push past her at the end. Sadly, the push was not there. Probably the lack of time running, but it was annoying.

In the end I took first in my age and 5th overall if you take out the relay's (otherwise 9th). It was just another "practice" race day. Now I am just wishing my ITband would stop hurting so I can train.

If it doesn't stop hurting soon I may have to take some time off of running (even the one run a week) and see if it gets better. If not then I will have to do the boulder half just swimming and biking and skip out on the run. Which is killer to me, but a smarter decision than to be injured and not be able to train for my big race in Nov.

Here is a pict of me with my trophy after the race:

Pacing...

Yesterday Pedro and I decided to go run at Barr lake. Barr lake is about 8.8 miles around. It was 90 degrees by the time we headed out to run. This time it wasn't my fault, he wasn't "ready" to go. I had been up since 7am for swim club and a lesson.

We go to Barr lake and pay the entry fee to park and get ready to run. We decided on a direction around the lake and took off. Well, more exactly, Pedro took off. He was running way faster than I run. The first sign we passed said 7.5miles. So I assumed we were running the lake backwards and had 7.5 miles to go. There was very little shade and I was carrying my water bottle filled with my amazing nuun drink (which has prevented headaches and tastes pretty dang good).

30 minutes into the run my stupid knee started to hurt. Too bad, I thought, I am going to run the whole lake. The run was on dirt paths and for a little while thru a small track within the grass. I ran behind Pedro trying to keep up with him!

I knew he would get tired. The question was when?? At about the sign that said 4miles he started to slow a little bit. This was about when we passed a field of sunflowers where a deer was watching us run. Anyway, we got to the sign that said 3.5 and Pedro started walking. I continued on running. I stopped about a mile ahead and couldn't see him anywhere. I waited for a song on my ipod and then ran back to see if he was ok. About a quarter mile back I found him still walking. He was complaining it was HOT! Yes, I knew this. But he always tells me how much he LOVES the heat, when I am telling him how much I HATE the heat! He decides he will run with me again.

We pass mile marker sign that says 2 miles. I tell him great news only 2 miles! Though it looked really much further. Mile marker 1!!!! Keep going I say, only one mile to go! He starts walking again, with the comment that it is HOT and "one mile my ass." True, it wasn't looking like one more mile but who knows what one mile looks like??

I keep running. Mile marker 0!!! Yep, not anywhere near where we needed to be. Crap. I keep running and arrive at our car. I drink some coke and wait. Still no Pedro. I decided to go check on him and bring him a coke (he drank part of my water so he did have something to drink earlier). I find him slowly jogging. We walk back to the car. He informs me again, it wasn't him it was just HOT! Yes, yes I know this. He tells me he had a headache before he left home. I explain I am so excited because I don't have a headache (which almost ALWAYS happens in the heat) and I say the drink stuff is awesome!! He responds with "I SAID, I had a headache before I left home, it isn't the heat!" I had to inform him that I wasn't refering to his headache just excited I didn't have one!

Anyway, the 8 mile run turned out to be 9.1 miles for me, running back to find him. Probably about 8.8 miles if I didn't go back. Not sure why they have the signs out that they have, really doesn't help mentally when you are running and think you are done and realize you are not even close!

I told Pedro he needs to learn pacing. Longer runs (which this was his longest) are not done at the same pace as a 2 mile run. He proceeded to do the same thing today on the bike. He followed me out 7 miles on my wheel. I told him to slow down a bit and not try to ride so fast. We turned around and came back (mostly uphill) and he was forever behind me, again I think it is pacing.

If he gets his endurance and pacing down...he will be great to run/bike with because he is really faster than I am and makes me go A LOT faster!

Unable to walk correctly today because of knee pain. Got a massage and she also discovered the giganitic knot in my outside quad that seems to be putting pressure on my IT band...ugh.