Life Happens and You Move On

Life can get crazy, sometimes at the most in-opportune moments, but you have to embrace it, prioritize and move on.  Last week was one of those weeks, it actually started off pretty fabulous with Mike's birthday and going to the Hulmeville Inn for an awesome selection of craft beers including taps of Firestone Walker Velvet Merlin

You can never be too metal to rock the Bieb shirt

All that was the precursor for his surgery (blamed on a chicken bone):

Humor goes a long way :)

Then came the massive amounts of stress due to everything going on that week - work crisis, best friend's wedding and HIM training (low man on the totem pole).  I got in a whopping 3 hours of actual physical activity.  Thankfully, it was a recovery week although I am thinking the stress may have made my heart rate a match to a brick workout in Zone 4....

Although I missed my top guy at the wedding while he was recouping (sorry baby), I had a fabulous time at the wedding with the girls and watched a very beautiful bride and her beau of 20 years finally tie the knot (and yes, my matron of honor toast addressed the infinitely long time of being boyfriend/girlfriend):


Moving on....this week and next week will be my biggest training weeks in prep for Mooseman!  I can't believe it is around the corner but I need to "compartmentalize" (a concept stolen from Beth) and hold my head and get 'er done.  I cleaned my office from the mayhem of work recently, only to resume full force on two more projects but with enough breather space to be a good wife/nurse, cook lots of energizing meals and get in my training.

Monday consisted of the normal "rest day" which was driving to a presentation for a project I live, slept and breathed for about a year.....and getting my food list down for the week.

Tuesday I kicked it off with work in the early morning and went swimming at lunch in a 3000 meter swim which was a lot of fun!  (Note:  I never used to associate swim and fun)

Swim Workout (Tuesday):
w/u - 300 swim, 200 k, 100 swim, 200 kick
Main set:
4x250 (100 mod/50 fast/100mod)
4x150 (50 m/50 f/50 m)
4x100 (25 m/50 f/25 m)
c/d - 200 swim

That evening it was trainer and catching up on a couple episodes of Smash and New Girl
2 hours with 2x30 min tempo (that was mind numbing on a trainer)

Wednesday morning was another early work day followed by 10am 2600m swim.  Lucky for me I bought some new goggle - Blue Seventy Nero Race Goggles... (bit of motivation)

Swim Workout (Wednesday):
w/u 200sw, 4x50 moderate/fast, 4x5 build
Main Set:
4x200 (race pace +:15)
4x100 (race pace +:15) swimming each 100 2-5 sec faster than race pace
c/d - 600 (100 sw/ 100 kick) + 100 swim

After work I still needed to do a hill repeat run for 5 miles and still had to be ready to make dinner for parents and Mike before my mom/dad/sis all go to New Orleans to see my brother at his new farm for 10 days (FOMO) and to meet MissFancyPants the lamb, in person (yes, my brother named a lamb after me read their post here on HighTail Farms).

Meet Fancy (aka Missfancypants the lamb!!)

I digress, so what do you do when you don't have hills but have an overpass around the corner?
1 mile at 9:30
1 mile at 8:58
2 miles of overpass (8x) at 8:40
1 mile (1/2 mile to CVS to pick up mother's day card and 1/2 mile to run home with cards) at 9:40

And now for Thursday -report for work, 2 hour brick and TRX!  Friday should be mellow with just a bike and swim, BUT the real test, the "am I prepared for Mooseman?" will be the 73 mile ride on Saturday that includes climbing in addition to an 8 mile "intense" climb.  But I will be with Yasi and friends sharing the grunting and bitching...Sunday, the "can I still take more" workout of  13 mile run and 3000 m swim.....

With that I bid you good morning and have a wonderful rest of the week filled with oatmeal and puppy dogs :)

All Work and No Play?

All work and no play makes Heather a dull girl.

All work and no play makes Heather a dull girl.

That's kind of how I have been feeling with work lately and questioning how I was going to juggle everything in my life. BUT...planning, lists and living on your Outlook calender...one can achieve the goal of doing it all...kind of...


I guess I should back up, I thankfully had a "recovery" week right after Atlantic City, that was perfect timing with the craziness of work and running around putting finishing touches on Christine's bridal shower that Erica and I were hosting with her mom, which went off without a hitch.

And was filled with lots of wine goodness....

Then there was Easter Sunday where I, wait for it....took a day off from training (oh yes!) to chill out and spend time with Mike and family....

And then in the spirit of celebrating the end of lent (i.e. foregoing shopping for 40 days) and kicking off yet another high mileage week,  I did this.....

Packages compliments of Nordstroms, Urban Outfitters and Lush

followed by a little internet shopping at Trisports.com which will be shared in a triathlon fashion post when the Wells-fargo wagon hits 30 Hobbs Rd.  After this, I buckled down for my next two weeks of hell report writing of an 8 country report...and lots and lots of training...

My cat Ozzy that sleeps on my arm while I type...weird.

My shopping expedition left me in a bit of a high, so I was super productive with structuring work and training, plenty of sleep and some good meals.  I was able to fit in lots of outside riding and running and pool fun and top it off with a great training weekend that consisted of a 50 mile (2,100 ft) Mooseman-prep ride of hilly goodness with Yasi which was nothing short of fun.

 When I thought my legs could not even think about the run that would happen later on in the day and all I wanted to do was snuggle with the puppy (Mike was at a gig), I bucked up went for a run and after 1 mile of sludge, the legs showed up and it was a great end of my play time till I had to go figure out a quick meal and get back to work for the rest of the night before I embarked on Sunday's long workout of a long run and swim.

Sunday Funday did not go as planned when I fell in a blaze of glory (the final stretch of the run) running downhill at my favorite trails.  My grandmom said I would never be a leg model....

Luckily my best friend's wedding will have us wearing short dresses so I can show off my battle scars hot legs...


I came right home after the run since I didn't feel it was appropriate rolling in the gym with my bloody legs and elbows and taking a dip in the pool, SO instead I went home where my house was overrun by the metal gods of Beyond Dishonor and my adopted children, Sky Came Burning.  I promptly poured myself a beer and got eggs made for me, before heading out on that beautiful Sunday to watch the boys play in Philly!

And that my friends is how to make it all happen...lots of planning, lots of lists....
All work and all play makes Heather a fun girl....if only Jack read this post...

9 years later, finally a PR....

9 years ago in 2003 (in case you had trouble with math), I was 27 years old and decided to do my first half-marathon after taking a fairly long sabbatical to running from high school track...(I am not counting playing field hockey in college).  I ran a 2:02:21 at the Ceaser Rodney Half Marathon in Delaware.  I ran one more that year and did a 2:03:05 at the formerly called Philadelphia Distance Run and then I took yet another sabbatical of running any longer than a 5k and went back to kick-boxing and weights and other activities.

When I took up triathlons in 2008, I became addicted to the bike and improving in the swim.  Let's face it, I was hit with one issue after another with my legs and feet that I was faced with the feeling that I was doomed to be a 10min/mile runner in anything over 10 miles.  I did a couple half-marathons and 10 mile Broad Street runs and it was constant....

2009 Philadelphia Half-marathon - 2:12:42
2011 NOLA Half-marathon - 2:11:17

I dropped out of a 1/2 in 2010 but my debut in 1/2 Ironman that year proved another cursed 10 minute miler...it was getting to the point where I only signed up for these things in the hopes of not doing it, because I was tired of not doing anything any better than seeing the 10:xx flash before  me.  This year, you heard (or read) me talk about how I changed my foot strike and have been working on my gait.  This change has led me to (knock on wood) NO calf cramps which was the demise of any of my half-marathons around mile 9 or 10 during the running races or during a half-ironman.

My last report was the DC 1/2 marathon which I had a small PR (since 2009) and did a 2:10 (yes, another 10min/mile - however the Garmin SAID 9:50).  I had a couple small issues, but I also had a "not-so secret goal" for Atlantic City.  This was an area where I not only spent most of my childhood days at the Jersey Shore walking the boardwalk, but also a recent family shore house (sister-in-law).  I am used to running the course the opposite direction at least 3-4 times a year during the summer while training on vacation.  Oh yeah, and it is flat....

My only negative thought on PR'ing was that A, I was 2 weeks after the last half and I never went on a recovery week, I was still in my Build phase for the 1/2 ironman plan which meant getting in about 15 hours before Sunday.  However, I have been feeling extremely healthy and recovering remarkably well after hard workouts. 

It helps when you have plenty of good food...

good beer and friends....

and making beer...(this is another post for another time)

Our cherry bourbon stout we are kegging....

The day before was a 3.5 hr trainer ride while "stalking" my favorite peeps in Oceanside which watching some flicks...

We left later that night to pick up the packs and stay over at my ever so generous sister-in-law's awesome home so we could sleep in....Best part of race day morning?  The fact that we could use casino bathrooms instead of port-a-potties...not so good for the casino goers with 1000 runners vying for the toilets and well you know how it rolls race morning...

Our biggest supporter, my sister!

Myself, Christine and Nicole with the beach in the back...

The race started and looked at my Garmin 8:47, we know what happens when I start out like this so I kept a 9:20 -9:30 pace depending on water stops.  As I waited for something bad to happen, I kept going, my heart rate was in check, I felt good, it was nice seeing the ocean and reminiscing in various areas.  At mile 8 I saw my Garmin say 1:33...which even if I did 10 min miles for the last 5 miles I would PR.  What this meant to me was if I got a cramp I can still pull this off....but I wanted to keep going and kept the same pace, no cramps, no elevated heart rate, nope just steady....and then I saw my mom on the side lines and my sister and dad and reeled it in.

Clock time 2:01:35 (9:22 min/mile)

I think this sums up the race!

FINALLY A PR from 9 years ago...at this point I feel better than I have in a while, and completely excited about the next 9 weeks of training for Mooseman!

Life this Past Week

I have a little less than 10 weeks to Mooseman 70.3 and have been extremely excited about how I have been doing in my training.  Last week after the DC 1/2 marathon I got in 17.2 hours of training in, my second week of the "Build Phase."  It's amazing the amount of things you can get done when you put your mind to it.  I had a crazy week of work, planning bridal showers/bachelorette parties, planning beer meeting, some socializing, but managed to fit it all in and attempt to be in bed by 11 most nights.

I am using an integration of Matt Fitzgerald's Training Plan guide (HIM Level 8), in combination with two good friends that give me plenty of swim consulting, bike coaching, and a half-marathon plan that was getting me in check for DC and Atlantic City this weekend.  I love planning and lists so I have been having fun tweaking the schedule.

Swimming
This is one area I have been playing with recently.  We all know from my race reports that I am not a good swimmer and end up in the back of the pack all the time.  I used to say "I just learned" but after 5 years it's time to hang that hat up and get down to business.  I decided I needed to spend more quality time in the pool.  I am using the Swim workouts in a binder and supplemented with some swims from there in lieu of the boring Training Plan guide swims...Last year, I swam about 2400-2500m per swim (3xweek) compared to this year 2800-3200 (3-4xweek) and FINALLY noticed the difference this past week when I did a time trial and saw a 10 second difference in my 100s from 6 months ago!  To me that is significant and I am assuming it is from more swimming and TRX and strength training.  Still have lots of work to do, but when I see a change it means something is working.

Biking
I have been biking 4 times a week.  I feel like there is a difference but of course, you never know until the race, so all I keep thinking is I can't wait to do Red Bank Olympic in May to see where I am at.  I plan on getting myself to Frenchtown, NJ in a couple weeks for some long hill rides and there is a 75 mile hill ride in Bucks County earlier in May to get me "remotely" prepared for this....

Having friends that want to ride is good too, okay 1 friend, Yasi, that is riding with me...

Running
I feel like it's improving, I have felt better and stronger on my runs, especially after doing DC last week, I got in another 20+ miles last week and am tapering a little on the running so I can do Atlantic City 1/2 marathon this week.

So here is just a snapshot of my life this past week using my new obsession of instagram - most of this is food...

Best Almond butter with some green tea

Perfect Power breakfast - poached eggs, garlic, bok choy and mushrooms with tamari

Tilapia over peppers, mushrooms and chard

Italian Family Dinner - Why I love being Italian

family dinner also equals lemoncello and strawberries

me and the pup cuddling

Yasi and I's trainer party -perfect set up

I stole this from Yasi - such a great capture of Sunday Yoga

America F$%k Yeah - Washington DC RnR Race Report

Yeah!  That's kind of what I was humming to myself as I ran past the Washington Monument....
For those who are entirely confused, this is a picture of Team America and America F$%kYeah is a song...

Anyway, let's rewind, I went into this race with a couple goals:

1. Use this run as a training run - considering I have another 1/2 marathon in 2 weeks (that's not a typo) and Mooseman 70.3 in June.  I did not want to hurt myself since you all know my fabulous running history with injuries.
2. Have fun!

Woo hoo!  I accomplished that goals and a minor PR (according to the Garmin which said I ran 3.48 miles...).  But otherwise it was the same time as other races.  And I should preface that the PR is in the 30-40 year old decade of my life, I still haven't been able to get what I had in my 20's....

Before leaving, Mike had a Project Runway moment and helped me make some snazzy arm warmers from my St. Patty Day socks I had...

 
Nicole and I got in DC on Friday night to drop off my sister at my aunts house so they can join in the craziness of the finish line together the next day and we went to the expo to pick up the race pack.

I wasn't impressed like I was for NOLA RnR, I think they should have blew it up a little since it was St. Patty Day weekend.  We ate a quick healthy dinner and relaxed...er, drank some wine before bed.

 We took the metro and made some friends...

Ironically, the girl on the right was named Heather - they dug the HGRC shirts

Caroline and Allison were awesome in their tutus!

 In our usual manner, we are running late, missed the corral and stood in line for the port-a-potties and ended up in one of the last corrals. I think this happens every race, part of which is we never give a shit because it isn't like I am winning a half-marathon or anything.

Rocking the HGRC - Metal Chicks Tri Harder Shirts!!

 I felt really good, I kept the heart rate in check trying to stay roughly between Z2-3 and not try to blow up since this had to be a training run no matter how excited I was getting.

My splits looked good up, and I tried to keep within hte 9:30-9:50 range, I sped up at mile 6, I think I had some good song selections (my sister helped with that...it was probably a showtune or it could have been Iron Maiden, "Run to the Hills" very random on the ipod) or maybe it was the surge of  taking a Gu with 2x caffeine, not quite sure the rationale there.  Problem with the race was the lack of water/gatorade stations.  I didn't realize it would be a every other mile thing and absent-mindedly took a gu at mile 5 and didn't get water till mile 7....
Mile 7 I did a mid run walk during the running station did a quick stretch as I was feeling tight after the 3 mile hill extravaganza.  Why didn't I realize DC had hills....they were lingering long hills - like mile 4-7...and then these random under-passes (yes under-passes).  At mile 10, I started having the toe claw issue...my toes cramped into a little claw...it felt really awesome...that took a little time to flatten them out and run, so that happened at mile 10, 11 and 12.5.  I think it made me slow down substantially, because I didn't know if speed would make it happen again. 

Even with all that complaining, I feel like I had a really good day!  The actual clock gave me my usual 10 min miles for 13.1 while my garmin showed a 9:50 pace but I probably let it go for a little after I crossed the finish line.

To top it off we had our cheerleaders at the finish line!  

I got to meet up with a friend I met in the pain cave (i.e. Vineman run portion) who just moved to DC and celebrate finishing with beers and fro-yo!

Sunday, we tooled around the city in achy legs and saw the typical touristy thing and was able to get over to Brassiere Beck (see my blog post for Brewtal Beer here on the restaurant and beers).  Mike and I went there before and they have a fantastic beer list.  We had brunch and celebrated my sister's bday with beer and blackberry crisp. 

We then hit the Newseum which is awesome, a must see in DC, the exhibit for 9/11 was a great memorial.  
All in all a pretty fantastic weekend.  I healed pretty good so far this week starting off with a great 3000m swim, an outside bike today and some plyo strength training...I have a pretty high volume training week on the books for this week and next including the Atlantic City 1/2 marathon!!

 I am not sure what will happen with AC, not sure if the shoes are the issue or if the toe thing was a fluke, but I kind of think I am on a not so secretive PR mission.  It is on a course that I run every summer while training and in a city that makes me smile and think of my Grandmom Nero and my childhood memories in Atlantic City.  Oh yeah, AND I got a free tutu for entering....

Not quite sure if that was food or a scanner problem on my nose....

 

Crossing Fingers and Toes

I am sure you are all tired of the Northeastern peeps blogging about the great weather we had this winter, in fact, it didn't feel like winter at all.  Don't get me wrong, I love being snowed in and having many few cocktails, eating comfort food and shoveling snow.  Okay so that is usually Mike shoveling and me on my trainer in the living room.  I normally have to brush off some cobwebs off of at least one of the bikes, but I treated each with equal importance and did about 50% of my riding OUTSIDE.  My premonition was this....

This winter was going to come late, we would have a major snowstorm in March and it would fuck up the weather for the half-marathons scheduled this month.

This weekend I thought that would be true as Yasi and I set out for a 3 hour ride in "feels like" 20 degree weather...about 1 hour 40 minutes in she gets a flat and we are stranded in the middle of farmville.  Our sub-par skills of training flats combined with cold temperatures equated to us getting picked up...

Me as the dumb blonde attempting to help fix a flat....

We still had fun laughing about our skills for 45 minutes....

The weather improved and is now saying 70 and sunny all week - lots of outside activity!  Weather channel says that Washington DC will be 75 on Saturday and a 30% chance of rain.  If that holds true, I will be a happy girl :)  So here's to crossing fingers and toes....

The other hope is that my legs and feet continue on the right path.  The last half-marathon running was last year at Vineman where I had a tendon injury, plantar fascitiis and in major calf pain and hobbling 12.1 miles to a finish (1 mile actually consisted of legitimate running).  That was fun....

I started running consistently in October building slowly-I made a couple of changes to my running...

• Bought Brooks Pure which I have been running in since October (changing shoes once)
• Broke up with my orthodics
• Changed my running style from a heel strike to mid-foot
• Weight training 4 days a week including functional training until HIM training which is now down to 2 days a week (TRX/Plyometrics/free weights).
• Alternate 3 days and 4 days per week of running
• Running SLOW on long runs 

Since then, I have been finishing a long run on a Sat feeling fine with the occasional soreness of running long, and following that with a Sunday field hockey game or a 5 mile track workout, followed by a long bike and have just been the normal exhausted but not unable to walk like in the past.

So here's to crossing the fingers and toes that I have a good, fun race in DC and am able to pull off another 1/2 marathon 2 weeks later in Atlantic City running in a tutu (I signed up when I heard there was a fee tutu...)

Now for outfit planning for DC and celebrating Saint Patty's Day with Nicole and my sister!