Race Ready!

Holla!

So we have had an interesting trip so far. On Wednesday we were up at 3:30 am and off to the airport by 4:30am. Got there, got checked in, through security, waiting by our gait and my name gets called to return to security.

INSTANT PANIC! So I go back and had to watch on a little screen while they looked through my bag. \i have all of my race stuff in there so I was worried. Alas they found my CO2 cartriges that I thought I had hidden so well. If Greg tells you you can get them through...he lies. SO got that taken care of, go meet up with the group and 5 min later my name gets called again. BLAH! This time I had to go to the agents desk. Turns out the security people don't talk to the agent desk...and they called me about the same thing. Again get back with the group and my name gets called a third time. By now I have had about 3 hours of sleep and I was getting really cranky. They needed my address for some reason, so after that I made it onto the plane and safely to Dallas.

The rest of the trip went pretty good until we got to Mexico and then it was a shit show again....well a little bit anyway. The cab drivers are crazies! We made it to playa del carmen through mant many back roads; if we had to drive ourselves there I don't think we would have made it. So we get to this road and the guy tells us that we are at the ferry terminal and to get out. There was no water anywhere...just stone buidlings and a crap load of people. \you can hire these guys on bikes to carry your luggage to the ferry...they started loading our stuff up and took off towards this mysterious "ferry." We finally found water and a boat and two of us had to go with the luggage and the others went to stand in line. Keep in mind that to learn this there were hundreds of people around who only spoke spanish and just pointed to us to tell us where to go. I was a little afraid of loosing my bike!

Once on the ferry I learned that this is the roughest ferry ever and for the first time in my life got seasick. It was terrible. Thank goodness for Susie's mom Kate for having gravol. I am sure that kept me from heaving all over people! We got to Cozumel...got to the condo and then went for groceries. Again....store closing and trying to read spanish labels to buy food! Blah. We had also been up for almost 20 hours by this point.

Other than the first day it has been pretty easy going. Everybody is super friendly. I even bartered for a necklace! Yeah me.

tomorrow is race day and I am not nervous yet. This will change once I get to the race site.
Now for all of you Ironman newbies following the race it is:

Swin 3.8 km
Bike 180 km
Run 42 km

we have 17 hours to complete it. My number is 59 and you can search at www.ironmanlive.com and I will hopefully update my blog in the next couple of days!


Until then...

Adios

Lots to get ready for!

Hey!

Thanks for the words of encouragement - it helps so much knowing everyone is at home cheering me on!

Almost ready to go. I think everytime I have everything done something else comes up, this Ironman stuff is a lot of work. Now all I need to do is get on the plane!

I am ready to get to the race site so that I feel like I am doing a race. Even with all of the training I don't have the same Ironman buzz. Maybe it is because it is my second one or maybe because it is November and I haven't been biking outside?? I am not too sure, but nothing fixes that more than being at Ironman village!

Next time you hear from me it will be from sunny Mexico!

Feeling the taper blues

Hey!

I was so excited for taper to roll around and my volume of training to decrease. It has and I feel like crap. Gotta love it. I am tired, I am achey and tight, and I can't wait to get this thing done. I was feeling good after swimming last night and that only lasted until I woke up this morning!

I am very happy that I have only one more pool swim left to go. I promised Greg and Darryl I wouldn't skip out this weekend and I think they are going to hold me to it. Soon my swimming will consist of floating in the ocean looking at colorful critters!

This weekend will be a busy one; we will be packing and doing the last minute errands for the trip. Only 10 more days until race day and 6 until we leave! Yay!

Race day plan for number 68

I am currently working on my race day plan for the big day. 18 days to go.

Training wise I am feeling ready and wanting to get this done; now I have to focus on the other parts of the trip!

Darren graciously is letting me borrow his bike box to use! Yay...one thing taken care of. Now I still need to get new tires, top up all of my nutrition, bike tune up, bathing suits, etc, etc, etc.
The list continues to grow daily!

Thats about it for me:)

Happy Remembrance day

35 more days

Hey!

That's right 35 more days until Ironman...thank god! I remember this feeling last year. You are coming to the end of training...about a month left and can't wait to get this race done!

This was my last crazy build weekend. I don't care what anyone says 6 hours on the trainer is a long time. My butt has held up well, some of you will think I am crazy when I tell you that I didn't wear bike or tri shorts for this...just a good old pair of capri's! It was way better than when I wore tri shorts. I found I wasn't as sore the next day. Anyway 6 hour ride and 45 min run makes a very tired me!

Today I did another brick. I had the best intentions of going to Katie's class but I could not drag my very tired body out of bed at 7am. My legs were not very happy either. They felt okay for the first hour, but hour number 2 I was getting pretty tired. I suffered through and then went for a very slow 30 min run.

5 weeks till race
4 weeks till leave
2 weeks till taper

Happy Training!

Bizzzzzie Bee

Hey,

It has been a month since I last visited my dear old blog so I figured I should update and let you folks know what has been going on.

Here are the basics:

I get up
I eat
I go to work - I eat and do moderate exercise most days
I eat
I go home
I eat
I train
I eat
On really awesome days I get to nap but that has only happened a few times
I sometimes train again
I eat
I sleep.

So there you have it - I work, train, eat, sleep with some slivers of normalness in there like meeting a friend for coffee, going out for dinner...but its not very often. No one said training for Ironman was easy!!!

In all honestly I am feeling pretty good and training for Cozumel is going well. I was really hoping for a nice October but it snowed and my ass got stuck to my bike sitting on the trainer. Oh well!
5 hours on the trainer is not very fun as I found out a couple of weeks ago...this weekend it another big one 5-6 on the bike followed by a run on Saturday and Greg doesn't want to disclose Sunday yet...but it will be biking and probably running...maybe even some swimming thrown in there somewhere. At least bike class has started up so that helps to have a group to ride with 2 days per week. I may join Katie's bike group on Sunday morning - I may need the motivation to sit on my bike after Saturday :)

39 more days!

We bought a new car

Hey guys!

Yep thats right we finally did it and it is niiiiice. We now have a roof rack and we will be going back to the dealership to get a bike rack on the top. It is so much fun to drive!

Still training tons. Last week was really tough to get all of the training sessions in between getting stuff ready for the car and I had training all week at work. Not a problem back on track and getting everything in!

Monday I did hill repeats with rexy at the dog park. I don't think she likes them either because by like number 3 she is right behind or beside me and always keeps going straight at the bottom:)

On Tuesday I was over at edworthy doing hill repeats and I was flying back down the hill when a bug flew in my shirt. I thought it was a fly so I wasn' t too worried until it stung me! I have never been stung by a wasp but man the hurts. So there I was biking downhill trying to get a wasp out of my shirt that had just stung my boob. I ended up squishing it and waiting until I got to the bottom to remove it. ouch.

Wednesday I went for a swim and even though the water was freezing I king of enjoyed it. Then again I wasn't doing 25's or 50's so I am always more prone to like swimming when that isn't in the mix.

Thursday was rainy and windy and a little on the cool side so I biked on the trainer. There were some longer tempo intervals in there. I also did some weights...legs...hamstings hurt.

Friday I was lazy and took rexy for a walk and then planted my ass on the couch. Man was I tuckered out.

Saturday was a 3 hour ride...except that I got caught up running errands and didn' t get home until it was too late to bike outside. Onto the trainer for me, it was the longest 3 hours ever. Next week I will be doing a 4-5 hour ride and it will be outside!

Today I have a run and swim and weights on the agenda. I had better get to it.

Happy training and happy recovery!

Oh yeah, there was a weim walk yesterday - 20 weims in the park it was awesome!

Rexy and Duke (her brother) playing, oblivious to everything around themA few of the weims Duke (brother), Rexy, Addison (sister)

Another week done!

Hey guys,

So here's the training scoop:

Tuesday I biked all by my lonesome, but it felt great to be out there. I went out at around 7:00pm and it was just starting to cool off for the day. I am happy to report they are re-paving elbow drive so it was a much smoother ride than normal. This is the first time I made it to the end...which is Fish Creek Park...who knew?

I was also at the YMCA for work that day and squeezed in some easy leg weights with a lot of stretching, followed by rolling out the good ol IT bands. That always hurts like hell.

By Wednesday my IBS battle I had been having since the weekend got the best of me and I barely got off the couch to take Rexy out. I went to bed early, drank copious amounts of peppermint tea and I was feeling pretty good come Thursday morning.

Thursday was a busy one for me. I went hiking with 2 groups throughout the day at work. I told Chad I would walk Rexy for him since he didn't get home until late (3:45 am to be exact) from the ACDC concert up in Edmonton. By the time I got home from that it was 7:30. I took a quick rest...ate some grub and then hopped on the trainer. Thats right first trainer ride of the year for me. It wasn't bad except that I feel like I am incredibly out of shape! Blah! 95 minutes later I was happy to get off of the bike.

Friday I was gearing up to go for my run with Rexy and when I came through the door Chad was home. Weird I know. It turns out he cancelled some of his clients so we could hang out since I never get to see him anymore. I wasn't about to pass that opportunity up! Come to think of it he said we could do what ever I wanted I should have made him come for the run with me!

Saturday I went for my first actual long ride since the end of July! The head wind was just a givener to me all of the way out to Turner Valley. I was so very happy to turn around. I was aiming for 3:30-4:00 hours...but that wind was a little stronger than I thought so I ended up doing 3:20 hours. Good enough for this gal. I re-read my program a few times in search of the brick workout....it wasn't there so you didn't have to tell me twice!

Sunday I went for a longish run, 75 minutes. It is hard to believe that a month and a half ago I was doing intervals during a 90 min run. I felt okay throughout...my body is not very happy with me. I am sure this will go away in the next week or so but I feel like I took 2 months off not a couple of weeks!

Yes Greg I did get my butt into the pool yesterday. I didn't feel half bad until the last 400m set and I could tell my arms/body had had enough.

Today was another run...hills again. This time went much better than last week, I was a little sluggish at the start but I was getting going by the half way point and feeling pretty good.

Congrats to everyone who competed in Ironman Canada yesterday! You all rock! Especially you Darryl ;)