Six weeks and six days to the big day. I feel like my training is coming along nicely, but the next four weeks will be the hardest yet. I'm somewhat banged up, but not necessarily any more than I'd expect to be at this point. At one point my right shoulder, hip, knee, and foot were all messed up. That was pretty awesome. Now I'm about down to two of those bothering me at a time - that is much better than four! I'm in PT twice a week and have been a while now for my right shoulder/neck/scapula area. Its messed up from sitting at a desk all day long but it gives me trouble on the bike - big time. It feels like I have a small child riding around with me stabbing me in the back and twisting the knife around while they are at it. Its lovely. I think we are finally making a little progress there though, so that is good.
I did my first century ride in 18 months yesterday and it went fairly well. I still felt good at mile 85 when the entirety of highway 360 laid between me and my car. Heading south. Into the wind. I survived the ride though and it was probably the second hardest century terrain-wise I've done. Today my legs feel good so I'm taking that as a good sign. There is an organized ride here in two weeks that I'll be doing for my next century and I will have one more planned after that. My Monday/Wednesday PAC spin workouts have been good too. Mondays are more of a tempo workout and Wednesdays are high heart rate, I'm-going-to-die workouts. We showed up one Wednesday recently and Shawn had written "I want to see your eyeballs bleed" next to our main set on the board. More recently he drew a little man on the board with his legs missing because they fell off. So, you can get the idea of how fun those workouts are.
I did an open water swim "race" this morning at Lake Travis. Unorganized and unsupported is an understatement, and I have no idea how far I actually swam, but I know I at least got a good workout in with some pretty rough conditions. I managed to miss part of the course but do not feel the least bit responsible for that. No maps were available and from our starting place, or any where on land for that matter, you could never see the whole course. From the start you couldn't even see one buoy. We swam to the left around a point and to the end of a cove-ish area. Apparently there was a very small cove on our right on the way in that we were supposed to swim in and out of too - I never even saw it and certainly was not directed to that area. Ooooh well. Lance Armstrong was there too which was kind of neat. He and another local pro were the first out of the water. I know he was quite the swimmer 20 years ago, but it was still pretty impressive for him to pop out 2.4 miles (or however far it was) that fast at this point. I don't necessarily agree with his personal life choices, but am interested to see where/if he goes with triathlon/Ironman stuff. Its exciting to watch.
The fourth, and probably the most important part of my race, is my fundraising for RADD. I've raised close to $1000 so far and hope to raise $2500 before the race. That pales in comparison to the $15,000 I raised in 2009, but I am okay with that. I always worry about donor fatigue and know so many people have been sooooo good to me so I do not want to be too pushy with it. Some of Kristi's family is going to come out and watch - I had instant butterflies in my stomach when I found that out. It made the race real in a matter of seconds. The Beaumont MADD group also plans to come over to watch and maybe volunteer. Its amazing to have all the support I do, and it helps to remind me that once again this race is something better than me.
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| Getting a little loopy at 9:45pm/mile 17 of a Thu night long run |
My long runs are building back up from my post-marathon rest. They aren't nearly as fast as my training runs were for the marathon as many of those had some goal pace miles in them, but that's okay. I'm still keeping a pretty regular schedule with Tuesday morning track workouts and Thursday morning tempo runs - they are keeping me honest. I have managed to avoid an ice bath so far, but have soaked in the 68 degree water at Barton Springs a few times now and assume I'll keep that up for many weekends to come. I ran 18 miles Thursday night so I could do an open water swim this morning. Thursday night runs are definitely a challenge. We had fun and its always neat to have a change of pace by doing something completely different (ie long run starting at 6:30 on a work night), but man did my legs hurt. They hurt worse than they had in a long long time. I figured I was due a bad run though because I hadn't had one that painful in probably well over a year. The good thing was Friday I didn't feel that bad, so I know I had just hurt from fatigue, and the fact it had only been 5 days (without rest) since my last long run.
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| "Icing" in Barton Springs |
I did an open water swim "race" this morning at Lake Travis. Unorganized and unsupported is an understatement, and I have no idea how far I actually swam, but I know I at least got a good workout in with some pretty rough conditions. I managed to miss part of the course but do not feel the least bit responsible for that. No maps were available and from our starting place, or any where on land for that matter, you could never see the whole course. From the start you couldn't even see one buoy. We swam to the left around a point and to the end of a cove-ish area. Apparently there was a very small cove on our right on the way in that we were supposed to swim in and out of too - I never even saw it and certainly was not directed to that area. Ooooh well. Lance Armstrong was there too which was kind of neat. He and another local pro were the first out of the water. I know he was quite the swimmer 20 years ago, but it was still pretty impressive for him to pop out 2.4 miles (or however far it was) that fast at this point. I don't necessarily agree with his personal life choices, but am interested to see where/if he goes with triathlon/Ironman stuff. Its exciting to watch.
The fourth, and probably the most important part of my race, is my fundraising for RADD. I've raised close to $1000 so far and hope to raise $2500 before the race. That pales in comparison to the $15,000 I raised in 2009, but I am okay with that. I always worry about donor fatigue and know so many people have been sooooo good to me so I do not want to be too pushy with it. Some of Kristi's family is going to come out and watch - I had instant butterflies in my stomach when I found that out. It made the race real in a matter of seconds. The Beaumont MADD group also plans to come over to watch and maybe volunteer. Its amazing to have all the support I do, and it helps to remind me that once again this race is something better than me.
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