Kathleen's Adventures

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. Getting a little loopy at 9:45pm/mile 17 of a Thu night long run My long runs are building back up from m...

Was a total success! Jon and I left wondering why in the world we don't go there more often. Despite lovely traffic to and from it just really isn't that hard to get to for a weekend. Add that to the fact that my company has 2 corporate units there (one on South Congress and one a Mopac and 360), and hopefully we'll be showing up there quite a bit more often. Saturday morning I had the fastest 21 mile run I have ever done. Yes, my 20 mile run for IMAZ last year was run at a faster pace than this one, but I said 21 mile run, not 20, so it is comparing apples to oranges, so I still get to claim this one as my fastest. And possibly close to my hottest too (at least compared to Houston/IMAZ training...Chicago and St. George training most likely brought similar weather conditions). I rolled out of bed at 5 Saturday morning after a whopping 4 hours of sleep (need to talk to Camden about the lovely day glow lights they put outside each bedroom window...) and headed over to Rogue. ...

I am soooo excited about my little weekend adventure in Austin. It will be a change of scenery at just the right time. The only issue now is I am afraid I planned waaaaay too much in way too short of a time frame. Jon and I are driving up later tonight, enjoying a lovely picnic dinner in the car (Zoe's, of course). Tomorrow morning, I'm running 14 miles with the Rogue training group around campus and Hyde Park, some of my old stomping grounds. The lady I spoke with said "we're running here and here, which won't be hilly." Ha! I looked at the route...there are indeed many many hills. For you Austinites, you might not call them hills, but this Houstonian calls them hills for sure. After my run with the group, Jon is going to meet up with me and we'll finish up my run on the Town Lake trail - probably one of my favorite places to run. After that, Jon and I are heading to Gruene to meet up with my sister's family for lunch. Whohoo! I haven't seen the ...

I had a great weekend last weekend - things may slowly be looking up for me in the health and training department, but I still plan to be walking on egg shells for quite a while longer. Saturday morning several of us headed to Katy Mills to do the Puddle for the Ducks organized ride. The route we were going to do was 46 miles and I wanted 50, so before the ride started I did 2 loops of parking lot at Katy Mills - it actually worked out quite nicely! No one is in that parking lot at 7am on a Saturday. Shellie, Augie and I all pretty much stayed together through the ride. It wasn't that bad until the last 15 miles or so. We were heading due east and the wind was coming straight out of the south...at 24 mph! We complain about wind a lot, and it is windy here a lot in the Spring, but honestly it is usually in the 15-20mph range (which is bad enough!). Sustained winds of 24mph over any length of time is pretty high...nearing Arizona conditions! A cross wind that heavy was pretty tolling...

Got 'em. Running at 11am near the coast when it is 80 degrees outside will do it to you! That was Sunday, but back to Saturday. Saturday morning, a few of us headed 75 miles north to Coldspring , TX for "Bike Through the Forest and Hills." They sure got the hills part right, well, and the forest for that matter. It was a beautiful ride, but the hills at the end were just awful. I did not realize until over half way through that I had been in a tailwind, and would be in a headwind the rest of the way. I also did not realize I had gone down more than up on the first half. The second half had a good stretch of 10 miles or so with not really any downhills at all, and tons of uphills. Then you got a tiny break for a couple of miles, but then, miles 30-33 (the last miles) were the worst of all! Uphill, into the wind. At one point I was in my last gear, at 30 something RPM not sure if I was going to keep my bike from falling over or not. Yes, I'm in awful bike shape, yes thi...

I *might* be getting better. I have had two good runs and a good spin class in the last 3 days. I am just waiting for an awful workout to come along and smash the tiny bit of confidence I finally have back, but for now, I'll just take it as it is. Sunday morning I ran in San Antonio. I just went 4 miles, but it was hilly, and I averaged 11:31 all in zone 2. That was my fastest Z2 run (except for the 2 miles I have run after biking a few times) yet. The temps were in the upper 40s, so I had that on my side for sure. BUT, I did a repeat on Monday night, when it was 75 degrees. I averaged 11:06 for an entire hour! I got 5.4 miles in during that hour. Just about 8 weeks ago I could only manage ~4.5 miles in an hour keeping my heart rate in zone 2. Tonight I swam for the first time in 6 months...yes...6 months...gees I'm bad. But it wasn't that bad and I didn't die. I was almost scared to get in though because I had no idea what was to come. I managed 1200 yds in about 25 m...

Last Monday I had an awesome run. It was 43 degrees outside and I ran exactly 5 miles in 1 hour (12:00 min/mile pace). I was surprised because I was pretty tired and not sure if I had done too much the week before. As I was going, I felt like I was actually running again for the first time in forever, not just bouncing up and down basically in place. I did hit 171 a few times and slowed down to walk each time it happened, and decided I would run again when I got below 140. Each walk break was around 1:30, so not too long. My previous fastest pace staying under 171 was over 12:50, so this was quite a breakthrough run. ...then Wednesday happened. In just 36 short hours, temps were up 30 degrees, and it seemed my HR was up 30 bpm as well! I was planning to do an hour run through River Oaks from my apartment before my dad came to pick me up to go to San Antonio. It was raining when I started, but not too bad. After about 3 minutes I decided my hour run was going to be about a 30 minute ru...

...my first in quite a long time! I wasn't used to getting up at 5:15 to run! Houston Fit was doing their 21 miler Saturday morning, so I decided I would jump in and run 10 miles somewhere in the midst of the crowd. A few of the group who were also running shorter distances met at Luke's Locker beforehand and it felt great to be back in the company of my old running buddies. It didn't feel great 20 minutes into my run when my heart rate monitor was screaming at me because I couldn't even keep my heart rate down running their run 5 minutes/walk 2 minutes pattern. I had to stay with them until Rice though because it was dark and I didn't feel safe being alone. Houston Fit had aid stations setup at Luke's and at Rice, so I had "social stations" which we all know I need, especially when I'm running so much by myself these days. The run was mostly uneventful, boring if nothing else, but a few notable things did happen. First, it was like I was a ghost o...

Seriously. I think last night was the first time I have ever gone out for an hour long run, no matter how far the distance was. I was to run (and walk) for an hour. Plain and simple. I know it isn't exactly rocket science, but I have always run for distance, even when I was sort-of "just running for time." Last night was my first official training run on my IMCDA '09 schedule, mostly from the book Be Iron Fit. The schedule has 10 weeks of base training before moving onto 20 weeks of build and peak training. I missed the first 2 weeks because CDA is in 28 weeks, but I think I will be just fine considering I only trained for IMAZ for 13 weeks each time. The great thing about the schedule is that the first 10 weeks are strictly aerobic training - nothing anaerobic, meaning basically nothing strenuous on my very-weak system. This works out as a win/win situation for me because right now I need to make sure I only stay aerobic to make sure I successfully get myself out ...

...and I shall treat it like one! How? Clearly I'm not so sure as I have not done a very good job of it in the past. I have read more about overtraining than I thought humanly possible over the last week or so, yet have come up with no real conclusion on what to do from here. Most research has at least identified the symptoms, but nothing really exists (other than a few personal stories) about what to do going forward to ensure I fully recover and to ensure it does not happen again. I'm struggling though with all the feedback I get when I say "I'm overtrained." It is hard enough for me to admit there is a problem, a BIG problem, but then people respond with "oh, what is wrong with you?" Or "what does that mean?" Or just give you a look of "whatever, you just want an excuse to sit out of PE class for a while" or "you just have your nose out of joint because you aren't running as fast as you were in the Spring." From every...

Friday night we had an IMAZ group dinner at Berryhill's and had a very good time. I think we all needed to hang out away from bikes and running shoes. Shellie and I put together goodie bags for everyone and I think they were a hit. They included light sabers (full You Tube demonstration here ) with the following poem attached: Hi! I am your trusty new light saber And am here to do you quite the favor. When the desert sun departs, And all that is left is the dark I will be here to light your way. IMAZ will prove to be a very long day, But the force will surely be with you; And you’ll prove to be more than you ever knew. Put me in your special needs for the run And I will provide all sorts of fun. When your spirits are low or the road gets tough, One flash from me will be more than enough. For I have an undeniable way To make you smile the pain way. And when your journey is finally through, Raise me high in the sky, for now the Ironman is YOU! They also included little baggies of Sta...