Kathleen's Adventures

Ouch! Yesterday I let lovely Cheryl Francisco (my masseuse) work exclusively on my buthigh for 30 minutes. Now I can hardly sit down on it! My buthigh (basically where you hamstring and glute meet) started bothering me a bit Sunday towards the very end of our ride. I then went to spin class on Monday night, even though I shouldn't have. I was in a bad mood and exercising always helps, but it didn't so much help my buthigh's mood. So, being the good little triathlete, I took Tuesday and Wednesday completely off. Yesterday I had a great swim in the morning and a decent run around the park last night. The buthigh has not gotten any worse, and if this is as bad as it is going to be, I could live with it forever. I just don't know a lot about buthigh's and don't want to cause any more problems. I have been sitting on ice and heat all week (my co-workers don't even ask questions anymore), and there seems to be some decent improvement. Today is another off da...

Best 100 mile ride...ever. Yesterday was a fabulous day for a fabulous, yet challenging ride. Eight of us set off for the 100 mile journey around 8:15 Sunday morning from the middle of Houston and had quite an adventure. Several more cyclists joined us at the start and peeled off at various points throughout the day. We had a "send-off party" before we left complete with breakfast, a microphone, the national anthem, and popper streamer thingys. It isn't often you get to ride through any part of Houston, especially downtown, without putting your life at extreme risk. We went straight through a virtually empty downtown with no problems (except that we may have woken up anyone that lived there shouting "clear" as we rode through each intersection). There was some weird fog going on between some of the tall reflective buildings and the sun was doing weird things and it looked like the neatest mirage of I don't know what. It was just so cool to look at. We couldn...

Well, I officially have my "racing stripe" back for the season. Oddly, it looks more like a racing V than a stripe, I think because I was bent over in the aero position so much today. The ride was fabulous, but I am absolutely exhausted, so I will write more about it and post more pics tomorrow.

I opted out of the hot pants today, but wore my new favorite hot pink sports bra and apparently it has the same speedy influence on my running as the hot pants. I ran my fastest mile ever today, by a good 40 seconds. I know you are all on the edge of your seat.... wait for it... wait for it... Mile 1: 7:25!!!!!!!!! Mile 2: 8:00 (ugh...) Mile 3: 8:06 (major ugh...) Mile .14: 1:04 Actually, those are all faster miles than I have ever run before! Total time: Well, I'm not exactly sure!! I stopped my watch at 24:34, once I realized I was past the "finish line." It wasn't chipped timed. 24:34 was for 3.14 miles. I'm trying to plug into motion based to get my exact time at 3.1, but I'm not there yet. Anyways, I think it is safe to call it a 24:30. Also, I have no idea what my time will show up as in the results because you cross the finish line, then line up in order of finish and wait for them to scan the bar code on your number. So I assume the ...

I've been looking forward to this weekend for a while now and I'm excited it is finally (almost) here. On Sunday I will be biking 100 miles with Rick Hood as part of his Brick for Women . Rick beats me on the "crazy" scale as he is biking over 500 miles to Little Rock, beginning Sunday, to run the Little Rock Marathon next Sunday. He is doing this brick (brick usually means a workout where you bike and then you run right afterwards) to raise money for the Women's Shelters in both Houston and Little Rock. How cool/crazy is that? Sunday we will take a very "off the beaten path" route to Livingston to complete day 1 of his adventure. However, we are all hopping in a car after that and heading back to Houston! You can follow some of the adventure here at Rick's blog. He has Day 1 all planned out and it looks like it is going to be lots of fun. We are pulling out from the Houston Women's Shelter on Westheimer near Montrose at 8am Sunday mor...

No seriously, guess how fast I am going to run my 5k on Saturday. I have no clue what to expect and I need to make my playlist! It is on a flat course and temps right now are forecasted to be in the lower 50s at race time. Here is some info to help you out: Marathon, 1/13/08: 4:30 (flat ground) 1/2 Marathon 1/27/08: 1:57:51 (point-to-point net downhill) 1/2 Marathon 2/17/08: 1:56:04 (loop course with LOTS of hills in last 4 miles...last 5k of race was 26:44) Previous stand alone 5k PR is 27:56 from mid-September on a pretty flat course in warm, humid temps. Any ideas? One would hope I will beat my stand alone PR, and presumably the one from last weekend as well, but by how much? All I know is it's gonna hurt!!!

So I just looked at my splits from yesterday again, and I ran my fastest 5k ever yesterday from mile 10 to the finish of the half marathon. I ran that 3.1 miles in 26:44. My stand alone 5k pr is 27:56 (PR #1 of the streak, from September), and my 10k pr is comprised of a 27:21 5k and a 27:16 5k. And those were the freakin' hilliest miles of the course. Wow. Thanks Greyhound!