5 more in the bank

Trotted out another 5 mile run tonight. I struggled just a little, more mental then anything. I kept making excuses not to finish. But, I ignored that little voice in my head and did the whole thing.

Thursday night is interval night and this is week 8 of my interval training... 14 minutes of running and 1 minute of walking - x 4. That plus the 5 minute warm up and my total workout of 1:05 - total miles 5.82!

My run intervals were: 10:52, 10:45, 11:01, and 10:55. Still holding out around the 11:00 min/mile pace and I'm pretty darn happy with that, although I'm looking forward to the mileage dropping after Escape from the Rock when I'm going to do a 5K training program and try to add a bit more speed. Less miles sounds good right now - we'll see if I think that in a month! :)

Oh my GOD!!

I've been training, and there are times when I feel like I'm beating against a brick wall. I've been so frustrated because, even after all these months, running is still hard. Like, struggling to just put one foot in front of the other hard. But then I realized that running wasn't getting easier, because I don't take it easy when I run. Every time I go out it's with the goal to go futher or faster or both.

Tonight was another 5 mile run. My mid week run bumped to 5 miles last week and I had shocked myself by running that distance. I had expected tonight to be another exercise in willpower as I warmed up... But something strange happened...

Maybe it was the fact that we had gotten up early and did a leg workout at the gym, or maybe it was because a friend had taken me out to lunch and I had a few mire calories then usual in my system. Or, maybe it was because I'm mid cycle, and it's rumoured that women are at thier athletic peak at this te of the month... Whatever it was, I want more of it!

I didn't start my run with any goal except to finish it, but I was happy to finish the first mile in just over 11 minutes. Still, an 11 minute mile for the first mile isn't unheard of for me. I checked my watch after the second mile and was happy to see I had actually dripped a second off my average pace! Hmm. Cool! At 2.5 miles - the 1/2 way point I was still hovering at just over an eleven minute per mile average pace and I was feeling good... that's when the idea hit me, 5 miles in under 11/mile... How cool would that be!?

And so I ran... And ran... At 3 miles I had dropped below 11 minutes. That was good because I was going to be turning into the wind again soon.

At 3.75 I hit the turn around a headed into the wind. I had brought my average pace down to 10:55 but knew I was going to have to fight to keep it up. But there was a fire I had never felt before... I had aleady ran through a side cramp, and even though the wind felt stonger then ever I knew I was going to go for it.

And so I ran.. Huffing and puffing along, feeling as though I was headed towared some personal finishline. 5 miles finally came... My watched beeped out that I was finished and I checked my time... 10:53 average pace! YES!

Sharkfest Potos!

I've posted all my photos from the swim here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/samboddy/sets/72157621956674401/

Here's a few to get you started.

Swim across the SF Bay!? No Problem!

Well, I did it!  I swam the 1.5 miles across the bay from Alcatraz to San Francisco.  It was AMAZING!  EnviroSports puts on a great race!  I had so much fun in and out of the water.  Since this was 'test run' for me in prep for Escape from the Rock (also put on by EnviroSports) I took it easy, learned what I could from it and even took pictures while I was out there in the water.  I'll say it again - it was an absolute BLAST!

My time 1:02:30

Results swimming with a wetsuit:

F 40-44 - 28th out of 40
F Overall - 187th out of 251
Finish order - 531 st out of 655

I can honestly say that I'm not worried about the swim portion of Escape at ALL now - so I can focus on facing the bike and the run.  And that makes me really happy.

I can HIGHLY recommend the Sharkfest to anyone who's thinking of doing this incredible swim.  Just remember to sign up early, this year's swim has been full since JANUARY!  And I think the Alcatraz swim should be on everyones 'to-do' list :)

Whatever am I to do now!?  No races for a whole month! :) 

Tri For Fun

Finished in 1:57

300th out of 433

And 20th out of 35 in my age division!!

Almost middle of the pack

Interesting Things Going On

I have a race this weekend - another sprint. After setting a PB at my last sprint I almost don't want to do it. This is probably going to be the first time that I don't improve my times at a race. But, I may surprise myself :)

The biggest difference with this race is that the bike is long; 16 miles to be exact. But, I've really really been working on my running, and I'm going to do everything I can to run the entire last leg of the race. That's my #1 biggest goal for this one. Get over this wall I have. No WALKING! :)

Other then that - my goal is to finish in 1:45.

The focus right now though is for Escape. The practice run for the swim in in a week, and I feel ready for that - got my Swag in the mail the other day - I'm really excited!



I'm regularly swimming 1.2+ 2-3 times a week at the lake.  I swim with a bunch of REALLY fast people who push me every single swim.  It's funny how slow I feel at these swims, and yet when I get with a group at a tri or whatever I discover that I'm not that bad :)

After escape my focus will be on the Anchorman Championships in San Diego.  I want to hold my own on this one so I'm planning to stay with my 6AM lake swims, and start an 'advanced' 5K training program to try to bring my run speeds up.

Not that my run speeds aren't improving - I did a 4.5 mile run the other day without taking a walk break and finished in 53 minutes.  My Garmin is telling me I averaged a 11:45 pace!  under 12 min/mile for 4.5 miles!  I know that probably seems really really slow most of the athletes out there in blogger land, but on 11/19 of last year I did a 'fitness test' and ran 2 miles, my pace was 15:48.  That's 4 min/mile in 8 months - that's good right?

After Anchorman my focus race will be Lavaman - I plan to get back to Lavaman SOMEHOW  -- The goal is to be 110 lbs lighter in 2 hours faster - I've got 3 eight week cycles planned to train for that...

Once that's past well, I'm going to step out and really push myself - I plan on doing Vineman 70.3 - that's right a 1/2 Iron Man.  With Lavaman in March and Vineman in July, I figure that'll give me plenty of time to add the new distance,.  In all honesty, I'm already doing the swim distance, and for Escape, I'm training as if the run is the 13 miles so I don't think it'll be that big of a leap... I'm excited about it.

Lastly, I wanted to share these...  My finish at the last tri:

Me, sprinting to the finish:




There's my finish time - by the look on my face, this is about when I could see it - remember the 'girls' started 20 minutes after the clock started :)

I like this shot



I feel like I'm channeling Steve in a Speedo here and his One legged Pirate Pose. although he's much better at it then I am...

And this one:  Well this one is fun just because it freaked my husband out -- He saw it and said - what the hell is that!?



"That"  being the muscles in my arms... rar!