I wish this post was about something completely different

This was supposed to be a race goals post! But you know, I am not able to race on Sunday, so no race goals post.
But I will tell you one thing, I had a perfect plan. Swim that swim as if it was a swim race. Swim hard and turn myself inside out! And then hang on for the rest. And go sub-40:30 for a 10k. And sub-2:20 for the whole thing. Well, it will have to wait till next year.

ITB feels good. I am going to start doing elliptical workouts. I am sure that it won't hurt the ITB. I need to be super careful because I have 5k race in 4 weeks. And rather be undertrained than injured and not be able to do it all together.

But I am doing biking race next weekend. It is 40 miles, on trails, roads, uphills, downhills. A friend has lended me his crossroad bike. So now I ave 4 bikes in my apartment:) I am running out of space. And I managed to persuade the race director to let me race as an elite. Ha. You see I am not that fast but it is a small local race, only second year running, and female racers are rare. So I send him an email rambling about my 2 bike races I did and 2 triathlons where I had the fastest female bike split and he had agreed to let me race in elite category. Which means that I will likely not win anything because it seems that only 1st place in each category. Maybe I should have raced in a different category and win another gift card. But as an elite I do not have to pay entry fee. So it probably evens out. And they have a post-race ice cream eating contest. Isn't that awesome??? I need to shoot an email to RD and see whether I can talk him into putting me into elite cat there as well:)

As I was leaving work today, I saw our department minivan standing there. Cool. So I went back, took the keys and now I have car for the weekend. It is very convenient. I went swimming today (wow, hard swim, my pool arms). I walked into the Y, dressed normaly, and the guy at the front desk asked me, "you did not bike in tohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifday? Too cold for you? I would not mind." I was like " hm, well....." and went my way. It is funny, when I bike everyone considers that normal now. Then one day I do not bike and everyone is asking me questions what happened. I came there on Wednesday in pissing rain and no questions. Funny. BTW, that guy is kind of cute:)

Anyone want to see me biking? :)


And let me explain cupcake story now. This one is for Michelle. You know I can eat cupcakes, muffins, cookies for breakfast, lunch, dinner...well, anytime for every meal. But I do not do that anymore. I have not had muffins since...I do not remember.
But I ate couple cupcakes today for the second breakfast, and a few cookies. A collegue is leaving and moving to LA so we had a small go-away party. So. But from now on, I am a good girl again!

Bike Time Trial #5

Bike TT #1: 34:18, average speed 35.2kph (21.88) 12.5miles
Bike TT #2: 34:04, average speed 35.6kph (22.11) little over 12.5miles
Bike TT #3: 34:03, average speed 36.1kph (22.56mph)little over 12.5miles
Bike TT #4: 34:06, 13.15miles
Bike TT #5: 34:38, 13.15miles

Ok, so my streak came to the end. There are couple reasons for that: I am probably several pounds heavier now, it was super windy, I was a totally bad athlete last week, I had to get up at 5:20am today and it was freaking cold. Plus last time I HAD TO beat the hockey guy and I almost killed myself doing it. I just had to.
BUT today I had my new bike and aerohelmet. So I was hoping to break 34min. But I did not! WTF??? I worked hard, but in retrospective I did not work as hard as last time (well, yeah, the hockey guy was not there today...). I should have worked harder. Too bad I did not have my watch with me, I wish I could have checked my split half way through.
But there was this guy who always beat me by a minute or so before. But today I beat him. So maybe the cold and wind really played a huge part since also he was much slower. But still....new bike and helmet and I went slower than last time?!? Drives me nuts.
I tend to be overconcerned with time goals. Maybe I should not care that much about that kind of stuff because there are too many factors I cannot control.

But I still can't believe that I went slower with my new gear!
But I put in a good effort, legs hurt and I was breathing heavily and I even made some grunting noises because of the effort. I just did not have it today.

Hm, I will get over it. I need to start being focused again and everything will be fine. It is good to have humbling experience like this, it keeps me on my toes.

Stuff

I am frozen. It was below 50 on my way to my 6am PT session this morning and then I got a flat and my fingers totally froze and not I am trying to thaw myself. Not working. Maybe I will make myself a tea.

I have been very lazy lately because my sister lets me use her Netflix account so I can watch movies and stuff online. Cool. I have gone through all episodes of The Addams Family and now I am going through That 70s Show (although I have seen that one like zillion times already). So basically, that’s how I spend my free time these days.

On Tuesday, I had bike workout and I honestly think that running shorts are much better for cycling than cycling shorts. I do not really care about padding, I think that the fabric of “point of contact spots” is more important. I do not know how to explain this so it makes sense but fabric inside of my cycling and tri shorts does not have a smooth surface (you know, that padding area) and thus it rubs and creates little sores. Whereas fabric of running short is smooth spandex-type so it does not rub.
I also did a swim workout on Tuesday and it was kind of hard but not too too bad. Reasonably hard. Once again, I have learnt that even for sprints a good form is more important than milling your arms around as fast as you can.

I had my PT evaluation session on Wednesday. They do not have any fancy treadmill laser stuff so the measurements and alignment checks were done by touching me but I was told that there is no huge misalignment in anything. My right hip is little higher than the left one, thus causing a small leg length discrepancy but it is almost unnoticeable thus that’s probably not a cause.
But my right hip stabilizers are weaker than the left ones and my left hamstring, ITB and quads are much tighter than the right one and all this is probably the cause because as I land on my right foot I do not stabilize my leg and roll the knee inward thus putting a lot of extra strain on it.
We will be working on getting the hips in alignment and on getting rid of those muscle imbalances.

So, if that is really a cause than it should be easy to fix. I hope it is a true cause! And once the current irritation is treated and the misbalances are fixed I need to continue being diligent about keeping it in check.
PT told me to not run until we get rid of the imbalance at least a little bit. Hm, ok. But the thing is that ITB feel decent. Well, it felt decent until he did ultrasound treatment on it. The pressure put on the ITB did not do it any good. Today I told him I did not want the ultrasound so he did some massage of the area. I will see how it feels.

Yesterday was the test of my dedication. I had to do the swim. Pool opens around 8pm for lap swimming and it started raining on my way from work and did not stop for the whole evening. So it was dark, cold and raining and I had to go to the pool. But surprisingly I never thought about not going. I only thought about how miserable my ride there and back would be in dark, cold and rain. Blah. I put my poncho on and off I went. I was still miserable of course.
But 1:05, 1:05, 1:05, 1:05…, I need to keep reminding myself of that when someday I lose my motivation. Because I know that that day will come soon if weather continues being this crappy. Summer is over, winter is coming thus I am sure that it will only get worse:(

Let's try this again

In late spring and early summer everytime I started running I would do easy longish (15-30min) runs 2-4/week and my ITB always flared up after 2 weeks of doing that and I had to take 2-3 weeks off and then start over again.
Until I decided to stop those easy runs completely and do only speedwork and voila, ITB did not hurt and slowly healed (until I did a very stupid mistake of running 5miles on those trails).

It has been almost 2 weeks now and ITB feels good again. No pain, no pressure. So I figured that I should start running again, but this time forget about trying to get back to it with easy runs.
So I did 1k w/up, 3x6x200 in 40sec with 1min rest and 3min btw sets, 400m c/d.
ITB no problem, no pain, no pressure.
Although I was out of breath and felt out of shape. But I still have almost 5 weeks to get to shape.
I will probably continue with this and use ellptical for "easy"long runs.

BUT I have PT evaluation session on Wednesday so will see what they tell me. Maybe they will say that I should not run for a while, but I doubt it. That would be just dumb.

ALso did a swim today. Very easy, recovery swim. Although I did quite a lot of paddle work so it was not really that recovering...
And here we go again. Now that pool is to its normal evening hours, I am again the last person to leave the Y at night and I do not get home until 10:15ish. Oh well.

Putting my &h!@n together

I was supposed to do only 1h40m w/ 2xtempo today but since I am not racig enxt weekend and I did not do TT on Thursday I decided to go longer.

So I warmed for 1h15min taking a longer route to the park, then did my tempos and then 1h back. So 3h total.

Those tempos were at HR 170 and it was easy. Really easy. This is driving me nuts. It should be gettig harder! Or maybe my tempo HR is higher. Hm, I do not know.

But I did it in the park, not on a regular road with its ups, downs and stops.
I think that I need to start doing more rides on open roads instead of in "controlled" environment of a park because riding by HR in a closed almost-flat park (although these wussy Michiganiars think that the park is not flat, but I think that it is) is different from riding on open roads. I think that it is important to learn to ride by HR on roads because IM is on roads.

Although tempos felt easy, I felt tired and legs felt trashed on my way home. I am not used to such long rides anymore!

Then I took a rest, watched a movie, almost felt asleep on a floor and then went to the gym.
I did 60min on an elliptical! ITB felt ok. So I will probably continue doing that.

Proof

So, you know that I have been eating shit and behaving like an ass last week and I think that it might be a reason why I felt like shit yesterday and today in the pool. (Excuse my language there please.)

So there might be something to that theory that food and lifestyle contribute to the performance. Hm. I have never really cared and have never really paid attention to it. But maybe it is true. It is probably also true that I am not 20 anymore, so maybe now I should pay more attention to this stuff.
We shall see.

My swim workout today was....hm....well....pathetic. Surprising, isn't it? I worked my a$$ off and still was not even close to hitting my paces.
All those swimmers out there probably do not get this but us non-swimmers experience this quite often. I was trying to go fast but I just could not. Should I kick my legs more? Should I increase the stroke frequency? I just COULD NOT go faster. I did not know how.
It has happened to me before. It is weird feeling.

Then I went on elliptical. 20min. I did not want to do more because I do not want to mees up ITB again. If it feels good, I will do more tomorrow. Maybe 30-40min. We shall see about that as well.

Bad bad bad athlete

Yes, I am. Or at least I was. But not any more.
I have been a horrible non-focused non-dedicated athlete this week. Well, more like in past 3 days.

I have been eating crap, staying up late, not drinking enough water.
Pool was closed, I cannot run, TT was postponed and I totally fell off the training wagon. PLUS, I realized that there is no way I will be able to do tri race on 18th and I also got scared that I won't be able to do 5k and I just got kind of frustrated and started thinking "what's the point?".

BUT THAT'S OVER! I need to pull my shit together and refocus.

I did not do bike workout. I was not sure whether I should do it or not. Maybe I can do a long easy ride tomorrow...
But I did swim workout tonight. I have read somewhere that if you don't do a sport for 3 days your muscles will start forgetting the movements. And I have not swam since Monday and I kind of felt as if I forgot how to swim:) I felt sluggish and little off.
But pool is to its normal schedule, which is awesome!!!!!!!!!!!! Now I can swim longer and hopefully without interuptions.

PT PT PT

So I finally figured it out.
Insurance will pay for it (at least that's what they are telling me), I got referal from a doctor and my first PT session is next Wednesday. I hope this will help me to solve the problem.

Also, this is the second time they have posponed bike time trial. Grrrrr. Because of weather. It has been raining the whole morning and they rather scratched it and move to next week.
So I think that I am going to do the same bike session as I did last Thursday. W/up, 30min tempo at 165-170, c/d on a trainer.

UPDATE: Hm, so I did not do the bike workout. I was dressed, everthing was set and then I went to get a skewer when I realized than it is on my road bike which I did not have because I used a car from work to get home today. OK, will do it tomorrow.

Hm

So I know that my insurance will cover PT. I found a PT who will take me. Now I just need to find someone who will refer me and that proves to be more difficult than I thought.
I went to urgent care and walk-in clinic as PT told me but those do not give referal. So I need to go to see a regular doctor. But where to find one, where to fins one....I spend more than one hour biking back and forth trying to find one but well, everything is closed by the time I get out of work.

So no run, no swim, no real bike. I did stretch cords though. I should do that more often. Maybe that will help me to become a better swimmer.

Btw, have you heard about the plane crash in Russia today? Plane with the whole Locomotiv Jaroslavl hockey team on board crashed:( One of the best Slovak players was on board.

Nothing new around here

ITB feels better every day but I am not going to run yet.
I did some research and phone calls today and my insurance might cover PT. So I went to couple PT places where I have learnt that Michigan law requires referal to be able to get PT so now I need to find a physician or someone to refer me. I have never really been to see a doctor in the US (except for some required exams at school). Well, I actually don't have a physician in Slovakia neither because I am just never ill so I do not go there.
The PT guy told me that I can try urgent care or walk-in clinic to get referal. So I will try to go to walk-in clinic in CVS pharmacy tomorrow, maybe they can refer me...

Did an easy bike ride today. 80min, just to loosen up legs and get time in the saddle.

Criterium bike race RR (1st real bike race ever)

47th Annual Debaets-Devos Pro-Am Memorial Bicycle Race

It was fun. The only bummer was that because I am Cat4 there was no money prize, money was only for Cat 1-3. Oh well, at least I got some points or whatever in ranking to be able to move to higher category if I stay here. Because if I stay, I sure am doing more of these. Although, it was painful from time to time.

But let's start from the beginning. I did swim wokrout in the morning and it was a very good swim. I was fast, smooth, storng, efficient. At least I think:)

Then I chilled out for 2 hours and then went to the bike race. My category started at 2pm so I got there around 1pm, checked in, did a warm up for around 30min etc.
There were only 9 women in Cat 1-3 and around 12 in Cat 4. And they were giving out money to first 10 in Cat 1-3, so they all got money but we, nothing. Anyway. There were primes as well.
Club friend came to watch me with his daughters and told me to just sit in and then when I hear the bell go for it, because primes were the only prize I could win.
They let Cat 1-3 35sec ahead of us and then my Cat was off. Race was 35min + 2 laps.
I was in 4-5th position for the first lap, then went ahead and pulled for part of the second because I wanted to see whether there is a way to break the field but no, I am not that strong as to pull ahead. So I decided to chill out and let someone else pull. I was in 3-4th the whole time.
Lap was around 1.5mile and half of it was slight downhill with tailwind, and other half slight uphill with one short steep hill and with headwind.
I am not sure how many laps we did and then the bell rank for the prime. I decided I needed to get that one. So I attached on that steep hill and got 20meter lead within a few moments. But I still had like 1mile to go into the wind and up. I worked really hard so they do not catch me and it was really painful. They did not catch me and I won that lap and thus the prime ($25 gift card to bike store). Then one of the gals caught me and told me I had a nice lead and offered to pull me so I can increase my lead. But I was pretty much done from that sprint to win the prime:) I tried to stay with her but she was pulling ahead. She saw it and decided to take it easy and let the rest of the field to catch us and just go with them.
BTW, this gals was FAST. She could have smoked all of us. I am not sure what she was doing in Cat4 because my friend who was standing by finish line told me that he heard people talking and it seems that everyone knows her and she is kind of the big deal in Michigan cycling circles. But clearly she just did the race for fun and let other take primes and she did not mind pulling all of us for most of the race. And she was wearing jeans shorts. She admitted that they were not very comfortable though.
So when the others caught us, she started working again and I jumped back on her wheel and went with her. Slowly there were 3 of us pulling ahead of the rest of the field. My friend told me that we were crushing it. We even caught the Cat 1-3 field eventually. The announcer said that we were smoking Cat 1-3, cool.
Then they announced 4 laps to go and the second prime. I did not know that it was a prime as well, I thought that it was only 4 laps so I did not work too hard and I did not win that one. But it was a backpack so no biggie.
Then we had 3 laps to go and someone yelled that we had like 40s lead on the others, at which point we were like, ok, no need to kill ourselves as long as we are 1-2-3. We kind of started cruising and my friend told me that it was like slow motion compared to what we were going before. We did that until around 3/4 of a mile to go. Then the fast gal said LET'S GO! And she started hammering. Then there was this little approx 50m slight uphill, right turn and approx 250m rolling downhill to the finish. And she really put the hammer down on that little uphill. I stood up as well and started mashing pedals, but she just had more power than I did and she pulled ahead. But thankfully I had more power than the other gal. So I finished 2nd, around 2sec behind 1st and 2sec before the 3rd.

It was fun. It was really painful on my little prime breakaway and then at the end and when I was pulling the field but since I was just sitting in 2nd/3rd most of the time it was not too bad. I liked it.

I was wearing my new tri shorts and they worked well. Unfortunately, I was wearing my running sneakers and right cage (yeah, I have only one cage, on the right pedal, because left one is broken. I am a bumm.) because all my wrenches are too thick and do not fit btw pedal and crank arm of my tri bike so I could not swap them.
I also caught the pedal on the pavement on one turn twice because I was pedaling through it. But it was not too bad.
First 2 loops were kind of crowded, eventhough there were only 12 of us but I am not used to that, I am usuallt all by myself. But I was not nervous, I am fearless:)

So it was fun. Although I did not break even, because I won $25 gift card and entry fee was $45. But it was a good experience and I might do more bike races.
It was a good way to spend day off from work.

(ITB feels decently. But that's because I have not been running for past 5 days.)

I am the real deal now

Look what I got yesterday:


Shoes I won two weeks ago. Well, I won the certificate and I could choose the shoes. And I liked these. Unfortunately, it seems that I will not be able to try them out any time soon:(((

I also got this:
(Imagine tri shorts, because who would want to see a picture of tri shorts...they are not that interesting)
I used gift card I won two weeks ago. (Winning races is fun. They give you stuff.)

And also this:



An aero helmet! Cool, isn't it? I did not win this one though. I got it for my babysitting services. The guy whose kids I babysit bought a new (better and fancier) one and he gave me his old one. And it fits me! It is not the best aerohelmet ever I suppose but it is definitelly better than my $16 helmet from Walmart. Someone told me that an aerohelmet is the best "bang for the buck" in TT world. So we shall see. I have a TT on Thursday and now that I have a real bike, real biking shoes and pedals and shorts and aerohelmet, I should be fast:)

He also gave me all his old triathlete magazins because, oh God, he knows I need help...
It was him who told me that I should do the crit race on Monday. I signed up and then he told me that I was very brave because it is going to be a mayhem. Oh well, thanks, you should have told me beforehand. I signed up and then I asked him what 35min + 2laps mean. He probably rolled his eyes and started praying for me.

BIIIIIIIIKE

This was the second time I stayed on roads for my long ride. I did rides on roads efore but I usually stay on one particular road (loop that takes 20min) near my house because that's the only kind of smooth and safe road. But Saturday morning roads are ok. Relatively.

I kind of liked it, but it was kind of hard! I was trying to stay at 140-155 but the road I chose was kind of hilly (Michigan hilly...) and thus sometimes I went over and sometimes lower but most of the time I was in the right range.

I think that it was hard because there were those little rolling hills and a few stop signs so it was not all stable pace, which makes for harder riding. Or maybe just I am getting more aerobicall fit and thus HR 150 is harder to hold.

2.5h and I stay on aero most of the time. Still lot of work to do before I will be able to stay in aero for 112miles. It is not that it is not comfortable, but I think that I need to buy better cycling shorts. Mine are not that good. Or maybe I will get tri shorts.

I am off to babysiting now. Friend is piking me up, taking me to NB store to pick running shoes I won two weeks ago and then to bike store to use the gift card I also won. And then to her house to watch the children overnight.

Comprehensive list of no-no things

- run on hard surfaces (road, ice...)
- run downhill
- run tight corners
- wear heels
- wear flip-flops
- run slowly for 5+miles
- run barefoot

I am slowly adding no-no things to my list. Live and learn. But I would rather learn from other people mistakes.

I am taking several days off running because ITB is a mess again. It was ok during the day but it does not feel hot now in the evening.
Then I will start with track workouts again and keep my mileage low.

I have had enough!!! No matter how much it cost, no matter how much time it takes, I am going to see a doctor. It cannot go on like this! It is ridiculous!

Ok, maybe not no matter how much it costs because well, I do not have money for that. But I am doing a thorough research to find out whether my insurance will cover it (although I doubt it since I do not have a regular insurance). But I will try.
And then find a physical therapist in a 3mile diameter from my place!

I wanted to do a tri on Sept 18th but as of now it does not seem that it will happen. We will see when it gets closer.

On training news, I swam today and my arms hurt. Among other things I did 800 yards with paddles, ouch.

I just signed up for a criterium bike race on Monday. It is only 35min + 2 laps, so nothing too bad. I have never done a real bike race. Michigan mountain mayhem was a bike race but it was very casual. This is hard core(ish). I am probably going to crash and die. But I was told that it is a lot of fun and it might be a good way to earn some cash (assuming nobody else shows up or that I do not crash and die). And it is basically in my backyard. And I have nothing better to do on Monday anyway, except for a swim workout in the morning and then this race is at 2pm. I am actually looking forward to it.

Torture session

What else would you can 1h15min on a trainer at 9pm with 30min tempo HR 160-170 and then 3min all out.

I had to do it on a trainer because that's the only place around where I can truly do tempo effort efficiently. And I do not mind doing it on trainer if it gets me better workout.

It was not bad aerobically or musculary, it was more painful staying in aero. Because on a trainer you are always in the same position, and it slowly becomes a pain in a$$, literally. But I better get used to it.

ITB is so-so, I'll probably skip one workout/decrease this week's mileage.