Saturday: Tom King Half Marathon and Much Sickness

So, the last three days have really been a blur:

• Thursday, I was busy with work and had a late night and did not even blog.
• Friday, I swam, ran Ivan out to my parents' house, picked up my race packet at the stadium downtown, and then headed out to dinner and to a party.
• Saturday, I ran the Tom King Half marathon and then picked up Ivan and have been battling sickness ever since

It has just been that kind of few days.

Anyway, a bit more about my Friday night party. Elliott and I headed in to visit Todd Nordmeyer's new bike studio. I call it a bike studio because it is a huge windowed room with two huge televisions on the wall, where you watch your stats while you cycle. I had not been down to see the new place, because honestly, it is further from my house and there is NO WAY I am getting up before 5:00 AM to get to class on time. It is where I draw my line.

If I were wiling to get up before 5:00 AM, I would go straight to Todd's classes, because they are great AND they certainly make you a better cyclist. Kind of funny, while I was at the party, I was talking to a woman and telling her my whole sob-story about how I loved Todd's classes, but with a toddler, I could only take the 5:30 AM class and because I lived in Franklin, I had to get up so early and just couldn't do it. She immediately told me that she lives in Franklin and also has a toddler, but is able to get to class for the 5:30 AM sessions and I kind of felt like a loser. Not that she made me feel bad on purpose. It is rather often that I un-intentionally pat myself on the back for how much I do during the week. I like to tat up my accomplishments. It is clearly part of my blog, and my Type A personality, but no matter what, there are a lot of people out there that accomplish a whole lot more. Can you believe it? It is always good for me to be reminded that I'm really no big deal.

SO, when we left the party, my mom called to tell us that Ivan was sick, but there was not a lot to be done, so just to pick him up tomorrow morning after my race. Ooooh the Mother Guilt that ensued. I slept badly, I called my parents a million times to check on Ivan, I woke up in the middle of the night. It was ugly.

The race was reasonable. My time was faster than last year, but not by much and by race time, I seemed to be having whatever Ivan had, and it was all rather nasty. Will write it up in my discussion of the race.

After the race, there was no staying for the awards ceremony or the complimentary breakfast buffet (I LOVE A BREAKFAST BUFFET), because I had to jet out to pick up my sick child. Elliott and I picked up Ivan from my parents' house and headed home. Ivan took my dream nap of about 4 hours. It was thrilling. He woke up still a bit sickly, and it was a Saturday of making Ivan feel better and cajoling Tylenol down his throat.

The writing on the wall is that I will be camped out at home tomorrow nursing my child. Worse things have happened.

Friday: Swim

So last night (Thursday) I had so much fun and stayed out so late that it was TOO LATE TO BLOG when I got home. TOO LATE TO BLOG is seriously late in my book. My friend Dru had myself and two others for lunch in her lovely home. Dinner was both healthy and amazing, and we had so much fun!! The most fun I've had in forever.

At home, I crawled in bed and read a bit of Born to Run before falling asleep and, of course, I overslept. Oversleeping is something I do really well, and I am seriously on my way to making a career out of it. I was able to make myself a smoothie and scramble Ivan out the door to get to swim where it was hardcore raining. OF COURSE. One truism about my life that I have learned is this: The later I am, the harder it rains.

I had to drag in all of our things and have Ivan walk on his leash in the rain. It was the worst. Anyway, at swim, Steven encourage me to swim at a low heart rate. I swam for about an hour, and I am not even going to tell you about the workout. It was just some slow swimming that I am not going to report on because swim was not about accomplishment today.

After swim I went to packet pick-up, and I am up early to run the Tom King Half Marathon!!!!

Wednesday: Swim

So today, in honor of tapering for the Tom King half-marathon, I swam at morning practice and then did little else. I did have a great talk with my swim coach about how to get my heart rate monitor to work in the water. Also, he taught me how to take my pulse count for 6 seconds, and then add a zero to whatever number I got to make sure that my heart rate could remain low if it was a low heart rate day. That was pretty thrilling. He had me take my heart rate several times, but still encouraged me to bring my heart rate monitor. So, the Garmin 310 XT, and I are going to be hitting the pool together again as of Friday. I will let you know all about it.

Our workout was as follows:

• 200 warm-up
• 4 x 100 swim
• 4 x 50 drill
• 4 x 75 kick
• 4 x 50 drill
• 4 x 150 swim
• 6 x 75 swim

I ended up with 3000 meters, so I am leaving something out. I swam slowly, but maybe not slowly enough, so I will have to use a monitor and really make certain I am swimming correctly.

At home, I wasted some time, made lunch and headed into work. Had a great dinner at home and am hitting the sack early. I love a taper week!!!!

Four Hard Workouts per 10 Day Cycle: Wise Words from Coach Mark Miller

So, I feel to start this post, I have to give some background on my habits and personality. I have a lot of follow-through. I like to complete things. I thoroughly enjoy exercising and really don't enjoy cutting back. This said, I also do not like the idea of having a personal coach for my race schedule. Working out is my thing. I like to do it on my time and the way I like to do it. If I am training for something specific, I like to research it myself and prepare on my own. This is just me.

THAT SAID, do people who have coaches perform better than me on the various triathlon or marathon events? OH, MOST DEFINITELY. Do these people have more expertise, better support, a better handle on their nutrition, hydration, gear, planning, preparation? ABSOLUTELY. I just like handling it on my own. I enjoy it on my own, and I am not ready to risk not enjoying it with a coach. THAT SAID, do I sometimes have a casual conversation with a coach and learn something profound that makes me think, "I should probably have a coach"? All the time.

For instance, yesterday, I had a great conversation with Mark Miller. (I wish that Mark Miller had a website or something to reference him, but alas no. He can be found on the Fleet Feet training website.) Yesterday, at my speed workout, Mark happened to mention that anyone running the Tom King this weekend needed to cut the workout in half. I do not like to cut a workout in half, but I did (after privately asking him if this was really necessary, to which he kindly replied that it was).

After finishing my halved workout, I asked Coach Miller several things about my lacking running performance. I feel like I am running hard on my weekend long runs, but just not going very fast. It appears that at my current paces, I am not on track for my goal time at the Boston Marathon (3:20). I am training more than I did for my Boston qualifier, yet without any gain in speed.

Coach Miller gave me a novel tip that I have not heard before yesterday morning. Just as a rule of thumb, he told me I should never do more than four hand workouts within 10 days. The rest of my workouts should be with a heart rate of 130 - 140. He said that it would be amazing how slow I felt I was running, but it would allow me to improve more in my hard workouts.

Honestly, I had been going it rather hard. So, I am taking my heart rate monitor everywhere I go and I am only going above a 13-140 heart rate 4 times per 10 day cycle. I will keep you posted on how it all pans out. My weekly schedule runs as follows:

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
2:30 PM Swim 1.5 hours	8:30 AM Swim 1.5 hours	6:00 AM 1 hour track workout	8:30 AM Swim 1.5 hours	Run	8:30 AM Swim 1.5 hours	6:00 AM Long Run at Upwards of 20 miles
	Gilad	Yoga	Gilad	Trainer Ride	Yoga
	Sometimes run		6:30 PM Swim 1.5 hours	Yoga

Tuesday: Speed Session and Yoga after a Rough Night

So my day started at the 1:00 AM when Ivan woke up crying hysterically and, without thinking, I hurtled out of bed and picked him up. Now, according to all my sleep books, I am supposed to listen for a while, because he may have just had a hiccup in his sleep cycle. If I let him cry for a few minutes, he may go back to sleep and have a largely undisturbed rest. If I pick him up, he may stay up and and have miserable day tomorrow, because his infant rest cycle was disturbed. IT IS A SCIENCE.

Anyway, out of bed I lunged and picked up Ivan before I even thought. This resulted in his being fully awake and my being fully awake. I rocked him, which woke him up even more and then he said the most vile word of all.. "Wiggles". He was up and thought he might as well get in a Wiggle viewing, so I put him back to bed. He had a meltdown, and I let his dad handle it from there. I got back in bed at two something AM, and then my alarm went off at 5:20 AM for speed work.

I have no words to describe how terrible it was to have to get out of bed after the whole Ivan in the middle of the night incident. It was bad, so bad. I staggered around the kitchen and managed to shatter a glass on the floor. All of this happened before I even got to the track.

At the track today, my workout was shortened since I am running the Tom King this weekend. Workout as follows:

• mile warm up
• 4 x 800 at 3:10ish
• 400 jog in between each 400
• mile cool down

This ended up being about 5 miles, and it was nice that it was shortened as I was miserably tired. I took a shower and got ready before Ivan even woke up. I headed out to Bible study and decided to switch work to tomorrow, so that I could get in a nap today. I desperately needed the nap and had to attend a baby shower tonight.

Aaaah, my nap was great!!!! Got in a really good yoga practice and enjoyed the baby shower.

Monday: Swim and Gilad and Ivan the Snackless

So today, I crawled out of bed feeling rather yucky from my junk food rampage after swim: Puffy eyes and potato chip grossness. I, of course, vowed to never partake in packaged food dietary horrors again, but its really not the first time I have made myself this promise. I am always going to fall apart over chips or Dr. Pepper, probably sometime soon.

Anyway, I made it swim relatively on time and Steven had a great workout for us, with a lot of butterfly. Now, I am champion with a 100 yard IM, because it means only 25 yards of butterfly.

Today, Steven gave us multiple helpings of 200 yard IM, which mean a 50 yard butterfly stroke. It is just killer and even wearing fins, I am pathetic. Workout as follows:

• 200 warmup
• 6 x 75 kick drill swim
• 3 x 200 IM
• 100 swim
• 3 x 100 IM
• 6 x 100 kick (love 6 x 100 kick. Jamie and I talked all about Jodie Picoult's new book)
• something I can't remember
• 200 pull with paddles
• 200 kick

It was a nice workout, and though the butterfly aspect of the workout was hard, I always enjoy getting to work on my butterfly.

After swim I picked Ivan up from the nursery, where he was eating the other children's goldfish. The nursery workers told me that I should pack Ivan some snacks to eat so that he can feel included with the other kids who eat snack. I just want you to know that I felt SHAMED. There I am, gallivanting off to swim, while my son starves in the nursery. Oh the guilt was a like a knife in my heart from which I may never recover.

In my defense, I have often sent healthy snacks with Ivan (whole wheat waffles, whole grain cheerios, apples, raisins), and they are always returned home uneaten. SO, in an effort to avoid wasting food, I had just stopped sending snack. This of course resulted in Ivan being the lone child who could not participate at the snack table and myself feeling like a ratty mom who leaves her child to forage for food amongst the scraps of other children. It was just like The Glass Castle.

So, after swim, I rushed right out to the grocery and bought animal crackers, Cheese Sharks (faux Pepperidge Farms Goldfish), and individually packed snack packs of Chips Ahoy and something called Macaroni and Cheese Crackers. Now, that I am sitting down to reflect on my processed purchases, I am pretty ashamed about the Cheese Sharks. Will Ivan be further pitied, because his mother bought Cheese Sharks? Or just cheap. I bought cheap goldfish.

"Sure, she can afford custom made polyester swim suits and a matchy matchy swim bag and Lululemon apparel, but she sends Cheese Sharks for her son." I am CERTAIN that this is what they will say about me on Wednesday. CERTAIN.

At home, with all my snack foods purchased. I got in a Gilad workout and then headed in to work for the afternoon.

Speedwork tomorrow.

Sunday: Swim and It's Oscar Night

Ok, so I really never watch the Oscars; not since I was in high school, but I am kind of having a love affair with Alec Baldwin in my head, and I appreciate Steve Martin's writing in The New Yorker. All week, I have been anticipating their witty hijinks and ironically barbed responses. All I am getting, however is some tele prompter reading. It is disappointing.

Things I am LOVING about the Oscars so far:

1. When Robert Downey, Jr. referred to writers as "sickly little mole people", they cut to Jennifer Lopez covering her hand with her mouth, but Oh, Jennifer, we know you totally think that.
2. Sarah Jessica Parker cracking gum in the audience
3. Clip of Alec Baldwin in 1986. He was just so pretty. How was he that pretty?

Also, I can never watch the acceptance speeches as they make me embarrassed. It is really nice having DVR, so that I can fast forward through the acceptance speeches.

Anyway, so we were up early and out to church, and back home again for Ivan's nap. I pulled myself together and headed off to swim. I was really looking forward to swim today, as, in my old age, I find that swim pretty much makes a run like yesterday's 20 miler go away. Now today we did not actually get in a lot of yardage, or I should say meterage, but it was a hard workout, and I was both starving and worn out when I got home. Workout as follows:

• 100 warm up
• 6 x 50 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) breathing pattern
• 6 x 50 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) breathing pattern
• 6 x 150 where we had to swim without touching the wall when we flip turned
• 6 x 100 with alternating lead swimmers

The breathing pattern stuff was not hard, but trying to turn and and pick up enough momentum to swim back down the lanes without kicking off the wall was grueling. We have done a few workouts like these before, and I go home just dragging.

Also, I had an unchecked hunger issue. I put down half a bag of Baked Lays and half a Cadbury egg, before I even knew what I was doing or what those things tasted like. I try to savor one Cadbury egg per year and ate my half so fast tonight, that I ACTUALLY got a piece of tin foil stuck in my teeth. Pathetic.

I also had some spaghetti and three seriously gross frozen blintzes that my husband had inexplicably purchased at the grocery. They were the worst kind of bland and took all the joy out of eating them, though this did not stop me from eating them. I wish I had just gone to Yogurt World, but that isn't saying much, I ALWAYS WISH HAD GONE TO YOGURT WORLD.