TITS = Time In the Saddle

First off, I learned the acronym TITS from reading Sarah's blog found here.

Today, my workout was to ride 2 hours on my bike. A 30 minute warm up and then 3 x 30 minutes at race pace with an easy ride in between. For some reason when I woke up this morning, thinking of 2 hours on my bike sounded really overwhelming. It didn't help that my bike computer is broken so while I'm out on my bike I can't see how fast or how far I've gone. I haven't gotten around to replacing the computer yet.

Well this overwhelming feeling turned in to an anxiety attack. To make a long story short, my mom was ignoring my anxiety and that pissed me off & made my anxiety even worse. Well, it pissed me off just enough that I got on my bike and just decided to ride & ride until I couldn't ride any more.

Including 2 stops for more water, my TITS ended up being 3 hours, which totaled 39.7 miles and 2370 calories burned! There were some pretty decent hills on the ride & it was a pretty hot ride, but overall it was a good ride. The TITS gave me plenty of time to think and analyze things.

I wanted to go even farther on my ride today, but my back tire was getting low on air (not flat, but low) & I didn't want to use my only CO2 cartridge that I have right now to pump up the rest of my tire, so I called it quits.

It'll probably be 2 weeks before I get another long ride like that in, but I can't wait for that day!

Weigh In

For the past 3 years, I have weighed myself every Saturday morning and put down in an Excel spreadsheet how much I weigh. That is how I have kept track of my weight loss.

Well, I'm starting to gain muscle now and because muscle weighs more than fat, when I get on the scale on Saturday mornings, I'm starting to see the number go up instead of down. It really messes with my mind.

I realize I can't weigh myself every Saturday for the rest of my life. That is just unrealistic. But I'm not sure how I can go without weighing myself. Honestly, it scares me.

How do I go from weighing myself every Saturday to not weighing myself every Saturday? How do I not be scared about this? I need opinions please.

Facing the Giant

This video was posted on Facebook today & it really hit home with me.

When I was competing in my first Olympic distance triathlon I wanted to quit SO bad. As I was watching this video, I understood SO much what the football player was saying when he kept saying "Am I there yet?".

I'm SO glad I didn't quit though. To date, my Olympic distance triathlon was the hardest race I have done to date...but I wouldn't change it for the world. I've learned things from that race and it will do nothing but make me a better athlete. As I was watching this video I was thinking to myself, I will NEVER quit. Someone will have to carry me off the course before I quit. If I have to crawl across the finish line, that is what I'll do.

In all of my races from here on out, this coach's voice is going to be in my head "Don't quit. Don't ever quit!" "Don't quit til you have nothin' left."

Awesome Workout Today

Today I had an AWESOME workout! I'm just so happy from it! First off, I have to say, I absolutely love when a workout can change my attitude or grumpiness from negative to positive.

I had a super rough day today. I got to work at 8:44 a.m. this morning and was ready to throw the towel in at 9:00 a.m. But, as soon as I got in the pool tonight, all my grumpiness disappeared along with the stresses of the day. :)

My scheduled workout from BJ today was:

Swim:
200 swim, 200 kick, 200 pull
10 x 100 with 30 sec rest
cool down

Run:
warm up 1 mile
5 x 1,000 meters with 90 sec rest
cool down 1 mile

I normally get up at 4:45 a.m. and go swimming so that when I get home from work I don't have to deal with all of the kids at the pool and all I have to do is run, but this morning I woke up with a killer headache and I was just tired, so I just went back to bed, so I had to do both swimming & running tonight.

My swim tonight was one of the best swims I've had in a loooooooooooong time! Every 100 I did, with the exception of the last 3 100's I did, were all done in 2 minutes or less!!! One of the 100's I did I was able to do in 1:56!!! I haven't swam that fast in a long time. It was nice to know that I'm finally back on the training band wagon and I'm making improvements...thanks to my awesome trainer BJ.

My run, it was hard, but I did it. the 1,000 meters I did, I did at an 8:30 mile and then slowed down to a 10:00 mile for the 90 second rest. Oooopppss...I just realized I was supposed to do 5 x 1000 meters and I only did 4. Oooooopppss...there's always tomorrow. :)

Hills Are My Nemesis

Sunday, BJ sent me my workouts and I looked at what today's workout was and I just about died! It said:

warm up 20 min
3 x 15 min climbs up any road you
choose in bountiful. When 15 is up
then turn around descend and start
over
cool down

I've never been good at climbing hills on my bike. I've got better than I used to be, but I'm not as good as I'd like to be.

So...I chose to ride my bike up 4th North in Bountiful. It's one of the steepest hills in the city. It goes from as far West to as far East as the city goes. 4th North leads you up to the LDS Temple on the hill. If you ever have to drive this hill in the winter time, you dread it because you just slide everywhere.

So, I did a 20 minute warm up and then looked at my watch and headed up 4th North. I got about 1/2 way up 4th North to a street calle Davis Blvd and that's where I had to stop. I was out of breath, I felt like I could barf, I felt weak, I was thirsty, my heart was beating out of my chest, I basically felt like I was going to fall over and die.

So, I pulled off on Davis Blvd, looked at my watch, and I'd only been climbing this hill for 7 1/2 minutes. I was only 1/2 way done. Well, tough noogies. The hill only gets steeper the further East of Davis Blvd you go, I just knew I physically couldn't go further. As I was catching my breath, I thought there was NO way I was going to be able to climb this hill 2 more times. I would have a freaking heart attack!

I'm finally feeling stable, so I decide to decend down 4th North. As I'm decending down 4th North, it's like your mind totally forgets what you just did because I remember thinking to myself, I can do this again! No big deal! If I can do it once, I can do it again!

So, I got back down to the bottom of 4th North and turned around and headed back up the hill! Oh dear Lord, what have I gotten myself in to? I made it back up to Davis Blvd again and felt like I was going to die. I felt like I was going to chuck my guts up once I stopped.

But once again, as I was decending down 4th North, I thought I've done this twice I'm sure I can do it one more time. Well, this time I was wrong. I made it up to 700 East (about 1/3 of the way up the hill) and I came SO close to upchucking that I decided to call it quits.

I turned my bike around & headed back home. I kind of feel bad that I didn't make it up the hill a third time. I feel like I kind of wussed out, but I honestly think if I would've climbed all the way up to Davis Blvd, I would've puked my guts up once I got up there.

Will hills EVER get any easier? I sure hope so.

Jordanelle Course Review

I was asked by a reader to go in to a little more depth about the course on my Jordanelle Olympic Distance Triathlon, so here goes. :)



The swim wonderful! They had the Olympic distance men start at 9:00 a.m. and the Olympic women & Olympic relay start at 9:05 and lastly the sprint at 9:30 a.m. They had all the boueys set up and everything. For the Olympic distance, you had to do 2 laps around all 3 boueys, for the Sprint distance you only had to do 1 lap. They had plenty of boats and canoes out on the water in case somebody needed help, etc. The only downer about the swim was after you rounded the first bouey, as you were sighting heading towards the second bouey, the sun was SO bright and right in your eyes, I had a hard time sighting the second bouey. However, thankfully, there was a HUGE boat sitting out by the second bouey that I was able to sight with instead.

The bike was harder than I expected. I drove the route the day before, so I knew what I was getting in to. Normally, the route wouldn't be that hard for me. We had to bike a total of 25 miles. The first 12 miles of the bike were on what they call a "false flat". It looked flat, but it wasn't. It was between a 1 - 2% uphill grade. It was an open course, however, there wasn't alot of traffic. One of the downers of the bike course was the turn around wasn't well marked. Thankfully someone who had already reached the turn around point hollered out to me that I was coming close to the turn around point. All the turn around point was, was spray paint on the road saying 13 miles, turn around. I personally would have liked it if they had a barricade with a sign or a volunteer there saying ok, turn around here. Once you reached the turn around point, it was all downhill except for 2 hills you had to climb. The first hill I would say was maybe 4 - 5% incline and the second hill was maybe a 3% incline. Those second hill wasn't hard to climb at all and the first hill was easier to climb than I thought it would be. Especially with how fatigued I was already feeling. We only had to go through 2 major intersections on the bike and police officers and volunteers were present at both intersections to give us a right of way. That was very nice. The only other hill on the course was a 10% decend and that was towards the end of the course. Going down this hill you can practically almost coast the rest of the way in to transition. If you can't coast, you can pedal easy. :) I wish my speedometer was working when I went down this hill so I knew how fast I was going. They said alot of people go upwards of 40 mph down that hill. I know my personal trainer, who was also competing in the race, was going 55 mph down that hill.

The run was ALOT harder than I expected. I don't think the run would have been hard if I would have eaten on the bike (see my previous post about the Jordanelle Triathlon). I didn't know what the run route was until I started it. The majority of the run was a trail run. If you did the sprint distance triathlon, you only had to do 1 lap on the run, if you did the Olympic distance, you had to do 2 laps. About the first 1 1/2 miles of the run, it was on pavement and then you were on a trail until about the last 1/2 mile of the run. They did have water aid stations at every mile on the run, so that was really nice. We were basically running through campsites at Jordanelle. I don't really know how else to describe it. There was only 2 hills on the run and one was on pavement and one was on a trail. I've never been good at trail running, so the second hill was harder than the first. There was also part of the run that was a really narrow trail. If you're good at trail running, you'll do fine on this course. I was very impressed with how well marked the run course was. They did a great job.

TriUtah put this race on and they've got to be the best race organizers. I was very impressed with how well organized this race was. I will definitely continue to support TriUtah and do their races.

Fellowshipping

I'm not sure how to start this particular post, so I'm just going to start typing. If I ramble, I'm sorry, but this particular topic this post is about, I'm not sure how to compile it in to a grammatically correct post, etc.

Also, I would love to hear people's opinion on this subject.

Also, I can't decide whether to post this particular subject on this blog or on my personal blog, so I'm going to post it both places, so if you read both blogs, I'm sorry for the repetitiveness of it.

I know I've got a few new readers to my blog, so let me backtrack a little. I was raised a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon). A few years ago, I ventured away from the church and haven't looked back. I don't practice their beliefs, etc., however, I still live at home with my parents who are VERY active in the church, etc.

My dad came home from church a couple of weeks ago and said that the young men & young women of the church were going to be doing a memorial type walk from the Draper, UT temple to the Salt Lake City temple, which is a total of 22.7 miles, and my dad being an EMT, volunteered to be a medic in case anyone got injured.

My dad invited me to do the walk/run. I told him I would think about it, but I wasn't sure.

Now, my issue with all of this is, the people who are organizing this, EVERYONE in the neighborhood knows how big I am in to fitness, etc. If the church is SO much in to fellowshipping and they really want people to come to church, etc., then why hasn't anybody approached me about helping with this walk? My dad even told me last night, they're looking for someone to ride a bicycle in between the 2 medic vehicles (there will be 1 in the front of the group, and 1 behind the group). I would almost be willing to bet you that I'm one of the only people in the neighborhood/ward that has a decent road bike that could do this. I can't imagine riding this 22.7 miles on a mountain bike. It would be dreadful.

But like I said earlier, if the church is SO big in to getting the inactive folks active and fellowshipping, why hasn't anybody approached me about this? I kind of feel like the church is contradicting themselves by saying that they are in to fellowshipping, etc., but then they don't do it.