IM Boulder - Training!

While I signed up for IM Boulder in August of last year (crazy?!), I only now feel that I am 'officially' training for that particular race.  I've only just realized the blessing of St. George 70.3.  While it wasn't my "A" race, it did keep me more or less on top of my training and I've found that I need some sort of mid-way goal, or I have this year, at least.  Last year, I think that I wrapped my mind around IM Coeur d'Alene and made that THE goal, but this year, there is so much going on with me life-wise that an intermediate or mid-way goal really helped.  Otherwise, the 'base training' probably wouldn't have ever happened!

However, base training has officially ended and I'm now building - and I miss the base training!  I know that I shouldn't compare myself to other people, and I try not to, but I'm really "comfortable" at around 10-12 hours of training a week.  Once I start to train over 12 hours, I really do feel it.  Also, my recovery from St. George didn't even last a full week!  I was back to a long tempo run and then a long brick (4 hour ride, 80 minute run) a week after the race.  Last Sunday, I thought to myself - "You're not in Kansas anymore".  Okay, it's lame to quote the Wizard of Oz, but I was officially out of my comfort zone with that workout.  I really did try to have a positive attitude, but I started the running with heavy legs and I ended the run with heavy legs.  It was about 10x harder than the St. George run was!

This week, plenty of ups and downs and new challenges.  I felt equally blessed and cursed on Saturday to ride part of the Tour de California Stage 7 course - up GMR (Glendora Mountain Road) which I'd done twice before, but then, for the first time, I kept climbing up to Mt. Baldy Village. The Tour finished at the Mt. Baldy ski lifts, but it was the COLDEST RIDE EVER - so the two other ladies and I riding together made a group decision - to not climb the extra 1,000 feet to the ski lifts.  Even though we didn't make it to the ski lifts, it was a  fantastic ride up to Mt. Baldy Village, and it was amazing to see so many cyclists and fans of cycling in Southern CA.  If I had been better prepared (had more clothes) and had more time, I definitely would have stuck around to see the pros go through, but it was a great ride no matter what.

 This is before we started climbing - and it looks like I have something weird growing out of my helmet, but not so!

Finally, on Sunday, I had my first double-run day EVER.  I actually thought that it was a mistake on my schedule until I read the information about said run.  Nope, not a mistake.  Honestly, the afternoon run felt better than the first run of the day, so I decided that double run days might be okay.  However, this is all new territory for me, which maybe is the point?  Yes, I managed an IM distance race last year and loved the experience, but now that I know that I can do the distance, pushing a bit more and going a bit harder is the challenge.

And, if that's not enough, taking in sights like these should be both the means and the end:

Huge shout out to CalTri and Harrison Shao for the Epic Ride on Saturday!

End of the season

Wow - happy October!  How in the world did that happen?  I'm not even sure, so I should back up - or something, especially since September seems like a bit of a blur.  As per usual, I totally fell off any sort of "training" regime at the beginning of the school year.  Good thing that I didn't have one!  Seriously, the first two weeks of September were more or less a wash, as I got sick and then went to Catalina for a week.

(Always nice to sport "I'm a triathlete" t-shirts while feeling like a total slob, huffing and puffing up a nice little hill!)

The last two weeks of the month, however, were a bit steadier with enough swim-bike-run to not feel that I totally sucked.  Even last week, when I had 2 evening school commitments and CPR training from 3-6 on another day, I managed to find the time.  

And Sunday was the LA Triathlon, and while I did not race, I did participate in the event in a different capacity: as a volunteer.  One of my personal goals for the year was to be more involved in a 'community'.  As I've become a bit more excited about triathlon, I've also recognized that connecting to other people who swim, bike, run has its benefits, as much as I dislike training with other people (and being around others in general...).  Seriously, I'm a pretty big introvert, and at times doing distance stuff (for me) feeds into that introverted nature.  I love riding and running and swimming alone a good majority of the time.  That said, to improve, I also know that I need to train with other people, and there should be an element of FUN in the training and something social too.  So, I've tried to become more active in one of the local tri groups.  This has pushed me way out of my comfort zone but is also a positive experience.  Anyway, to make a long story short, my participation in this group led me to being in charge of the volunteers for LA Triathlon which led to pre-race stress.  Not the usual thoughts floating through my mind but more along the lines of "what if no one shows up to help out...".  Fortunately, the other volunteers DID show up and were in good spirits and willing to help out with anything.  From a volunteer stand-point, I was not a fan of the LA Triathlon - not to trash the group that put on the event, but they did NOT have their shit together.  However, most of the people who raced seem to enjoy the experience, so what do I know?

The highlights of the day for me were not getting up at 3:50 am in order to make it to the Rose Bowl to meet up with people, nor when I got lost in downtown LA.  But I did find it kind of fun to drive a U-Haul van carrying 10 bikes to Venice Beach and then returning with those same 10 bikes from Downtown LA to the Rose Bowl - it made me feel like a professional bike team driver!  I did think "What if the back doors pop open and these bikes go flying onto the 110?!".  Obviously the carnage (to use a popular word from the Tour de France) wouldn't be as great as if it WERE a professional team, but I was probably transporting around $18,000 of bikes.  Another fun moment was when I heard a voice say "¡Señora!".  This is NOT a title that I usually hear when I'm doing the triathlon part of my life, but at this moment, my work life and my extracurricular life collided and I saw a student whom I taught last year with her boyfriend (also a student, but I've never taught him).  He had just picked up his medal for 1st place in the high school division!  I was so impressed and then felt like a total dope as I talked to them.  Ugh - I would have been awarded the awkward teacher of the year, no doubt!  But it was really cool that he won!  

At the end of the day, I was super tired but had enjoyed the experience.  I always appreciate everything that goes into planning a race and the volunteers at races a bit more after I've done my own bit.  

That was not the official end of the season - despite swearing last year that I wouldn't ever do another fall triathlon, I totally broke that promise and signed up for an October race.  It's next week, and then that really will be the end of the season for me. I'm looking forward to the race, and it should be a fun way to end the season.  I might feel a bit disappointed with my overall performance, we shall see, but it's actually been nice to have one more race to look forward to!

Keeping my day job!

Yesterday, despite it being Saturday, did not feel like much of a break!  It was, however, a change of pace from usual Monday-Friday schtick, to which I'll happily return tomorrow!  To give some background, I've been a lackluster member of a "triathlon" club since January, attending the occasional run and on an even rarer basis doing something like an open-water swim or a bike ride with a group.   Despite my limited participation, when they were looking for volunteers to help raise money, I thought "Oh, why not".  The money will go to the Challenged Athletes Foundation and probably a local food bank, so this is all for a cool cause.  I did not love the idea of spending most of a Saturday at a UCLA football game helping to man (or woman?!) a concession stand, but they needed volunteers so I signed up!

Knowing the WHY did help me rouse myself out of bed on Saturday morning - after a fun night out, which made the getting up even more difficult - so that I could meet up with the volunteer group.  We all looked quite professional in that food-service-sort-of-way: black pants and a white-collared shirt.  Once we put on a black apron and and a hat, our transformation was complete!  I won't go into the details - much of the day reminded me of some of the stereotypes I have of the military - fairly bureaucratic, and not very efficient with a "hurry up and wait" mindset.  The company that "generously" allows groups to earn money was fairly incompetent - we were supposed to have cash registers, but the company did not give them to us.  They did give us calculators - none of which worked, so all of the people working the registers needed to rely on old-fashioned mental arithmetic.  This would have been a royal pain, but at the very least every item was a dollar amount.  You know, five dollars for a coke, five dollars for a hot dog, seven dollars for nachos, six dollars for water.  The prices were, of course, ridiculous, and my favorite part of the day was the fact that customers complained to us about the price point.  As if we were owners of the concession stand?  Couldn't they tell that we were doing not much more than menial labor?  (I don't mean to belittle the food service industry - this was definitely not high-end stuff and it wasn't a challenging task.)  About Sodexo, the company that actually does own the concession stands, I was more than happy to help out the club and raise money for a good cause or two, but it did bother me that I was helping this company earn a huge profit margin because they were obviously not paying us jack shit!  I'm very skeptical about their fair labor practices.  We were just volunteers, and they stipulated what we could eat - one soft drink, one bottle of water and one hotdog!  Despite the fact that watching the food prep all day totally grossed me out, I was more than happy to scarf down the hot dog.  Probably the worst part of the day was the clean-up - at that point, I was hot and tired (we all were) and ready to go home, and having to account for all of the hotdogs and hamburgers that we made but didn't sell was quite depressing.  Also, the "cheese" that accompanies the nachos is one of the most disgusting non-food processed items that is sold as food that I've ever seen in my life, and trying to clean it up when you don't have soap, water or a rag/sponge is a Sisyphean task!

Fortunately, we were out of there at 4:00, like they had promised, which came as a relief.  The other major relief for me was that I didn't see any of my students or any of my students' parents while I was serving this terrible food and swindling people out of their money as they paid too much for everything.  It wouldn't have been the worst moment of my life, and I've certainly seen students outside of the confines of the school yard, however I always think about that moment from the movie Mean Girls when some students see Tina Fey's character who is working at the mall and one of them says "Oh, I love seeing teachers outside of school. It's like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs."  


So, not my "ideal" Saturday, but it was a good experience.  It does make me appreciate that I work at a place that I like, where I can dress more or less as I choose (as long as I look presentable), and where I'm treated with dignity, on the whole.  I'm glad that I did my part, but everyone carpooling back agreed that we don't need to do that again this season!