To the beach.

In Bethany Beach, DE for the rest of the week for our yearly family vacation. I have spent all or most of August here for my entire life. It is my happy place, minus the jellyfish sting I am nursing on my arm already (I am pretty allergic).

Plan is to swim and bike a lot (80 mile ride planned tomorrow!), run a little, and spend the rest of the time on the beach catching up on my growing reading list (Water for Elephants, Twilight, finishing up Sizwe's Test- READ IT!)

Had some fun sitting in traffic on the way down:



Too bad this woman wouldn't play along and pose for our camera...but I guess she probably gets a lot of attention with her snazzy little ride.

More camera phone love.

Fate?

Wow! So VERY glad I didn't shell out the $125 to register for Annapolis Triathlon on Monday like I had planned!

If you click the link you can see the full story, but short story is the organizer's bike permit for the race was DENIED. They are trying to figure out a new route, but are also considering an Aquathon (and sounds from the letter that the Aquathon is the route they are going to go). At least they are offering a full refund.

Had a great workout this morning, 20 miles on the bike then 2.5 mile run. Ran the first 2 miles in a negative split 15.44, without feeling like I was pushing the pace too much (ironically close to my 'tempo pace' I was running Tuesday night). Feeling great and really happy with where my running is right now. I also left my bike computer at home by accident, but it was really nice to ride without it for a change- May do it more often on the shorter rides in the park where I roughly know the distance anyway.

Yasso 800s

So, although I have said over and over again, NO SPEEDWORK, sometimes I just can't help myself and find ways to justify it in my mind. Last week, I did some FAST running focusing on uphill and downhill efficiency and form. Short, 30-40 second bursts, so I figured, how much could that really bother my legs???? Aside from being sore the next day, I was able to recover quite well and had a fabulous long run this past weekend. It also has really helped my confidence in terms of fitness level and just knowing that the speed I haven't felt in months is still somewhere in these legs.

So this week's workout was 800s. Yasso 800s, to be exact. 800 repeats trying to hit the same as my predicted marathon time, roughly at tempo effort (82-85%). My internal justification for this one? It's TEMPO effort, not speedwork!! Also, although I have some ideas and goals for my first marathon, I am really trying to keep the 'I just want to finish healthy and have fun with it' attitude. But I thought the 800s would be a nice indicator as to what may be in the realm of possibility.

I did 6x 800s, with equal time active recovery following each. They went like this:
3.30
3.41
3.22
3.43
3.32
3.58
Please note, I was not running on a flat track, so the odds were a slight net downhill and the evens a slight net uphill (as you can see in the time differences). Oh, and the last one hurt, BIG TIME.

My main conclusion- I have NO idea what to expect in terms of time. The point of these 800s is to be able to hold a pace for all the repeats at a tempo effort. I obviously did not do this. Hard when it's not flat.

My take-aways from this workout, 12 hours later:
1. I think this workout is going to be a great benchmark workout that I am going to try to do every 3-4 weeks until the marathon. By closer to the marathon, I would like to do 10 repeats. I think I will also do them on the res (read: flat) so I can focus on holding the same time/effort on all the repeats.
2. My body can handle more than I am giving it credit for right now. I ran 14 miles, pushing the middle 10 a bit, on Sunday and did this workout last night. After 4 repeats last night I wanted to stop, my hip was aching, but I did two more. And yes, my body and hip were sore on the slow jog home and afterwards, but after ice and Advil, I feel pretty good today. Oh, and my shins have not been bothering me at ALL in the past three weeks of pretty steady mileage increase!

Getting 'ready'

Head Games Before the First Splash
By KAREN CROUSE
Published: August 5, 2008

The rectangular space where many swimming medals will be won or lost at the Beijing Olympics has no lane lines or starting blocks. It has no water, unless the competitors bring their own.

Immediately before they race in the 50-meter pool at the Olympic aquatics arena, the Water Cube, the swimmers will be required to spend up to 30 minutes at rest in the ready room. It is like a television studio green room, except instead of hospitality, there is usually a strong whiff of hostility.

“It’s probably the most stressful moment of the Olympics,” said John Naber, a five-time medalist at the 1976 Montreal Games. “There’s no place to hide. No place to run.”

Read Full NYTimes Article Here

Funny story- I used to hear stories about certain members of my college swim team who used some 'unusual' tactics to mess with the heads of the other swimmers while in the ready room. Namely, they used to pee. While siting, waiting. In the ready room. God I miss college swimming sometimes :)

Bummer.

Just went to register for Annapolis. It's CLOSED! I checked last week, and it looked like only about 1300 had registered, and the website said the limit was 2000.

Oh well, emailed to be put on the waiting list. Now I guess it's fate's choice.

A half iron weekend....

...that confirms I will be doing the Annapolis OLY for my last tri of the season (if I can work out the logistics).

On Friday morning, I did an easy 30 minute continuous long-course swim (roughly 2000 yards, just short of the HIM distance). I then hopped right on my bike and rode out to Piermont and back, for a total of three hours in the saddle (the time I would hope to finish a HIM bike). Didn't quite hit the HIM distance as I had hoped, but when you add in the time it takes to ride through the Manhattan streets, 3 hours was fine.

Then this morning, I ran 14 miles. Best long run yet, longest run I have ever done.

And now I realize I have ABSOLUTELY no desire to put these three things together at once, and to have to do them in a row. And the more important thing is, I think I am finally OK with that. I know I am physically capable of doing it- next weekend if I had to. Which is reassuring. However, I do have some time goals in my mind, (how could I not?) and I think based on where my fitness stands now, it would do me (and my confidence) better in the long run to keep working on the base and focus on the HIM distance next season.

Decision finally made.