B2B Blogger Meet-up???

Has anyone heard about one?

If you're going to be at the race, please go to the B2B Triathlete's Blog and leave a comment on the meet-up post. And pass the word to other B2B-ers!

Weather SNAFU

Wouldn't you know it.

Just one to two weeks ago, we were complaining about how hot it was getting and how much we needed rain. Lawns were turning brown. Wild fires were popping up, merging and filling the air with stinky smoke. And I'd finally decided to embrace the heat and become one of those athletes who revel in it. Well, "revel" may be a bit strong ...

So what does Mother Nature do?

This week she delivered a stalled cold front. For days temps have been well below normal and we've gotten a LOT of rain. Good for yards and putting out the wildfires but parts of Central Florida are now a No Wake Zone.



Fortunately, the worst of the flooding (like pictured above) is northeast of where I am, but NO heat training for me this week. ARGH!

In fact, running indoors was warmer than outdoors (and I could get in some hill training as well). The poor lifeguards, though. Unless there's lightening in the area or the rain is coming down so hard that they can't see the bottom of the pool, the pool stays open. Fortunately, I got there on Tuesday before things got too bad and, not surprisingly, I was the only swimmer there. You are not my favorite swimmer to guard, the lifeguard told me after I'd finished my workout. (She was the same one there when I was the only one to show up back in January when we had some 40-deg days. While I swam, she did laps around the pool to stay warm.)

One ray of sunshine this week, however, was meeting up with fellow bloggers Jenny & Brent for dinner. Jenny had just completed Florida 70.3 last weekend (before the storm hit) and they have been enjoying shorter than usual lines at the Disney parks.

Dave, me, Jenny & Brent at Carrabbas.

We'll be hopefully drying out some over Memorial Day weekend. Hope you all have a great holiday, rain or shine!

Gratitude

Wow, just got into NJ not long ago and saw the official news that I got enough votes to be one of the top-3 who will be interviewed Monday night (3/31) for a slot on Team Evotri. The other two fine triathletes who also made it are TriSaraTops (from OH) and TriBoomer (from TX).

But what I'm mostly thinking about right now is not the interview but rather the incredible support I've received from so many people the past couple weeks. As some of you may recall, I was not sure I should even enter. I mean, who am I to think thousands of people will vote for me? All I thought I had at the time was an exciting idea for giving back to the endurance sports community, one that I thought I needed the visibility of being on Team Evotri to be able to launch.

But I was wrong. I have some amazing family members, friends and acquaintances, many of whom I've never met in person, who know how to pull strings and get people to vote. And they did, especially the past few days. I now also think I have enough visibility to launch the project regardless, which in many ways would be the least I could do having had so many people back me.

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who voted for me and even those who didn't who put up with my spam without so much as a peep. I'm truly honored to have made it this far and grateful to have connected and reconnected with people from the present and my past, and gotten to know many others through this contest. Whatever happens, there's now a fire inside of me that cannot be put out!!

Care Package

A good friend of mine in the Marine Corps recently left for her third tour in Iraq. Several years ago, she was the one who first brought me to a step aerobics class. I'd never gone to a gym class before and was so awkward and uncoordinated that I almost fell many times. Still, she kept bugging me to come with her and I started enjoying the workouts, mainly because of the group atmosphere and the music. It was so different than when I jogged/ran on my own. Something new and challenging. My first venture into cross-training although I didn't know it at the time.

In the past when my friend had said she was going to Iraq, I told her to let me know if she ever needed anything. She never asked for anything. So this time I told her I'd send her something from Hawaii.

I just did. I placed the order online at Hilo Hattie and since they were offering free shipping for orders over $100, the care package will have enough Kona coffee, Hawaiian cookies, Macadamia nuts and other island goodies for her to share with others in her unit.

And next time I feel myself wanting to complain about heat, stress, being tired, in pain or whatever, I'll think of her and other troops who are in harm's way. Hell, I've got it soooo easy. Thank you, my friend, for serving our country.

PS - In case you haven't heard, the Post Office is now offering a discount on shipping care packages to the military. Click here for more details.

Scratch That

I'm still falling off my bike ...

This time I rounded a corner too fast and my bike slid from underneath me. The bike is fine and I'm OK, just some road rash and bruises, the worst of which is along my right rib cage where my right arm jammed into it upon hitting the pavement. It hurts to breathe but I'm pretty sure I have no cracked ribs (the pain is not sharp enough). Got a nice crack in my bike helmet, though. I'd be a good ad for bike helmets and Neosporin right now.

On a brighter note, I had a great time in Austin. Didn't get to do much else other than create my Evotri video, meet up with fellow blogger Ellie for lunch and spend time with my sister and her family. My little niece, who's now 3 1/2 years old and full of energy, gave me quite the workout playing balloon volleyball and made sure there was never a dull moment for Auntie Shirley.

Me & my niece.

Brother-in-law, niece & me.

My sister, Ellie & Me.

It was supposed to be step-back week in training anyway and, well, this week may be light as well depending on how I feel, we'll see. My next big race, Ocean Drive Marathon, is end of March so plenty of time to heal up and get back into training.

Tomorrow I find out if I've made it to the first round of voting on Team Evotri. Stay tuned!

Hills CAN Make You Stronger

Thanks everyone for their comments and emails to help me get over my "hill" about Dave's training plans. We're fine again and stronger than before, actually. It's been tough with him traveling nearly full-time the past couple years. There have been countless good byes, I love yous, I miss yous and welcome homes, but many things not said, come to find out. For instance, I had no idea he'd been planning to do this particular bike training plan for quite a while so it just seemed to come out of the blue. But now I know that he actually has been preparing himself for it and looking forward to it. We're going to work out a way that he can do it without me getting any more gray hairs.

I must admit that some of this was also the result of bad timing as well ... he told me just when my PMS monster had gotten loose! Yup, it was rearing its ugly head snarling and just looking to pick a fight, unfortunately. It's been a while since that nasty bugger got out, but the 3 conditions for its unwelcome appearance happened to occur this weekend: 1) the monthly P loomed, 2) Dave happened to be home, and 3) I had not exercised much this week (still recovering from my last race), which usually keeps it at bay.

Ladies, I know you probably know what I mean and guys, if you don't, beware ... Anyway, I realized later that much of my poor handling of the situation was hormone-related and apologized.

The other interesting thing is that my step-daughter, the person closest to both Dave and I, said something very insightful that made me realize something about myself. In her email to me, she said:

"Finally Shirley, I'm sorry but I don't think it helps to ask such a long list of people for their advice about your first really big fight in years. None of us are experts, so it sounds more like an attempt to get people to validate your opinion, and thus gain ammunition against Dad, than to really have an honest discussion to solve the problem."

You see, I've usually been a very private person in the past and, indeed, to ask for help from others on personal issues would have been very out of character. It would have been much more my style to stick to my guns, hold everything in until I could stand it no more and then explode. And the same with Dave, and probably Katie too. Hence, our few big fights have been real knock-em down, drag'em outside, kick'em in the head and then kick'em some more fight-fests ala the UFC ... figuratively, of course. (For those who don't know, we both have black belts in karate).

But because I don't interact with others much on a daily basis any more, blogging has become my main form of communication with people and also my main means for staying sane. Without a doubt, I can much easier write down what I'm feeling in a blog than pick up a phone and talk to someone about it. Another sad but true statement is that I also think I have many more friends out there in the blog-cyber-virtual world than I have here locally so reaching out to them for help is now second nature and it definitely beats bottling up emotions until I burst.

So thank you again, family and friends, for being there and responding so quickly to my plea for help. Though Dave and I both lost some sleep about it yesterday, there was relatively little "blood" drawn, we set a new shortest fight time PR (personal record), and Dave didn't even have to buy me 3# of Skittles to try to appease the PMS monster, which he's done in the past.

Hope everyone has a safe Memorial Day holiday. This will probably be my last blog entry until I return from Hawaii mid-June.

Am I Being Fair?

All right, friends, I need your help.

My husband Dave and I just got into a big fight about his wanting to do a certain bike training plan while we're in Hawaii for two weeks early June. Knowing that he's been very supportive about my running marathons and doing tris the past few years, I feel terrible about not wanting him to do it and he's very angry at me. But I am truly worried about what might happen if he goes through with it and need some input from others.

The training plan was developed by Chris Carmichael, Lance Armstrong's personal coach, and appeared in Bicycling Magazine May 2007 issue. It's a short 3-week plan called the Spring Break Build Endurance with the last week being pretty much a rest week so I'll just mention the first two weeks.

Week 1 (10-13.5 hrs):
Mon: Rest
Tue: 1-1.5 hr w/ intervals
Wed: 1 hr Endurance
Thu: Rest
Fri: 2.5-3 hrs Endurance
Sat: 3-4 hrs Endurance
Sun: 3-4 hrs Endurance

Week 2 (18-21 hrs):
Mon: 1 hr Recovery
Tue: 2 hrs Endurance w/ 30-45 min Tempo
Wed: 2-3 hrs Endurance w/ 30-45 min Tempo
Thu: 1 hr Recovery
Fri: 4 hrs Endurance
Sat: 4-5 hrs Endurance
Sun: 4-5 hrs Endurance w/ 45-60 min Tempo

The training plan assumes the person typically trains 7-10 hours and says don't worry about overtraining because these are moderate-intensity rides and the person will get plenty of rest the following week. Yet, I am worried, very worried ...

My husband is a 46 year old, 220# disabled veteran who just got back into riding a bike last year after a ~20 year hiatus with help of special knee braces provided to him by the VA. Though he says his knees still hurt while riding, he loves being back on his bike and has lost over 40#. This year he's been consistently racking up 100-125 miles/week (7-8 hours/wk) with usually one long 3-4 hour ride per week. The volume in the second week of the training program would be about 2 to 3 times what he's been doing and he’s planning to ride alone most of the time along the Ironman Kona bike course, which is notoriously difficult with its hilly, windy, and oven-like black lava heat conditions.

What I worry most about is that he's a very heavy sweater and does NOT do well in hot and humid conditions. He does not know his sweat rate, has never used salt tablets, and has no idea how many calories he needs to stay strong. Though he plans to bring fluids and food, he tends to drink and eat only when convenient and often when he is way past needing it. He also has no recovery plan between the 3 back-to-back long workouts each week beyond just resting (no mention of nutrition!), which means he'll probably not recover well and get progressively more exhausted. And there are very few stores/gas stations along the highway, 35+ miles to the nearest one once past the Kona airport, and cell phone coverage can be spotty.

I love Dave very much, but I don't trust his judgment when it comes to things like this. He's a former Marine who has been trained to endure pain and suffering, and has a history of pushing himself too far physically (I'm a wimp compared to him!). 20+ years ago, he completed a long course triathlon and lost nearly 8% of his bodyweight due to dehydration (a visit to the medical tent for most folks). He once ran a marathon with his longest run being only 10 miles and his knees gave out at mile 16, yet he kept going despite excruciating pain and that was the last time he was able to run. More recently on some of our long rides in hot conditions he's become very dehydrated and bonked because he hadn't drunk and eaten as he should. One time he even got dizzy after only 40 miles (2.5 hours) so I had to ride home to get the car to pick him up. Oh, and did I mention that he also has had a number of precancerous skin growths removed as a result of too much sun exposure?

I offered to ride along with Dave or provide sag support by car, but he refused knowing it would impact other things I'd planned to do like swimming, running and relaxing.

I don't know what to do.

To jump into such an aggressive training plan on such an unforgiving course as Kona with chronic knee problems and no sound nutrition plan sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. On the other hand, is it fair to deny someone you love the chance to do something he really wants to do even if it might be the last time he's able to do so?

He says he'd run that marathon again knowing that he'd probably never run again ...

Day before Florida 70.3

Dave and I headed down to Disney to check my bike into the transition area. Boy, were there some REALLY NICE bikes, many in the 5 grand range, easily. It's amazing how much people spend on this sport! Now I don't feel so bad ;-)

We met up with blogger friends Brent (seated next to me), Eric (seated across) and his wife Nicole (who escaped the picture) at the Florida 70.3 expo. Chatted for about an hour and had a fun time sharing stories in person.

Tomorrow looks to be an unusually cool, breezy race day with temps only in the high 70's to low 80's by noon. Great for running, which is last, but the wind will make the bike segment tougher. For some reason, I have some noticeable soreness in both calfs (did I overstretch after my short jog on Thursday?). Hopefully they won't bother me much tomorrow. Otherwise, I feel great.

If anyone is interested in tracking me on race day, my bib number is 240.