Missed a week

Change of routine so I'll have to find a new time to be posting. Monday nights I'm biking from home now. (Not today though, I'm taking the day off). I am swimming monday mornings and I don't feel comfortable bringing my bike to pool. Oh well, such is life.

So yesterday I did my first half marathon in three years. My mother-in-law and I ran together for the entire race. It was her first half marathon. She started running 7.5 months ago on Thanksgiving weekend. I was heading out for a run and she decided she wanted to come with me as she was itching to workout (over the last year she has turned into a bit of a gym rat). That first day we covered 8 km in just a little over 50 minutes. She is a natural.

I don't think I'm in shape to beat my personal best (set 3 years ago at the same race - the mississauga half marathon). I decided that rather than try and fail I would run with MIL and help her finish her first half marathon. We finished in 2:07 and change. It was a pretty easy effort for me. Probably the easist half marathon I've ever done. We kept up a good pace for the first half. There was pretty big hill around half way and we slowed down a bit after that. All in all a good time :)

I feel bad though, I peer-pressured A into coming down to the finish line to cheer on his mother to her first half marathon finish. Since I did this race three years ago it has grown exponentially. There were SO many people finishing at the same time as us and so many people at the finish line (82! people finished within the minute that we finished). A got there 10 minutes before we finished but it took us an HOUR to find him.

I’m on a roll

Wow, I can get into the habit of this again. Every week I think of things that are blog worthy.

Last week our office hosted all the office and regional managers from Ontario. We had a reception in the office on Wednesday afternoon so that everyone in the office would have the opportunity to meet these people. As they introduced themselves they had to state something that they were doing for their health. Well, the Ottawa office manager said he was training for his 10th (!!!) ironman. Of course, after the meeting I had to ask him which one. Turns out that he, and another Ottawa environmental group employee, are going to do the Florida Ironman as well! So there will be quite the Golder Ontario contingent ;)

This weekend MIL and SIL came to visit us in Woodstock. On Sunday morning MIL and I went for a long run – 21 km, longest I have gone since my Half IM back in 2007 and furthest MIL had ever gone. Run went really well and I felt great all the way through. My hamstrings were tired for a couple of hours afterwards though. We are both going to do the Mississauga half marathon in a couple of weeks. EEK! I was debating with myself as to how I was going to run – go for a personal best? Practice pacing? What? Well, I’ve decided that I’m going to run with MIL and pace her to the time that she should be able to finish in.

Swim this morning sucked, but last Wednesday I did my 2x1000 m workout in 17:30 each! This is 40 seconds faster than I’ve ever done before today. Wahoo!!!

Another week, another post

Look at me! Two posts in as many weeks, I’m on a roll! A few exciting things to share this week.

First of all, on Friday I was out in my car at lunch and listening to CBC radio. Yes, I said CBC. I’m one of them now ;) At lunch time they have a program on called “The Ontario Noon Phone-in” where each day they have a different expert on where they talk about different topics. On Friday’s show they were talking about your “growing-old” hero. I thought immediately of Sister Madonna Buder (link). Sister Madonna Buder is a nun from the Northern USA. She has been competing in Ironmans for many years. She doesn’t go hard core with her training she just runs and bikes on all of her errands. For the last several years she has consistently been breaking records for her IM finish times. Oops, I neglected to mention the fact that she is eighty this year! She is the oldest woman to complete and Ironman and every year she breaks her own record! What an amazing woman!

On Saturday mornings I go to a spinning class at my coaches store (linky). They have computrainers (link) in the store as well. It basically simulates riding outside, automatically changes the tension and measure your power in watts, you also have to enter your weight, so it includes your weight in it’s speed calculations so it knows that the speed when I produce 200 watts of power is slower than when someone Blythes size produces 200 watts of power. Pretty cool stuff. Well, this Saturday, 11 time ironman champion Lisa Bentley (link) cam into the shop. (She also has cystic fibrosis – how amazing is that?) They had a fundraiser for CF where you could donate a minimum of $25 to ride the computrainers with Lisa Bentley. They had us on the 10K time trial course so it was a bit of a competition. I was getting a cold, so I didn’t do very well (over a minute slower than my time from 2 weeks ago!) But at one point in time (very briefly – the course starts with a downhill) I was in first and Lisa Bentley cheered “Go Laura J!” How cool is that? Yes, this makes me a dork, but I don’t care!

On Sunday I got to go see Christine and Jen. It has been a LONG time since we have all got together (beginning of December?). It was good to see them both again. We were originally going to go to the Zoo, but we had to change plans because of the crappy weather forecast. Too bad, I was looking forward to seeing Julie again. Oh well, next time :).

I think last week I mentioned that I had my first 2x1500 m swim on taps for Wednesday? Didn’t go so hot. I’ve been feeling like I’m on the verge of getting sick any day now so that is probably what it was. I did the first 1500 m right on pace but the last couple of hundred metres were really hurting. I think I could only keep the pace (should be easy for 500 m for me) for only 300 m on the second one. Ugh. I did however see a really cool thing on the internet that talked about swim form and drills to do and I realized something that I’m not doing right in my stroke, the last two times I’ve been swimming I’ve worked on this point and already my times are coming down big time. Pretty cool. Warm up pace is now what it was for my 1000 m repeats. Weird. I also picked up some drills that will help me with my form issues :).

The Start of the Journey

I’ve been meaning to update my blog for a while now. I want to track my training for IM to be able to look back on this for years to come, but I haven’t been able to find the motivation to start. So this is me. Starting.

On Monday nights I stay at work a little late as I have a training group in London that starts at 6:30. So new plan – Post on my blog every Monday while waiting for training group to start.

So far training has been going well. Haven’t really gotten hard core yet. Arash got me the wonderful present of 5 months of coaching from a triathlon coach in London and that has helped enormously. I know that when my work schedule gets tough I’m going to want to quit so it helps to have someone that I am accountable to and someone that can help me figure out what I can miss and work around week long trips into the field.

My training schedule has been pretty tame so far. Hanging out around 10 hours a week of Cardio. I’m swimming M, W, F between 2500 and 3500 (!!!) metres per swim. Biking M, Th, S between 45 minutes and 2 hours (although lately I’ve been adding in another bike with DH on the mountain bike trails in Woodstock). Running T, Th, Su between 40 minutes and 2:05 (yesterday – going to do the Mississauga Half Marathon in a few weeks). Note: There are no rest days!!! At first I found that a little tough, but lately I’ve been feeling really great! I feel nice and strong and energized. When the alarm goes off at 5:15 am, I usually just get out of bed without thinking twice. This is what has been the hardest for me to do since starting work. 5:15 is really early. Even more so when you don’t usually get to sleep until after 10:30. My body is adapting though and I am getting stronger.

Since working the coach I have made the following improvements.
1) Long swim increased from 2400 m to 3500 m.
2) Swim pace has gone from barely being able to hold 1:50/100 m for 2x500 to being able to hold it or better for 3x1000m (have my first 2x1500m workout on taps for Wednesday – I’ll be sure to report back afterwards).
3) My swim time goal went from 75 minutes to 70 minutes and lately I’ve been thinking I can do even faster.
4) My bike efficiency has improved from ~50% to ~60% but I still have a long way to go
5) My bike time has improved though. In January I did a 10K TT in 19:18 and two weeks ago I did the same course (on a computrainer both times) in 18:39 with a broken rear derailleur (forget the fact that I wanted to throw up afterwards ;)).
6) Run time went from 29:30 for a 5K in October (felt like crap about that) to 56:00 for a 10K last weekend (note: 3 days after said 10K time trial and with no rest going into the race).
7) Long run pace has improved by :30 per km.

There really isn’t much more to update in my life right now. I am mostly living and breathing Ironman right now. Only 6.5 months until race day ;) Real training will probably start picking up after I do a half IM in June (practice race, not a goal race).

The only other news that is really noteworthy, although most of my faithful readers (??? Do I still have faithful readers after my dismal blogging over the last few years?) probably already know from facebook, is that I got my P.Eng. in January. So after embarking on the journey to become an engineer in September 1999, I can finally call myself an Environmental Engineer. Cool. Oh yeah, and I am also now a project manager at work – If I could only find a project to manage ;).

Boo

I love being Canadian. I am proud to say that I am from a country that has universal health care, that invented peacekeeping, that was formerally at the forefront of environmental concerns. This embarrasses me.

Okay, okay, I get the point

I’m still alive Niki, I have not been lost or anything like that. Just BUSY!

Since my last update:
- Arash wrote and passed the citizenship exam
- A’s aunt came to visit Canada, my sister Kate came down from northern Ontario
- Had Jones/Fard family BBQ with 30 guests!!!
- Had Muslim wedding ceremony (I may or may not have had swine flu at that time)
- Visited Niagara Falls
- Visited Dad’s and went to the beach
- Had a Job in Woodstock (Yay!)
- Got a flat tire at said jobsite and needed to replace two tires on my car - $350. Boo!
- Niki visited with Logan and James
- Went to the zoo
- Visited with A’s grandparents
- Visited Quinn and Rod
- Went camping with other sister and family
- Arash’s grandparents went home
- Underpinned the foundation of a school in Sarnia while doing a tank pull (oops! Actually, the engineers all agree that it wasn’t my fault, I did everything by the book)
- Visited Keely and EK in TO. Went to ROM and stayed the night
- Went to Parry Sound for work
- Saw the old supervisor in Parry Sound (he is well)
- dog stitting Ellie (sister’s dog)
- Started studying for PPE.

It’s been a busy summer so far and it is going to stay busy for a while
July 24 – Sarah, Wes, Eddie, and Sally coming for dinner on their way back home and to pick up Ellie.
July 25 – HP!
July 26-30 – Up in Mattawa for work
July 31 – Arash gets his citizenship!!!
August 1-3 – Trip to C-dub’s cottage
August 4-8 – cramming for PPE while working long hours in Sarnia
August 8 – PPE in London than BBQ with A’s friends in KW
August 9 – Shower for my cousin’s fiancé.

After the 9th though it should slow down. We don’t have any plans for the 15/16 or 22/23. I might do another tri on the 30th of Aug. I have Plantar Fasciitis right now so it will depend on how quickly I can start running again. Marathon this fall is likely off. I will still sign up for IM in November, and just work a lot on biking and swimming in the meantime.

I have a couple of slower days in the office right now since I was rushing to get everything done last week before I had to go up to Parry Sound. It is nice, but on the other hand I am a little bored and this day is dragging on and on and on…

Lakeside Triathlon - a comeback story

Beware, it is very long.

A brief history. I did a half ironman 2 years ago this July just after starting to work full time after being a grad student for 3 years. I was able to keep up the working out for the frist 2 months of work until my race, but then took an extended recovery after the race - like a month. Justified since it was a LONG race. Then we bought a house. a month and a half of renovations ensued. By that time work had picked up big time. And by big I mean big. The rest of 2007 and all of 2008 passed in a blur of working. I would start training again, for a brief period of time, and then I would go on a job where I had 60 hours of work a week for a month and have to start all over again. This continued until February of this year. For those of you who know consulting lingo - my chargeability at the end of the year, including 3 weeks of vacation, two sick days, several days of training and equipment maintenance was 95%. I think I ended up working something like 200 hours of overtime in 200. I had a hard time learning how to train while working.

Enter March 2009. I desperately want to get back in shape. I'm at the gym working out and I notice a sign for a triathlon training group that is starting off. The sign says, beginners and others welcome, so I decided to sign up to get me motivated to train and try to keep me honest about it when work got in the way. We swam as a group two times a week (my strongest event - BY FAR). did one brick workout as a group and did group bikes and runs on the weekends. (I only managed to make it to one group bike ride and no group run). Biking has always been my weakness and the 20+ pounds I have gained since my Half ironman didn't help the situation any. I worked hard, and built my long run up to 8.5 miles, and I felt strong coming into race day. Not fast, but I knew I wouldn't have any trouble finishing the distances.

So race day...

We get to the site at 8 am and I rack my bike and pick up race kit and then find DH who totally wasn't waiting where I told him to. We get in line for the bathrooms (big line!) and was getting nervous that I wouldn't get a good warm-up in. Managed to get into my wetsuit with half an hour to spare and headed out for a swim warm-up. It was cold so not many people were swimming to warm-up. I trusted my wetsuit and was very glad of having done a great warm-up.

Swim - 750 m - 13:06 That was my second fasted tri swim ever and I suspect the fastest was a very short course. I think this one was accurate based on others times and how training went. I really wanted to the clock to say 12:XX but I really can't complain at all about that swim. out of 257 racers, I finished in 52nd place. pace of 1:45/100 m.

T1 - uneventful and not overly fast - I still need to work on my transitions, not horrible, but still - 1:56

Bike - 30 km - 1:05:47 - 27.4 km/hour. I flew through the first 6 km of the bike course. And then we turned east. Into the wind. For 12 km. Notsofun. I was sill managing to keep up a pretty decent pace for me, and even passed two cyclists on the bike course, and one was on a road bike. I also managed not to be passed by a fast guy on a mountain bike, which is very good for me. My overall pace ended up being the same as my half ironman, so I really can't complain about that. Much faster than I would have thought I would do just a few weeks ago! I was thinking then that 1:10 would be hard. amazing what adenaline, a better fitting bike and taper can do .

T2 - uneventful and faster - 1:12 - my feet are numb from the bike and my socks are soaked (by this time it was probably about 16C, so still rather chilly for biking, but fine for running.) My feet would stay numb from the balls forward until the finish line.

Run - 7.5 km - though I am positive that it was really 8 km (my HRM says 8, our car odometer says 8) - 46:44 - 6:14/km (or 5:50/km take your pick). Hills. Two monster hills. Not much else I can say really. By the end of the run I was just getting tired. I had a hard time finding my legs to pick up the pace. This is where I think a 5K or a 10K race before today this spring would have helped me. A slightly easier race than a 2+ hour triathlon would have helped me get my racing legs under me. At one of the water stops I asked for a glass of water because my gatorade tasted too sweet. I even asked the guy "This is water?" "yep". Gulp Gulp. So not water. I have had probablems with Hammer Gels before so I wanted to steer clear of the HEED they were serving on race day (which I had never tried before). I didn't end up having any problems with it (luckily!!!), but I am a little ticked at the volunteer. 400 m from the finish line there was a guy (who had passed me 500 metres before) shortly in front on me. Some ladies that I met on Wednesday this week were on the side of the road cheering and urged me on to pass the guy, so I put a little pep into my step and passed him (he was quite content to let me go) and finished in 2:08:47. Right where I had told my DH I would finish (between 2:05 and 2:10 - if the run was long, it would have been around 2:06).

I grab a bite to eat and then head over to cheer on some of my training partners finishing the bike of the give it a tri, and then went to find the race results. I finished 1st in the Athena (i.e., over 150 lbs) < 40 category. I was also the only one. Oh well, can't complain, I get a free race picture! looking at the results, if I had raced age group, I would have finished 7/12 in my age group. I can't find how I did compared to others in the age group in each event, they only have placings in each event overall.

So that is it! I have returned to training and working out. I am so glad that I had decided to sign up for this clinic, I think I finally have the training while working thing down. I had to be up and at it early several morning and had several 12 hour workdays and DH's grandparents are visiting right now for Iran so weekends have been busier than normal. I have learned to be flexible with my schedule and play around with it to make it work. I think it is a turning point for me, and I will be able to keep at it this time. Next up, two more tris this summer (late August - hopefully 10 pounds lighter) and one in september, and then a marathon in November!

Do I have anything to say?

Not really, but I’ll update you anyway ;). Last weekend was wonderful. It was nice to be home along by ourselves for once. I had a training thing up at lakeside (race venue) to swim in the lake (brrr!), bike the course and run a bit of the course. It went pretty good, and I surprised myself by being able to keep up a pretty good bike pace. I finished the 30 K loop in a little over an hour (like 1:05?) so perhaps I am in better bike shape than I thought. It was nice to bike with less wind for once!!! The run didn’t go so great. It was too hot and had no shade. Hopefully it will be cooler on race morning (I think it was 26 or something like that.

When I got home, Arash and I went out for lunch/dinner – it was like 4 pm by that time, and then we went to see Angels and Deamons at the Woodstock theatre. Pretty small screen, but it wasn’t too bad. I think they did a pretty good job with the movie. I think it was a bit better done than the davinci code, but that could be since I read the book so long ago now (like almost 4 years ago?).

Sunday I went for my long run in the morning (did 13.5 km). When I came back we cleaned the house and relaxed in the evening. We rented Benjamin Button. OMG. Such a good movie. I would definitely recommend it to everyone.

Now I’m back at work and the week is going by quickly. It is already Wednesday – has anyone else noticed that life is sort of in fast forward these days? I can’t believe that it’s almost June already, it feels like yesterday when it was freezing cold with a foot of snow on the ground. I have a week of vacation coming up – June 15-19 (yay!) when Arash’s aunt is here from Sweden. Oh, and other news? Arash got his appointment to write the citizenship exam! It will be on June 10, so he should be a full on Canadian citizen by the end of the year!

Another Month, Another update

Has it really been a month? My, time is flying. The last month has passed in a blur. First we were preparing for A’s Grandparents arrival getting our house all fixed up. We finally got the registers installed in the basement, the ducts cleaned, the windows washed, the new edging put in the garden and the stump out of the garden (and a bunch of cleaning and other interior fix-ups finished. Then his grandparents arrive on May 2nd. Despite my fears, they seem to love me, so that is good. We were in TO on the 2/3 and they have come down to Woodstock that last two weekends. This weekend A and I are staying in Woodstock by ourselves, and it will be nice to have time with just the two of us and we can relax a bit.

This past weekend we got our annual flowers into our garden, and dug up a patch in our back yard for a vegetable garden, which we also got planted. Hopefully there is enough sun in that location for our veggies to grow! We planted: Carrots, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, onions, green onions, garlic, cucumbers, cantaloupe, chives, parsley, thyme, rosemary, and dill. Oh my!

Triathlon training is going okay so far, I’ve got in most of my workouts. My Swim training is going awesome, and I’m almost back to my best swimming shape, and am looking forward to possibly breaking 13 minutes on the swim for the first time since my first triathlon (which may or may not have been short) Last week I did 8 x 100 m in 1:35 to 1:37 in order to break 13 minutes I need to do 1:44s which MAY be possible, yay! Bike training is sucky. I hate the wind. My times are much slower than two years ago, when I was biking consistently and 20 pounds lighter. Two years ago, I would have finished the 30 k bike in a little over an hour (like 1:01 or 1:02), this year I’ll be happy with a 1:10. Run training is going okay. Not the best, but I’ve certainly been worse. I think I should be able to run sub 6 per km in the race (I’ve been doing that in my bike/run – i.e., brick – workouts). I’m trying to figure out my schedule for after the race to keep in tri shape while training for a marathon, I think I will have one swim, one brick, one bike and 4 individual runs a week which means… doubles! Yay! (Not really, but maybe I can convince myself doubles are fun???).

Anywho, that is all I got. Not an exciting life for me these days.

Hello World!

I feel like I am in computer programming 101 where you write your first program in a new language and it is always to print “Hello World!” onto the computer screen. Nerdy me was just going to print the computer code that would write that on the screen in some language (I hadn’t decided which yet) and then I realized, I DON’T REMEMBER HOW. Yay! Computer programming is no longer a language I speak!

Anywho, what am I up to. Today is my Friday . Yep, you heard that right, I have the rest of the week off. Five Glorious Days. Tomorrow I am going to see the Sound of Music (again!) with Sister S, D, and her older daughter. I’m pretty excited. S&D and I went to the Sing Along Sound of Music together in Toronto together and are all big Fans. S probably the biggest Sound of Music fan in the world. On Thursday and I hanging out as S’s house and we are taking the niece and nephew to the sugar bush. I’m excited since I haven’t got to spend much time with S since I finished grad school. In grad school I took off a few weeks and would go and stay with S and work on my thesis from her house and have a good visit. A is going to take the train down on Friday.

Other good news I forgot to post last week. A’s grandparents got a visa to come to Canada! They are arriving on May 5th (sorry burger, looks like we won’t be able to make it to the derby after all). They don’t have their return flight booked as of now, but their visa is for four months. For me to be able to visit Iran, we will have to have a muslim wedding ceremony, and we were thinking to do that when his grandparents are here since they really wanted to come over for the wedding but didn’t get the visa that time.

Week one of tri training done. Went well, I did a total of 2000 metres of swimming, 1 hour 30 minutes of biking, and 30 km of running. Not bad. Probably one of the best weeks I’ve had since… oh, June 2007 ;) This week is going to be not as great with visiting and travelling and what not. I hope to still get in at least two swims, three runs, and one bike. Fingers crossed!