Recovery.. Ew.

    So because I am still a young grasshopper in the world of triathlon training and contrary to my own narcissistic beliefs, I do not always know best, Coach SuperW took the wheel today and told me No. Afternoon. Workout. Once we started doing this tri-business, I realized I needed to clean up my act and listen to the woman who is 1. certified 2. experienced and 3. knows a crap ton more than I do about training, so I did what she said and spent the afternoon baking, eating frozen yogurt, and "donating" my savings account money to the library (I think I should get some sort of certificate for how much money my late fees have helped the library budget... today's grand total? 37 dollars).
    I hate recovery. Hate it hate it hate it. I would rather ride on the bike for 3 hours than lay on the couch with my feet up. I am not joking, either. Whenever Coach tells me to take it easy, she either types it twice, underlines it, or adds in the phrase "and I am SERIOUS" along with it, because she knows if she gives me an inch, I'll take a yard. Today, though, I knew I needed the rest. It was so hard driving home from dinner with a friend tonight not to jump out of the car and jog around the neighborhood- it was perfectly cool out, the sun was setting, and there were NO  BUGS. But, I know that Coach knows best, and that even invincible redheads need rest days after two consecutive weekends of racing coupled with high running and biking mileage. Plus, the swimming set this morning was deceptive- started out with easy 50s drill, then 4x150 build, then 2x50 race. Plus side? GOT MY 50 TIME DOWN ANOTHER 3 SECONDS! Down side? Wow were my glutes hurting by the second go through.  
      Since I couldn't run or bike this afternoon, I decided to stay productive and bake! I went to my favorite food blog, http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/ . She has the greatest dessert recipes- she somehow manages to make cookies, donuts, brownies, and cake good for you. I made the cake-batter donuts, chocolate chip cookies, and Chocolate-peanut butter cups. I was out of vanilla extract, so everything was banana flavored, since all we had was imitation banana extract, but that's fine with me. I once spent 3 months only baking banana bread in the hopes of finding the "perfect" recipe, and when I was little, I ate like 4 bananas a day, so any time I can get some extra nanner-flavor in, I am a happy camper.
  In other news, I turn 18 in a little over a week. Wanna know the first thing that comes to mind about that number? No, it's not, "Hey, I can now buy porn, cigarettes, and lotto tickets!" It's "Crap, I only have at most 2 years left in my age group before I move into a more competitive bracket!!!!" Ah, the life of a teenage triathlete.

Gluteus Maximus

Yesterday:
1,000 something feet of climbing in 6.2 miles, :40 on the trainer, :40 power yoga
Today:
2 hours of riding, a hill so steep I thought about just getting off the bike and walking, :30 running.

My. Butt. Hurts.

I am Insane. It's Okay.

Yep, I am crazy. I realized this after I decided to complete a marathon on only one 20 miler and 2 18 milers only 5 weeks after my half-marathon, but my race registrations as of late have officially solidified my place in the nut house. In the middle of what is getting to be some pretty intense Half-Iron training, I am running another race. A hilly one. Actually, supposedly the hilliest in the city. Granted, I signed up for this race before I knew how tired I would be from working, working out, and running around like a crazy woman all week, but still, I think the fact that I will now be racing two weekends in a row on top of a 31 hour work week, 18 hour training week, and a less-than-normal amount of sleep, is enough evidence to suggest that I left my brain somewhere on the course of my first 5k.
    Further evidence of my insanity: I have my eye on an Iron-Distance triathlon for next year. I am thinking either Chesapeake Man or Beach to Battleship, since they are close to school and allow me the entire summer to train. Plus, they are way cheaper than all the Ironmans- I mean, I want to do one of those too, but this chick wants to go to Spain over break, and $1000 plane ticket + bike repairs+race fees does not bode well for the $2000 + dollars necessary in order to register, find lodging, pay for the copious amounts of food I will consume, etc. I figured I would start saving up this year for one, though, so by my third year in college, I'll have enough money. The nice thing about going to a school with a 7 week winter break is that all that time allows me to make some serious dough that I can deposit into said athletic fund... because face it, kids, that's all I use my paychecks for anyways. That and gas. And froyo (speaking of which, there is a new frozen yogurt place that uses GREEK YOGURT to make their soft serve. AND THEY HAVE SUGAR FREE. AND IT IS SELF SERVE. I only hope they are open at 9 in the morning tomorrow when I rush in there, half-showered from my race, in my lifeguard get-up to snag me some four-ounce goodness to power me through my shift of staring at young children playing sharks and minnows for 2 hours straight).


 Also on the agenda: Seeing just how slow I run tomorrow after not tapering (it's okay- Coach SuperW didn't say to. She just said to set low expectations since there ain't no chance in hell that I'll be feeling "fresh" tomorrow), not getting enough salt all week, not hydrating enough, and lifting less than 12 hours before the race. This should be fun!!!

What a Week

     I love to lifeguard. Really, I do. I like that it's a fairly active job, with lots of going up and doing in the chair, walking around checking trash, sitting in a chair and reading, etc. However, when children poop in the bathroom and yours truly is forced to clean it up, the job ain't so hot. Last night, the country club I lifeguard for had a swim meet. At 4:45, the pool area filled up with hundreds of people (note: we do not have a very big pool area, so it ended up looking like a rock concert- lots of sweaty, excited people in tight black spandex), and though us guards like to think we are able to keep on top of the trash, bathrooms, and children, obviously sometimes stuff slips through the cracks (no pun intended...ew).

    So it was that the 8 10-year old boys who I saw crowding around the bathroom were indeed up to something as I had expected when I saw them, except that when I noticed them, I had just enough time to tell them to skidaddle before I had to haul booty back up to the chair for my shift. Mischevious little boogers that they were, I suspect that they were the culprits of the mess. My boss went " OH YEAH, FIRST POOP OF THE SEASON!" and while it does signify the official start of another summer at the pool, when you are on your 9th consecutive hour of work after an hour and a half masters practice, 31 minute 4 mile run, swim lessons, AND the lifeguard shift, celebration is not really the first thing that comes to mind when poop is discovered. Sleep, food, foam rolling, and a shower do, but not jumping up and down. 

    But other than THAT, this week has been fairly uneventful, if busy. Lots of training, lots of working, minimal rest. Tuesday's track workout was FREAKIN' AWESOME. Coach SuperW had told me to take Monday afternoon off from working out to prepare for a hard workout on Tuesday, and after she explained the workout that night, I totally got why. We did timed miles, so it was a mile warmup, a mile fast, 2 800s fast, 4 400s fast, then another mile fast. My last mile was actually faster than my first! And I beat my mile time from sophomore year field hockey tryouts! And I chicked the most muscular guy there!!!! Bascially, an awesome night.

    Unfortunately, today's separate run and spin on the trainer were condensed because my body wanted to sleep after it woke up at 6:45 and ate pancakes, and seeing as I worked for 10 hours yesterday and got maybe 5 hours of sleep the night before, I figured this was a good idea. What was not a good idea was the other nap I took from 2:45-4:45 after eating lunch, grocery shopping and attempting to find a gluten free, sugar free birthday cake for my papa. I had to hop on the treadmill, do my hour long run with 30 minutes of tempo pace, then go right to the bike. Insert cold sweat, lots of gatorade, and sore calves. And my compression socks are dirty. Do I take them out of the clothes hamper and wear them anyway...?

  

Race Recap

Ah, yes, my 10-miler. A race wrought with friends, sweat, heat, and probably more alcohol than I have ever seen in one place before (note to the race directors: the free champagne and beer was nice and all, but for those of us under 21 who really just want some free bananas and gatorade, I was a little disappointed...). I knew the race wasn't gonna be pretty when I walked outside at 5:30 that morning, in just my sports bra and shorts, and wasn't cold. At all. Because it was already 70 degrees outside...

  On the way to the race, my running buddies and I sat in the car chatting about college roommates, how much we don't want to race, how effing hot it is, etc. and I chug-a-lugged my way through a water bottle of Perpetuem. Smart fueling choice? Yes.  Good thing for the bladder? Decidedly not.

   See, apparently all 4000 other racers also decided that they needed to pee right as me and my buddy Michele were walking up to the porta-potty line. At 6:45. Time we actually got to the bathrooms? 7:15. Race start? 7:30.

   Then ensued quite a bit of scampering as we met up with the rest of our crew, settled into our waves, and found our pace groups. Coach SuperW gave me a whole race plan, but it centered around a pace a little below 8:00, so I stuck with the 1:20 pace group. The leader was hilarious and had an endless supply of factoids about the city and its history, which, in conjunction with my iPod, did a good job of distracting me from the massive amount of hills in the race. At first.
  Then, right as I was set to go up a massive hill at 7:45 pace (normally an easy clip for me, but in 90 degree weather with no shade? Not so much...), I got that lovely reminder of "battery low" on my shuffle. NOOOOOOOO. I had to turn the thing off until mile 8. I knew I might need some wildly inappropriate rap music to power me through the last inclines, and I was willing to sacrifice mid-race jam sessions in order to conserve power for the big hills later on.
    The race was kind of a blur from then until mile 5, where we suddenly got a reprieve from the inclines and were granted a 1.25 flat section around a lake. I saw a bunch of girls from school at the water station, which was awesome, but right afterwards, when I went to pick up the pace per Coach's plan, I felt like someone had filled me legs with sand. No matter how hard I pushed, I couldn't get below an 8:00 pace. I tried to relax and remind myself that I had sweated off at least 3 pounds at this point, so fatigue was inevitable, and was running in direct sunlight with no shade for the next 3 miles, guarenteeing both a wicked sports bra tan and a few mentally shouted expletives because HOLY CRAP WAS IT HOT, and this seemed to help. Going back through the course after the turnaround, I finally got some juice back... sorta.
   Thankfully, Coach had given me recovery miles. Never in my life have I been so happy to see a mile 7 sign- it meant I got an entire MILE's worth of time to recooperate before picking it up for the biggest hills, which, in keeping with almost every race I do, come at the end. Why, race directors, why!?
   Apparently I wasn't the only one who felt like they were breathing in soup from nostrils attached to a face made of fire- a lot of other people looked like they were DYING by mile 9. Like, some people started powerwalking up the last incline. And someone collapsed 250 yards from the finish right after I came in. It was that bad, folks.
    Official finish time was 1:22:22; not the 1:20 I really want, but hey, I wasn't racing, it was freakin' hot, and I didn't taper AT ALL (remember the 11 miler I ran on Thursday?!). Plus, I got a free piece of watermelon and a sweet t-shirt out of it (with no sales tax!!), so all in all, I consider it quite the awesome morning. Only down side? TCBY doesn't open until 11 o'clock, so I had to settle for a post-race Chipotle burrito instead of a pound of froyo. The hard life.
  

Whirlwind Weekend

Ten miler tomorrow. 5 am wakeup call. Race starts at 7:30 am. I work until 9. Prediction of total sleeping time for tonight? 7 hours. MAX.

Now, they always say that the sleep you get two nights before your race is actually the most important, since most people can never really sleep that well the night before a race. Finally, the running Gods smiled down on me and blessed me with a FREAKIN' AWESOME 11-miler last night followed closely by the best night's sleep that I have had in maybe two weeks, so I should be rearin' to go tomorrow morning, or at least coherent enough to talk to my carpool buddies.
   I started last night's run around 7 o'clock, just when the sky was getting scary and dark due to impending storms. Inclement weather doesn't stop this chica, though (ok, I did spend my entire winter training indoors... but I now hate the dreadmill so much that not even 3 episodes of The Hills could make me stay inside for my long run), so I hustled on over to the college where I swim to run their loop approximately 4 billion times (actually, it was only 8, and after 3 loops, I kinda just got in the zone). It helped that I just put new jams on my shuffle, so I got to listen to some Weezy and Jay-Z to distract myself from the nawing ache in my calves.
  WHAT, CALF PAIN?!??! Definitely due to the "easy" spin I did earlier yesterday in my basement. I put the trainer on the incline position of the box for the front wheel, so I was still sweating and pumping despite the so-called easy pace.
    I decided to actually be a smart athlete and eat after my run, instead of just chugging Recoverite and calling it a night like 2 weeks ago, when I ran 13 miles and basically took in almost no calories afterwards and had the strangest hunger dreams of my life. This time, I sipped Recoverite and had a full-blown dinner. My body thanked me properly by conking out as soon as I hit the pillow.
  Then, this morning, I woke up and realized that Oh, crap, it's Friday. That means a ridiculous swim workout. My Coach did not disappoint, and gave us a set that would have totaled 5400yds. This ended up being overly ambitious, though, as 7:30 rolled around and we weren't even near half-way done the last set of 4x400 descending and 4x100 pace. The only other girl there and I (why is it that I am always the last one left? Dedication? Crazyness? Lack of anything better to do in the morning?) decided that doing 2 of the 400s and all the pace work sounded like a good idea, since we wanted to have time left over to work on my flip turns, which on a given day can be either stellar or horrible all over the place. I stuffed a buoy between my legs for the 400's, because I want to have some juice left in the gams for tomorrow (though now I htink my shoulders will die, given the lateral raises I did Wednesday plus all the buoy work), and swam my batooty off for the 100's pace.
   Now, my legs have that awesome jello feeling, I am sitting here doing my version of carboloading (include as many different types of rice-related foods in your diet in one day):
-brown rice flour: check
-rice chips:check
-brown rice: (for dinner) check
-rice cereal: on its way to being a check

  And I have to go find my lifeguarding suit because I have an 8 hour shift today. Oh joy!

At Least My Abs Don't Hurt

Things that are sore right now:                
1. Arms
2. Quads (what else is new?)
3. Calves
4. Butt (oh aluminum frame, how I wish you were carbon!!)

    My Dad often says that pain is a reminder that you are alive, and as long as the pain is limited to a dull ache, I like to follow the same philosophy, but 3 days in a row of leg soreness and I am starting to get a wee bit... irritated. Coupled with the fact that I have no idea how to foam roll my quads, that I shun Tylenol, and that I cannot for the life of me get a restful night's sleep, and the last few days have been what you might call rough. I love when training gets more intense, as it has this week, but when I am having to take two naps a day just to make it through both workouts, my confidence in my abilities starts to wan. It's a terrible feeling to mentally crave a workout, while physically feeling less than stellar. I know deep down that I have the strength and endurance to do any and all workouts that my coach gives me, but sometimes, my body would rather take that 2 hour nap than do speed intervals. So, today, I compromised. I took the 2 hour nap AND did the speed intervals. At 8:30 pm. With my Dad. In the dark. AND IT WAS AWESOME.
   The only way to truly remedy the dragging feeling I am dealing with, I guess, is to look forward to the rest day coming up, or at least me and my Coach's version of a rest day: Friday, when all I have to do is go to swim practice and do core. And then workout 8 hours, go right to bed, get up at 5, go to my race, spin, go to swim practice, go to work until 10:30 pm, get up at 7 to be at work by 8, then work a 6 hour shift followed by a 2 hour bike ride and 30 minute transition run...
   Good thing I like to be busy.