The sick ward

Sigh…this week has been a total bust for workouts.  I have done zip, zilch, nada…  I listened to everyone’s advice and took Tuesday off and Wednesday as well.  I talked to Richelle yesterday (as Angie was on her way back from Cuba) and she told me to just rest Wednesday night and be in bed by 9 pm.  I think that as endurance athletes we have a really hard time with taking rest days when we are sick.  Whether we are worried about losing fitness or if it is because we feel guilty for skipping workouts I’m not sure.  I know that I need to be told that it is okay to rest because you are sick.  And well…it seems like people have been sick for several weeks on end around here so hopefully I can avoid that.

I think Finlay had some sympathy pains on Wednesday.  He didn’t want to eat all day…even turning down cheese!  In the evening he was plastered to the couch next to me. 

I was wondering if a trip to the vet was going to be in order, but when we headed upstairs to bed he spied a squeaky ball!  He ran around with it for a bit making tons of noise, then settled in upstairs.  If he is running around with a squeaky ball then he must be okay!

After spending a couple of days in prime shape to belt out Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes” since my voice was so husky I think things have finally turned a corner.  Today was the first day I woke up not feeling like I had swallowed a pack of razor blades, so I guess we are off to a good start!  Finlay ate some breakfast too so he must be doing better as well.

One thing I didn’t get a chance to mention, was that we had a Team Tri Life party on Saturday night!  It was great to get together and chat with everyone and to see folks wearing something other than the usual spandex!  Caroline even made a triathlon themed cake which I thought was pretty cool (and pretty darn tasty too)!

The Grocery Store

Thanks for all of the great snack ideas folks!  It seems as though chocolate milk is a definite favourite, and I’ll admit that I love it too, especially after a swim.  My new goal for this week is to focus on upping my protein intake by making sure I consume protein with each meal and snack.  I was shocked to see how low my protein intake was when Beth analysed my food log.  Here I thought focusing on having my “one serving size” amount of fish or what have you in my lunch or dinner would do it, but it turns out I’m way low.  The interesting thing is, I read a nutrition book focused on endurance athletes and it stated to not worry about how much protein you take in as chances are you are eating enough.  Well, apparently not…  I think that if you have specific nutritional goals you want to reach that talking to a nutritionist is a great idea.

With upping my protein intake in my mind I stopped off at the grocery store on my way to work yesterday morning.  I picked up skim milk so I could have a glass with my usual bowl of hot cereal in the mornings, plus I grabbed more cottage cheese and fruit to keep on hand for a snack during the day.  My coworkers tease me that I have a veritable grocery store in my office – copious amounts of tea, cereal, granola, dried fruit, hot sauce, olive oil, vinegar, granola bars…not to mention the milk, cottage cheese and canned pumpkin in the fridge.  Since I eat breakfast, lunch and two snacks during the work day I want to be prepared though and not tempted to run and buy a brownie from the coffee shop.

One little tid bit I did want to share with you is this most amazing hot cereal I made yesterday.  I microwaved up a bowl of Bob’s Red Mill 10 grain hot cereal with some chia seeds and half a banana.  The warm gooey banana smell was amazing when it came out of the microwave.  I stirred in some canned pumpkin (hey, its a chance to get in some extra veggies!), topped it off with the remaining banana half, a couple of semi-sweet chocolate chips (gotta get my chocolate fix!) and it was amazing.

I didn’t make it to the pool last night.  I’ve been feeling just a wee bit icky lately.  Mostly a sore throat off and on, some very minor congestion in my chest and sometimes a bit of dizziness.  So I decided not to go to the pool.  I’m still packing my run stuff for today and hoping to make it to spin class, but given that I felt like I was about to pass out after walking up the stairs in my house that may or may not happen.  What I can say for sure though is, my voice is definitely going.  Sigh.

Sniffle, sniffle

I have no one to blame but myself.

After not getting a lot of sleep last week it probably would come as no surprise that I now have the sniffles. Yuck. It all resides in my head though, and not in my chest which is probably somewhat good news.

Despite feeling kind of "meh" on Monday I went to the gym and rocked a run on the treadmill and I felt fantastic. Then I came home and by the time I went to bed it was kind of tough to breathe through my nose. I debated pulling the plug on swimming but for some reason I bolted awake at 4:01 am on Tuesday, well before my alarm was scheduled to go off. Not even Maggie was interested in waking up that early, but I figured that since I was so awake I should get to the pool. And I had a fantastic swim! Because I had gotten up so early that I had a chance to eat a bit of breakfast before going, then knocked out a 2100m workout.

After having such a good run and swim I wasn't sure what to do about my spin on Tuesday night. Ultimately I knew I wanted to get it done and I figured I could just take it easy if I wasn't feeling quite so top notch. I didn't wear a heart rate monitor just in case I did wind up not pushing that hard. Angie's workout though? Not one that was easy to coast through! We did loads of low cadence stuff. Hard work, but it felt really good. The last thing we did was start 6 gears up from our lowest gear, pedal above 100 rpm, drop a gear every 10 seconds for one minute (so you wind up in your hardest gear) and try to keep the rpm as high as possible as you drop down. That was insanity. But of course I was glad I had gone!

Today is a rest day. I get an extra one this week since I'm racing on Sunday. Despite it being a rest day I have a lot of stuff going on, but fingers crossed I'll be able to get to bed early!

Redemption...I Think...

After last week's spin class I arrived at Bow Cycle ready for a little redemption. Sort of... I had some issues to work through. All day yesterday I was feeling the beginnings of a cold that has been making its way around my office. By the end of the day my nose was running, coughing had started and I was getting seriously winded going up stairs. Oh, and not to mention that I was suffering from some serious digestive unhappiness as well. But not going to spin class wasn't an option, and thankfully after a few minutes on the bike all of the issues disappeared. Well...at least temporarily! Coach couldn't make it, so Richelle filled in as our instructor. I promised her that I would work my tail off, and I really felt like I did. I pushed hard to hold my rpms steady over the drills that we did, and I also pushed the gearing and tension on my trainer. There were no heart rate monitors for the class so I can't verify it, but I know that there was no sand bagging last night. My legs were very tired when I got home, so I wolfed down a quick snack of some baked beans and toast, watched CBS declare Obama the winner of the presidential election and McCain's conciliatory speech and called it a night.

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Also, a tip for triathletes in Canada... If you are looking to pick up end of season tri gear on a discount then check out Tri Geeks. They have some really good deals on clothing right now, plus they offer free shipping within Canada. I've got a pair of Zoot shorts and a box of chocolate mint Gu coming my way...can't wait!

Monday and Tuesday Updates

After my coworker threatened to haul me off to the doctor herself I got checked up again last night. The verdict? Still bronchitis! I got another round of antibiotics and an inhaler this time as well. My brother has asthma and used to have the same inhaler as a kid. I remember looking at it and wondering what this inhaler thing felt like. Lucky me, now I know...! With no stern words of "you must rest" from the doctor I high tailed it off to Fit Ball last night. At class I discovered that I have zero push up talent, plus we really worked our glutes, hamstrings and abs. I went home and gathered all of my gear together so I could bike part of the way into work, then called it a night.

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I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 4:15 am....way too early! I'm not sure if I was nervous about the ride or if it was something else but there was no getting back to sleep for me. I was on the road and parked at Edworthy at 6:15 am where I met up with Neil to bike in. As soon as I got on the bike I realized my "saddle" was still sore from testing out the saddle on Sunday. I'm not really a speedy biker but I did make it to work in one piece, and after fiddling with my lock in the parking garage for awhile I was still in the office before 7 am. The total distance in was 4.44 miles. I hit the pathway over lunch to run 3.24 miles. I didn't want to push too hard since my legs still need to bike home, but I somehow managed an average of 10:15/mi with a fairly conservative effort. Boy...if this is how I run while I'm sick, wait till I'm better!

*I should note, if I actually felt crappy while I was running and working out, I would rest, but otherwise I'm feeling pretty good right now. Just don't listen to my chest with a stethoscope...*

My new toy! And the 8 miler...

I had the best of intentions to run Saturday morning. My alarm went off at 5:30 so I could in theory be out on the road around 6 since I had a ton of stuff to do during the day. When the alarm went off I realized I was not well rested as my cough had resulted in a pretty fractured sleep. I turned the alarm off and rolled over and decided that running was just not happening that day. The rest of Saturday was crazy busy as Neil and I were hosting a wine tasting and tapas party at my place. We prepped a ridiculous amount of food - raw oysters, bacon wrapped blue cheese stuffed dates, garlic mushrooms, albondigas (a.k.a. meatballs) in a chipotle sauce and chicken with peppers, onions and chorizo. Plus cheeses and olives courtesy of my brother and sister-in-law. All followed by a chocolate fondue. People brought two bottles of the same kind of wine with them - one to taste at the party and one to go into the wine exchange pot so people could take a new bottle home with them. We wound up with 8 or 9 bottles to taste among 14 of us and it was a great time. I may have made a little too much food as I can probably get away with not cooking all week. Umm, needless to say when I woke up on Sunday morning I might have been a little hungover. So....no run on Sunday morning. I eventually felt human enough to head down to Bowcycle to do a little road bike shopping though! I had been eyeing the Cannondale Synapse Femenine 7 but my size was no longer out on the floor. I looked at the Specialized Dolce and Dolce Elite and the Kona Lisa RD. The Kona Lisa was a few bucks less than the Dolce Elite, it fit better and had better components than all the other bikes I was looking at. After a test spin around the neighborhood I was in love.

So there we go folks, I am now the proud owner of a brand new bike. Calgary has a great system of bike paths so my goal is to commute into work via bike as often as possible during the week. There is a monster hill between the end of the bike path and my neighborhood so if I don't cycle in straight from my house I can at least drive down to Edworthy Park and cycle in from there if some days my legs aren't up for the climb. I also wanted a bike that would be usable for the day I want to branch out into duathlons and triathlons.

Anyhow...after all was said and done I wasn't sure whether to bag my run or not. My cough was feeling better but I sounded awful (hello laryngitis). I knew I would feel really disappointed if I didn't get any miles in over the weekend though, so at 7 pm I set out for my run. I must have managed to rehydrate well enough because the run went pretty well. Since I was running through my neighborhood it even came complete with some pretty good hills. I finished up, cooked up some rice and microwaved some albondigas and pretty well was out for the night after that. I'm definitely happy I didn't skip my run, and I cannot wait to take my bike out for a proper ride..!!

This is getting old...

So....my "rah rah" feeling from my great runs on Tuesday and Wednesday has turned into more of a "woe is me" feeling courtesy of this ridiculous cough that seems determined to plague me. It is just as bad as it was back in January/February when I had bronchitis. Maybe it still is bronchitis? All I know is, this is getting old. Rest isn't making it go away and I'm not sure if being active is helping or hurting things. It may not be the smartest thing but I am determined to get my 8 mi run in this weekend. My coworker said something interesting earlier this week about being sick - sometimes you get so tired of resting that you figure you'll just go out running again with the idea being that you will either work this thing out of your system or you'll still feel crappy but at least you were running. I think I like that idea. In the event that the 8 mi run doesn't help to shake this thing off I have a doctor's appointment on Monday in case I need one of those puffer things. And also because another coworker threatened to take me to the doctor herself if I didn't go on my own.