Total Body Blitz

I probably should have been more specific when I said I was back on a plan.  True, it is a plan, but these first few weeks are just about getting my body used to running again.  My runs range from 30 minutes to 1 hour with no real speed work.  Just a few fartleks at the end of one run or running drills at the end of another.  Slowly but surely running is starting to feel a bit better.  I ran with Kelly on Tuesday and we had a good run where we pondered just how much we thought we had recovered.  The conclusion that we came to?  That while we feel good on a day to day basis we are still tired and workouts are still feeling harder then they used to.  I guess it does take awhile to recover from an Ironman…

Following my plan to mix things up I went to my first group fitness class in ages to the gym downstairs at work on Wednesday.  It was called Total Body Blitz and it promised a total body strength workout that would give me that Hollywood sculpted look.  No kidding!  It was a 45 minute class with a ton of squats, lunges, push ups, dead lifts, bicep curls…you name it.  By the end of the class my muscles were shaking.  Thursday was a total case of delayed onset muscle soreness.  I had completely forgotten that I had some of these muscles in my body.

Yeah, I’ll totally be back next week…

Legs…where are you???

Sigh, I maybe was not the smartest cookie with my workouts this weekend.

Exhibit #1:

I actually slept in on Saturday morning, as in, I woke up at 10:00 am.  Does anyone else wake up at 10:00 am on the weekend and suddenly think, “oh no, the day is over!”  I do! 

Oh well, I got up and chatted with my parents on Skype (who just made it home from their around the world vacation) so I could say hi to my fur ball Finlay.  I have missed that little character!  With any luck he’ll be back here soon.  By the time that was done I figured I’d spin instead of do my run/swim combo that was on my schedule.  It was a really good spin too that involved a lot of low cadence strength work.  4 x 5 min of hard low cadence (between 60-70 rpm) and after each interval I’d get off the bike and do squats for 1.5 minutes.  After my first interval I realized that I had been a bit of a weenie on the gearing/trainer tension so after that I really socked it to my legs.  I just kept telling myself that this was what I needed to build towards riding that tough Ironman Canada course!  On my last set of squats my legs were shaking…

It was a great spin workout, but on Sunday when I started running I realized that I would have been much better off if I hadn’t swapped those two workouts around.  My legs were beat!  Thankfully, I only had a 45 minute run to do, but the pace wasn’t quite as good as last week’s 45 minute run.  Surprisingly I actually ran one of my most evenly paced runs ever though.  Hmm.

Exhibit #2

I finished my run right at the YMCA and went inside to change for my swim.  I had eaten lunch at 1 pm, started running at 3 pm and hopped in the pool at 4 pm.  As I was showering before getting in the pool I remembered that I had a chocolate mint GU in my gym bag that I had meant to eat, but I didn’t want to run back to my locker since I was now soaking wet.  So I jumped in the pool instead.

First off, it was a bit of a gong show when I got there.  The 25m pool is completely roped off with lanes for aqua-jogging, and slow, medium and fast lanes.  But there were people who were bobbing around and playing at the end of one of the medium lanes.  I grabbed the other medium lane just as its other two inhabitants were leaving.  There was a guy in the fast lane powering through workout next to me.  Just as I was getting in two kids (in boxer shorts????  yuck…) jumped into the fast lane and started clowning around in it, thoroughly pissing off the guy who was swimming there.  I’m not sure if words were exchanged or not, but the swimmer took off soon and eventually the kids went back to the training pool.

Anyhow, I only had an 1800 m workout on my schedule but I had absolutely no juice.  It was one slow go from one end of the pool to the other.  I should have taken that GU!  I decided I was tired of trudging through the workout at 1000 m and called it a day.

Hopefully I’ve learned a few lessons from the weekend!  And, finally!!!  My Christmas tree came down yesterday!  I have to admit that my living room feels somewhat bare without it though.  Happy Monday all!

Disturbing

Well, today’s trip to Edmonton went not too badly.  There isn’t anything like spending 6+ hours on the road for an hour and a half meeting though…driving the Dodge Caravan of style!!

As I was driving north this morning a Honda CRV pulled on to the highway in front of me, maybe an hour out of Edmonton.  Her driving was interesting…nothing too crazy erratic, but every once in awhile she’d pull a manoeuvre that made you think she wasn’t quite paying attention.

When we hit the south side of Edmonton we wound up stopping at a light.  I looked over at her and she was taking a massive swig out of what was unmistakeably a bottle of vodka.  It was a large clear glass bottle with red metal at the neck.  Once she was done she grabbed a bottle of water and took a swig out of that.  It was 9:30 am.  Sad…

On to happy things.  When I made it back to town I hit up the Y for a round of strength training.  I focused on upper body and worked hard.  Once my arms felt sufficiently like jello it was time to go, and I picked up some sushi on my way home.  Keep your fingers crossed for me that I can make it to the pool tomorrow morning!

Happy birthday to my mom!!!  Thursday is her birthday.  And to all my American friends, I hope you guys have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

I <3 new bike toys!!

I fully admit it, I’m a numbers nerd.  I love my Garmin.  I don’t live by the numbers during a workout, but I do like to know how far, how fast at the end of the day.  I did have a Sigma bike computer earlier, but it went belly up back in July.  Then I picked up the Garmin cadence sensor so I could use my Forerunner 305 as my bike computer.  After all, GPS, cadence…what’s not to love?

But the battery life on the Forerunner would be sketchy during an Ironman.  Typical life is 10 hours so between the bike and the run it may be touch and go.  I was originally wowed by the flashy new 310XT.  Waterproof?  A 20 hour battery life?  Sweet!  But for a retail price of $400 Cdn it is a little tough to justify for just a bit of extra battery life.

Enter the Garmin Edge 305.  A slightly nicer price point, and it is bike specific.  It attaches to your stem or handlebars so it is easier to read and it records cadence, heart rate, speed, altitude…  Awesome!  And thanks to *cough, cough* eBay *cough, cough* I got a pretty good deal.  It arrived in the mail earlier in the week and I set it up.  Quick and easy!  Isn’t it pretty?

I really wanted to take the Edge out for a spin, but not just any old spin on the trainer.  I wanted to take it outdoors!  And since Saturday it was sunny out I decided I could brave the chilly wind and bundle up for a ride.  By the time I got going I didn’t have a ton of daylight left, but I managed just over 15.5 mi in an hour.  I haven’t ridden outdoors since maybe September but it felt so good to be outside!  Sure, the wind was chilly and seriously a bear (up to 35 kph or 22 mph).  Going up and down the hills north of my neighbourhood was a lot of fun though.

And the Edge?  I love it!  Everything I love about my Forerunner, but just better for the bike.  I need to play around with the display a little more though.  If you pick four fields to display the two on the bottom are fairly small to read, especially if one of them is cadence.

Sunday I hit up the Y to do a little strength workout.  It has probably been a year since I actually did some strength training at the Y??  It felt good to pump some iron (haha!!!).  What didn’t feel good?  Finding it next to impossible to pull up my emergency parking brake in my car this evening!!!  Hello DOMS!  Alright, it is 9:30 pm…I may have skipped swimming thanks to working late tonight, but now I need to get to bed!!

Today’s post is brought to you by…

Today’s post is brought to you by the colour purple and the letter F.

The colour purple? My poor digital camera has really taken a beating from being carried about on the race course. The shutter doesn’t close properly anymore. It takes half decent pictures, but camera technology has come a long way. So yesterday I stopped by The Camera Store to pick up my birthday present – the Nikon Coolpix S630. In purple of course!

I didn’t have a lot of time in the evening, but I wanted to get some upper body strength training in. I pulled out one of my old videos from The Firm and got to work.

Finlay kept me company while I worked out.

Then I headed out to hang out with my adorable niece for the evening. We had a blast reading before bed time. I pulled out Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book just before bedtime. Avery was hilarious, fake yawning with the book and laughing every time there was a picture of a character yawning. We had a great time last night.

As for the letter F? F is for FLAT!! I was running a bit late for our group ride this evening and as soon as I looked at my bike in the garage I realized the back tire was completely flat. Uh oh! I pumped up the tire and the pressure held…so I threw the bike on the rack, the pump in the back of the car, and headed out. We were doing bike/run repeats – a 6K out and back on the bike, with a 5 minute tempo run. Repeat. Things were going well until I started in on my third repeat and my back tire was looking pretty flat. I turned around early and made it back, but it was a good thing I didn’t try to do the entire distance. I went for one last repeat and that was about it. Kind of a disappointing end to the biking this evening, but oh well!

The fun was far from over though! One of my teammates was selling her wetsuit – a Blue Seventy Synergie in medium. Why on earth would I be interested in her wetsuit? Because unfortunately I found out that my wetsuit is way too big for me now. :( It took at least 15 minutes and 2 people to get me into the Synergie wetsuit, so that was my biggest key that this suit fit me much better.

So, if any ladies out there are looking for a Blue Seventy Reaction in medium large I officially have one for sale. Just send me an e-mail at runnerleana at gmail dot com. It is practically brand new!

A Lunch Time Combo

Today's scheduled run? A tempo run/hill repeat combo. Warm up, run 3 x 1:00 hill repeats, run 15:00 at a tempo pace, then run 3 more 1:00 hill repeats, cool down. Sounds like good times, eh? It was 2°C and nice and sunny out over lunch, so there was a part of me that contemplated running in capris. Ultimately I wussed out and went with the running tights, which was probably the smarter option.

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Last night I spent a good amount of time setting up my workouts in the Garmin Training Center for the next three weeks, plus inputting pace ranges for steady state and tempo runs. Except I only altered a couple of pace zones and left a few of the default ones in there. This would cause some issues later...

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I ran for 15 minutes to warm up and I sort of forgot that for the next five minutes I was supposed to alternate 1 minute of hard running with 2 minutes of easy running. I completely forgot about it and started running hill repeats. That is what happens when you don't look at your Garmin when it beeps at you... So I accidentally got in two bonus hill repeats. My first -- five -- hill repeats were good. I pushed hard and was ready for my 15 minutes at a tempo pace. When I started running Garmin said I was at an easy jog and kept telling me to slow down. Apparently an easy jog to Garmin means anywhere between a 8:00 - 10:00/mi pace. My tempo pace is somewhere between 9:17 - 9:45...apparently. And the way my Garmin is set up it doesn't actually tell me my pace per lap, so I had no idea where I was falling in this range. But I knew that if I slowed down it would be too easy so I just ran at what I thought was a hard pace and tried to ignore Garmin frantically beeping at me for 15 minutes telling me to slow down. I got back to the hill for my remaining three hill repeats and my legs were feeling it on that first repeat. I was slow... For the second repeat there were two ladies in front of me a bit, and I imagined that I tied a rope around them and that they were pulling me up the hill. I used this technique on the third repeat and it is amazing how much it helps! I ran at a very easy pace to cool down. Once I was done I found a bench that I could use for my strength workout - 3 x 0:45 each of step ups, lunges, squats, and tricep dips. I normally add in hamstring curls on a ball (but alas, no ball today) and push ups, but it was a bit cold for those so I fit those in later. Otherwise, here are the details:

• Accidental hill repeat #1: 10:13/mi
• Accidental hill repeat #2: 9:47/mi
• Hill repeat #1: 9:32/mi
• Hill repeat #2: 10:35/mi
• Hill repeat #3: 9:59/mi
• Tempo run: 15:00 at 9:00/mi
• Hill repeat #4: 10:46/mi
• Hill repeat #5: 10:03/mi
• Hill repeat #6: 10:18/mi

Struggles and Gains

I've talked a bit about this before, but I thought it may be worth revisiting. Ever since university I've struggled with my weight. I know I can pin point it to my fall work term after second year. I was working in Rocky Mountain House, AB which is a pretty small town. I know I was frequenting fast food establishments on a very regular basis and that was when I learned that my metabolism just wasn't what it used to be. I lost some of the weight before leaving school, but then once I started working it became a struggle again. I was probably at my heaviest in the spring of 2006. Around that time I started to keep track of my weight and had a little notebook that I wrote my measurements down in, all in the name of tracking progress. The scale has gone down and come back up, but for the first time in a long time I think those days of yo-yoing are over. Last night as I was getting ready to head to the gym I was curious to see just what the difference is. Twenty pounds and many inches later, here's the difference:

March 2006

October 2008

Much better glasses now too, wouldn't you say? Anyhow, it is still a work in progress, but I know a big part of the change has been incorporating swimming and biking in to the mix. And nutrition...that is definitely still a work in progress...

Otherwise, last night it was off the Y. I'm not sure what has happened to me. Despite the weather being not too bad outside I opted for the treadmill to get my 30 min run in. I had weights to do afterwards and somehow it seemed like it would all get done quicker if I just ran on the tready. Seriously though...I hate the treadmill and last night was just not a good run. My shins were hurting so I tried to dial back the pace a bit but that didn't help either. And I was just watching the clock, watching the minutes tick down to 30. I finally paused the treadmill to stretch my lower legs out and it was like a major revelation, finally my legs felt good to go! I bumped the speed back up. When I hit 30 min I was just short of 3 mi and I really wanted to get 3 mi done so I kept at it. Afterwards I took a spin around the weight floor, got some core work in and called it a night.

Weather - getting in the way of working out

Our forecast for yesterday:

Snowfall warning in effect.

Today Day: Rain mixed with snow changing to snow at times
heavy this afternoon. Rainfall amount 5 to 10 mm. Snowfall amount 5 to 10 cm.
Wind northeast 30 km/h. Temperature steady near plus 2.

Night: Snow at times heavy ending overnight then cloudy.
Amount 5 to 10 cm. Wind northeast 30 km/h becoming light this evening. Low minus 1.

Just before 4 pm the storm started rolling through. Sheena wound up cancelling our boot camp class because the pathway where we were supposed to run hill repeats was flooding and the roads were a mess. I debated running my own hill repeats around my neighborhood but the rain was just a bit too heavy and temperature just a bit too low so I figured it would be miserable out there. I also debated going to hot yoga, but the class would finish at 9:30 and I wasn't sure what things would be like if the rain turned to snow while I was in class. At the end of the day I wound up popping a strength training DVD in for a total body workout instead.