The Eagle Has Landed!

Good idea:
Make a carrot cake and braised ribs for Uncle Doug's birthday

Bad Idea:
Frost the cake first thing in the morning while drinking coffee, and by "frost" I mean eat frosting for breakfast.  Then do my hill workouts.

Today was a milestone! I got my very own home!  Bucky the trailer was lovingly pulled here by my amazing aunt and uncle.  I thought I'd blow a gasket of joy watching them pull into the driveway with all 30 feet of silver glory in tow.

In other news, I went to a running/yoga clinic tonight, good reminders about a lot of stuff I've learned.  But more and more I am finding the reminding totally worthwhile.  There are so many things I know and don't practice or want to practice more of.

Like: more drills in my running, stronger push off, more torso rotation, faster more consistent cadence.  I also realized that there is little I appreciate more than someone sitting me down and leading me in stretching.

Aside from the frosting incident it was a great day and I'll slumber well with visions of perfect form and floor plans dancing in my head.

Montage Morning

My Morning Montage Moment:




Soundtrack: Kenny Loggins: "I'm Free"
Doing my core workout
Making a fruit smoothie

The good stuff

 I'm home from Eugene now, happily back from a lovely evening and morning in Portland with wonderful people.  Excited to catch up more with more people, it feels like I've been gone a long time.

I love my friends

This week starts Build 2 phase.  Goodbye recovery week, this means longer long workouts, continued speed and hill workouts, and the beginning of Brick workouts.  Sounds fun huh?
Here's a typical week this phase:
Monday: Long ride 5ish hours
Tuesday: Ride 45 minutes and Swim 30 minutes and Core workout
Wednesday: Run Hills:45 minutes and Bike Hills: 1 hour
Thursday: Long Swim: 2.4 miles including drills and Bike 45 minutes
Friday: Speed day, 1 hour each in pool, on bike and on the track
Saturday: Off!
Sunday: Run 2.5 hours

Here's why I like training right now:
-I'm in too deep to feel OK about skipping workouts, a skipped workout means pain later, it's rare that a gal like me can't justify her way out of doing something.

-Long bikes/runs/swims are forcing me to keep my mind in the moment, which is another thing a gal like me sometimes forgets to practice.  There's no point in thinking about what I'll be doing in an hour when I'll still be on my bike or doing some other sport.

-I'm getting nervous which usually feels like excitement with less than 3 months to Ironman

-I'm an eating MACHINE!

Eugenes

Got up Thursday a little sore, hopped on trainer for 45 minutes of drills, swam for an hour and a half, broke my goggles and felt like a real swimmer for having worn out some swim thing.


  I did some speedy swimming Friday here in Eugene. There was a water Zumba class with kickin tunes and sassy laughing ladies and kids doing cannonball contests. I was swimming with the boring workout swimmers realizing that no matter how many goggles I break, I will always be more of a cannonballing underwater hipshaking dancer than a serious swimmer. I haven't lost myself yet.

 Eugene has been weirdly tropical with sudden showers and sun, we're working right next to the life flight helipad, which is exciting, I get all starstruck when I talk to the helicopter pilots in their jumpsuits.

Sunday I ran 15 miles after work, half of the May 1 marathon route.  It was a lovely flat riverside run of podcasts and hippies smoking weeds.  I was sore after so I did a cold bath which I've never felt like a serious enough athlete to try, turns out, they work.  No soreness Monday.


Today I biked 5.5 hours listening to Eckhardt Tolle's Power of Now.  Feeling super present, also my internal dialogue has a funny german accent now.  

Bean sweat

It's a sunny beeeeeutiful day here.  I went to Booth Hill road to clean out my lungs on some hills.  Warm up then 6 x 2 minutes moderate 2 minutes eye popping hard then cool down.  Girl Talk has a new album.  It does the trick.

I then went to my Coach's for a little wattage test.  It involved me biking as hard as I could for 1, 2, 6, and 12 minutes to see if I have the power to complete the race before cut off so we know if I need to train time or power.  I got the power!

 The Swim cut off is 2:20 and I can make that.  The bike cut off is 10:30 hrs after start.  So that's 9 hrs if I swim for 1.5 hours.  That means I need to keep above 13mph, which should be doable.  We'll do a 100 mile ride in the next little bit so I can get over that mental hurdle.  The test was sweaty but good.

 In other news I've made some delicious eating breakthroughs:

1. Fast and easy food and awesome take along lunch = a can of beans + frozen veggies + some tasty sauce! Eat it hot or eat it cold a few hours later.  It's doing the trick.

2. Brilliance is quinoa + feta + parsley + tomatoes

3. Tasty white beans + avocado + tomatoes + cilantro + cholula

4. Mama Mia! Spaghetti Squash + tomato sauce with ground turkey and fennel + parm

It's off to Eugene tomorrow after a bike and a long swim and then into the 10 day crazy that is sandwiching work outs between before 8am, 12-1, and between 5 and dark.  I guess that's called work.  Right.

Also this:

The conversation in the swim locker room today:

Girl 1: I had the cutest baby today!
Girl 2: Who was the dad?
Girl 1: Connor who is actually super annoying and hardly helps.  But our baby is so cute.  So at least he helped some, in the baby's face.
-Middle School Girls talking about a science lab

Desert and Back Update:

• I swam 2.2 miles just before I got on the plane to Tucson last week! The actual non warm up non cool down part was just 1.5 miles, but it did wonders for my swim confidence in preparation for the 2.4 mile Iron distance.  



Saguaro and a Tree making love on my run

• I loved my time in the SW.  I forgot that that's a go-to-get-warm place.  After a rough 2am arrival and sleeping without a sleeping bag it was nothing but up and up.  There were lunch time bikini pool meetings, running among the saguaro cacti, and camping out in a tent to kick off what I hope to be a tent filled tent season. The course was great, awesome co instructor, great students, and fun folks.  I got to swim in an outdoor pool which was a real treat at the Tucson Y.
• I got home Sunday and got to see my step dad and little sister in Portland with Boo and the eager to be born Blueberry baby and Brian.  We made pasta and ate fro yo.  I love my family.
• Yesterday I got home and Nina visited.  It was great friendship update.  I rode the trainer and watched Empire Records while she napped.  Then we found a bat in the house!
• Good news was: It was so cute! Bad news was: Bats are Oregon's Rabies reservoir, and this batlett was a little wonky.  We caught it in a bowl and cookie sheet and took it for a walk while we wondered how to let it go with no risk of contact to it.  Our brilliant solution was to set the bowl/cookiesheet on a stump and then from far away throw sticks at it until it toppled and Batty Warbucks was free.  Nina and I would probably perish pronto if survival was based on stick throwing skills.  So we changed strategies to lifting off the bowl and running.  That worked better.  The Batlett was free and we were not rabied. 
• So it's back to winter today.  Nina's hit the road after Kale shakes and I'm off to rainy foggy errands and a swim.

Thanks!

Dear Cosmos,
 Thanks for making me practice patience and small step living.  Thank you for making the lesson super clear.  You couldn't be doing a better job.
 It's amazing how you've been able to create a situation with so many variables of my life on standby.  Whereas I'd usually be charging forward on home/life/love/plan projects, you've really done a super complete job of forcing me to live in the present.  It's a little crazy making, but just the same I appreciate the thorough lesson.
Nice Work!
 Love,
Renee

Big Plans

I'm off to go swim 2 miles (biggest swim yet, and a great opportunity to see how the road rash fares in the pool), I got the accordion music to "Every Rose Has It's Thorn," and am flying to Tucson for work and sunshine.  Things are going to be OK.

Upcoming Races!

Want to come?

5/1 Eugene Marathon: Run 26.2 running with Ori and Dad's walking the half, you still have plenty of time to train if you want to kick those winter blues in the balls.

6/11 Blue Lake Sprint Triathlon:  750m swim (.5mi), 20km bike (12.4mi), 5km run (3.1mi)

6/12 Blue Lake Olympic Triathlon: 1.5km swim (.9), 40 km bike (24.9mi), 10km run (6.2mi)

6/26 Ironman Coeur D'Alene: 3.8 km swim (2.4mi), 180 km bike (112mi) 42.2 km run (26.2)

Worked

Remember how I was all like "haha I crashed!" eff that.  I hurt.
I woke up today feeling like a 200 year old.  The kind of neck kink that will get you in trouble.  The kind that only lets you nod "yes", no shaking "no." A hip that hurts to touch and bend, a sore ribcage, and some really sticky wounds.  I'm confident I'm not broken, but I am busted and was in a real foul mood about it. I love that spleens are on the left. 
 I headed down to Hood River to get a new bike tire because my trainer ate mine, had a heckuva time getting the tire on with cold hands, busted 2 knuckles and hit the road for a 4.5 hour ride.  It was super sunny this morning and I have no idea how to dress for a bike ride that is half hot climbs half shady flying down hills.  I wore shorts, a jersey, a wool shirt, and little fingerless bike gloves.
 I battled my sore body and sled crashed mood with lots of Guns n Roses, which seemed to help.
2 hours into the ride I noticed I was frozen.  I pedaled harder hoping to warm up.  I couldnt feel my feet, and later my hands and I started making this weird low humming pain noise.
 I would choose most pains over cold any day I've decided.
Being cold hurts, I forgot this until I walked into a pond during the Fossil course last month pretending to be a diabetic gone wild.  It hurt! And today I was reminded again.
 Anyhoo, the ride was hard and very painfully cold.  I got to my car and flung my numb hands at the doors until they opened.  Turned on the heat, thawed slightly.  Ate a huge burrito, drove home, stood in the shower until I could feel 8/10 of my toes,  the next thing I know I woke up at 6:30pm, I am warm and sore and better now.
 I have a lot to learn about bicycle apparel.

Lil Wayne Hill Smack Down

We got our asses handed to us yesterday morning sledding at Lil John Snow Hill.  It was a Beautiful morning.  The mountain was beaming.  Friends had to get back to town so we headed up tot he hill for just one or two runs.  That means you have to go big.

 Sika and I climbed the hill. Lil John was a little wet and there wasn't a ton of snow on it, but there were folks out.  We boldly climbed past them.  At the top, a man below stood and watched us.  Sika said "I think he's scared for us." 
 The second we lifted out feet we were going 900mph.  Turns out there's a lot of jumps on the hill that were hard to see.  I had one hand clawing the rubber of the tube, and the other was holding Sika.  I actually thought we had it until we hit a big bump.  I remember Sika silhouetted against the sky about four feet above me.  I reached up to grab her back to earth and I think it was like when you double bounce in a trampoline.  When she came back to the tube via my face, we both flew.  Needless to say we lost the tube, grabbed each other and took the rest of the 30 feet of sharp ice vertical on the skin of my right side, Sika's wrist, my hip, and her back.  It was amazing. I drew a picture.

 I laughed out loud through my whole 15 mile afternoon run.  Smiling and reassuring folks concerned that I looked like I just got run over by a truck that I was fine.
 When I got home I was confused as to why I felt like total shit.  Tired, thirsty, hungry, hurting, bleeding, sore, and grumpy.  It's so weird how perplexing it can be to figure out that maybe I feel bad because I'm tired and hurt, like a baby.
 I ate, dressed and cleaned my wounds, drank water, and will sleep like a very sore baby.

Beginner's Mind

Here's something I love about this: It's all totally new.  I got a golf score (seconds plus strokes for 50m) of 87 in the pool yesterday, I've never gotten sub 90 yet, and at the start I was getting 136, so it feels like a huge progress.  Being new to this, everyday is a personal best, there's no past to measure up against.

 I love that about having a coach too, I only know what I know, and being new to the sport that's not a lot.  I love learning it in bite sized pieces, through conversations and workouts.  Tiny steps.

 Just saying, it's really healthy for me to practice not really knowing the big picture and just swimming one lap at a time when the whole workout is hard to wrap my head around.

Time off makes it way easier to do my workouts, I'm back on the pony, sore and feeling strong.
I swam 1.4 miles yesterday with a trainer ride.  Today is a swim speed workout, trainer ride, and a track workout, and a trip to Portland.

Time on the trainer is also a great time watch ALOT of TV on the internet.
Here's the current faves:

Transgeneration is an eight episode documentary about the lives of four transgender college students.  It's super inspiring in a coming of age make your own kid of music got to be me sort of way.  Also it's on Netflix Instant Watch.

Also thanks to John and Abby, the Mighty Boosh is rocking my rides.  Fuzzymanpeach.

Super American

Here's what a ribs and slaw dinner party inspires:
Challenge: Draw the USA without looking.

Canidians!

Don't knock it til you try it.


Then watch this:

Bombity bomb bomb

I just knit this hat!

3 leaves red kale
1 frozen banana
1 braeburn apple
3 cups OJ
half a squeezed lemon
a splash of maple syrup

Whip it.
Drink it.
Twist it. Bop it.

Getting back on the Pony

Back home for 9 nights!!  It's been snowing like nobody's business, but the driveway is still mostly operable.  Lots of time for projects and finally time to give my training the space it deserves in my life.  I got in the pool yesterday which felt great.  I really missed it with the lung mung.
 It was a long weekend in Portland with snow days, friends, Portland International Film Fest, family and Boos' baby shower! The little blube could come any day now which is thrilling.  The funniest part of the shower was when I told my cousin to punch me in the face if I ever say "binky" and she did.  I'm ok though, it spiced the gift opening up for me a bit for sure.
 I also got to spend some time out at Ekone ranch this weekend.  It's a horse ranch, camp, natural burial ground run by awesome ladies and good people.  We got snowed in for a sec, saunaed, ate ribs, hiked, fed horses, and talked about exciting future collaborations between me and there.  It's rad how things and places and people come into your life.  I heard about Ekone last year in an AP article about natural burial grounds, then there was a gal at the Back Fence storytelling a few weeks ago telling a story about there, then when I met the gal I bought the big trailer from on the Max she invited me out there.  
 Speaking of people coming into life, Hood River is doing me good these days, I'm feeling more at home, running into folks when I go into town, having a little dinner game party tonight with more ribs and slaw than you can shake a stick at.
Time to gear up for some snow shoveling and a hill bike and hill run workout, we're starting base 3 this week, the last base chunk of this training.  I'm a little nervous because I missed so many workouts these last few weeks, but nothing to do but get back on this pony and ride.