Heather's Rules of Taper

Tomorrow begins the first of two weeks of taper for Lake Placid. Luckily I had three good workouts today - fast-ish long run, 50x50 swim, and an easy spin on the trainer while appropriately watching the Tour de France and reading chick lit.

If anyone knows me, they know I hate taper time. I'm like, what am I suddenly going to do with all my free time? Luckily Heather, as a former competitive college swimmer, has a list of things to do, or not do, during taper:

1. Do not run when you can walk.
2. Do not stand when you can sit.
3. Do not take stairs when there is an elevator.
4. Lightweight shoes.
5. Always sleep by yourself.
6. Don't get hit by cars.

So out of those 6 things, I feel I can only really do number 6. Maybe 1 since I hate running in flip-flops. And I don't think there is an elevator in the building I currently work in.

TWO WEEKS!! And congrats to Jocelyn for winning overall female at the Korea Ironman!

La La Land

I think my brain was MIA all week. It culminated with me walking out onto the pool deck in my swim suit but with none of my equipment even though it was sitting right next to my swim bag when I pulled it out of the car. It's back to being empty. In other news, work seems to be going a lot smoother. I feel semi-useful and semi-productive, compared to my previous group where I wasn't particularly motivated to work. But since my mind has disappeared without giving me any notice, I will feature two blogs and one thought in this post.

1. I want to go back to undergrad college life. I thought college sucked and the working world was awesome, uh scratch that. SO NOT TRUE. I miss being able to get dinner or gelato or Coldstone with my friends on campus. I miss hanging out at people's apartments. I miss being in control of my own schedule.

2. You should check out this blog. It's written by my friend and co-worker from my previous group Ryan. Interesting posts and nice photos.

3. You should also check out this blog. Written by the oldest friend I have managed to keep (since nursery school!) Heather she's got some good stuff on urban planning and sociology-related topics. Plus she's doing her first tri this summer! In particular, look for a post on donuts.

Change, But Still the Same

In the past two days I have seen four of my college friends. One of them works at the same place as me, two others live in parts of California, and the last is all the way in Texas. It's interesting though that despite not having seen some of them in over a year, the way we interact is still the same as it was back at school. It also makes me appreciate the friendships I developed in college a lot more. It's funny that so many of us migrated to California, yet we don't really see each other often. I'm glad though that we are still friends. Moving to an area like Sacramento makes it hard to make really good friends like those in college. This area is very suburban with lots of families, meaning not that many people similar in age to me. Which is alright, because I have made some good friends/acquaintances through swimming and biking, but it's not necessarily the same since all of them are busy with their own families and lives. In college everyone is in the same place (physically and in life) and we take classes together and study together and in general, spend a decent amount of time together. And since college was my favorite period in life so far (okay I realize my life is only 23 years long and college was 20% of that) it's nice to be able to still be friends with the people whom I shared experiences and good times. That and real life sucks even more than the work at college. And since the friends haven't changed all that much, and mentally I haven't changed that much, our conversations are still very much the same and so is the interaction. Which of course is refreshing, knowing that not everything in life is different.

Well anyways, the more social I get, the less training I do and the less sleep I get. Not regretting it at the moment though... as long as I am enjoying myself I think it's okay. Less than 3 weeks until the ultimate test.

Swimming Backwards

Somehow in the past month, maybe due to stress, maybe due to lots of biking and running, my swim stroke deteriorated. Like to worse than it was when I got here in early February. And somehow I knew that, since my swim times were increasing and I suddenly realized I wasn't actually going anywhere in the water. So instead of doing something productive about it, I took a week off from swimming. And in that week of course, my life fell apart. Work issues, training burn out, personal issues... it's always like an avalanche. One thing pops out and everything crashes down. Luckily I was able to resolve my personal issue and I ran a lot, and I think I'm back on track there. Work still sucks, but at least the manager who hired me is siding with me. So I think I'm feeling a little better overall, though unfortunately work plays such a large part in my life I haven't regained all my focus yet. And I think when I lost that focus (whenever it was) is when my swimming started to suck also. It takes a lot of energy and concentration to swim well! And it gets awfully boring, and it takes longer to get to the pool and start swimming, and excuses excuses. So I decided to try to solve my problem. How did I do this? I first took another swim lesson to figure out what is going wrong and to recognize that and then to try to fix it. Secondly, I went back to master's swim. I realized maybe the reason I liked swimming so much last year is because it was FUN to swim with other people. And chat too, of course. And chat in the locker room after. And I missed that this year. There is no entertainment swimming by myself. So to get into the pool today, I told myself I'd do my own set and then join the master's workout. And it worked! And I got to talk with the coach and the regulars in the group. Hopefully this momentum continues...

Another Epic Weekend

The week preceding this weekend was far from epic, aside from me crying twice in 6 days, once on the bike while headed down (or up, since apparently the people who built the road thought it'd be fun to create a hilly road on the way down to the lake) to Folsom Lake. It wasn't pretty.

So I told myself I had to make up for the shitty week this weekend. Despite the record high temperatures (yesterday was 101 at least and today was at least 108) I got 101 miles on the bike on Saturday that I followed up with a 5 mile brick run. At the very end of this run I ran up Scarborough Road, this super steep road in my friend's neighborhood. Since the first time I tried to run up it I had to stop midway and put my head between my legs, I was proud that I made it all the way up without stopping. Then today I ran 20 miles in the morning (finished around 1140am when the temperature was already 98) and then 9 hours later, did an easy 3.5 mile run. This totals 101 miles biked and 28.5 miles run in one weekend. I actually ran 57 miles this week total since I decided I didn't want to swim anymore. That's the most I've ran since early 2008. Luckily, to make up for the current detesting of swimming, I bought a long-sleeve wetsuit today.

AND to top this weekend off, Jocelyn came to visit and do some heat training for her upcoming iron in Korea. It was fun to see her and go out to dinner with her and some of my friends from work. Unfortunately we didn't get to train together, but she would have kicked my ass anyways!

The Great Experiment

How little sleep can I get by on while still training 20 hours a week? We will see... tomorrow is another 7 hour ride and then a brick run... and it will be in the triple digits. And then Sunday is my longest run. I feel like I'm back in college when I would get 6-7 hours of sleep and then go run.

I am also trying to figure out where all my time went... training fewer hours per week and also sleeping less. Oh right, work. But that's a whole other story. And something else too, but that is yet another tale in itself.

Does anyone know if it's illegal to work through lunch while an exempt employee?

L is for Loser

Usually when I am in a bad mood I like to blog. But apparently I am in such a foul mood that I don't even know what to say here.

I did a 2.4 mile open water swim "race" this morning. It was really windy though (we have both wind and super hills here) and one of the buoys got blown off course so the swim was short. My time was a 59:30, which was second to last in the 20-20 age group (haha) but at least I was not tired at the end. I wasn't sure how it was going to go because I've been slightly nauseous since Thursday evening, I swam 4000 yards after work on Friday, my head was throbbing, and I was (am) sleep-deprived. The wind made the water super choppy and I swallowed more lake water than I cared to and actually ended up choking, especially on the second lap. Not pleasant. Towards the end of the last loop I got so fed up with the waves and swallowing water that I tried to pick up the pace. I don't really think it worked, but I got out and felt completely fine. Only thing that bothered me was my right arm because I sight in such a way that the arm gets strained more than my left. Still wondering if I should get a full-sleeve wetsuit for Lake Placid. I think the water temperature today was around 75, but I've lost more weight lately and I was cold. Even my sleeveless wetsuit seemed looser around the middle. Argh. It certainly helps with the running but I'm not sure about my general health. I think I've hit the bottom, but the bottom seemed to keep dropping.