Let's Spin Baby!

I'm kind of excited to go to spin class tonight with Molly. Technically we're supposed to be doing a brick outside, but the weather is crappy and we need to get pumped. So we'll do our spin class with that instructor that we love and then go for a run. I need this tonight. Badly.

I wanted to post a huge thank you to everyone out in Arizona that has been so generous in supporting me. More contributions have come in from that state than I would have expected.

Training and Recovery

I'm looking outside my office right now at what will be the new Twins Baseball stadium. I get very excited about this because I'm a huge Twins fan. On days when its raining cold, its nice to think of what it will be like to sit outside, eat a hot dog and watch my favorite team play ball. Did I go off topic? I'm sorry, this blog is supposed to be about my training.

Back to training. Molly is back from California, my shoulder is on the mend and I have some physical therapy to do, but I'm feeling great. I'm anxious for our next long bike ride, especially since the weather has been pretty nice and everything is beginning to burst with color. All of the trees are filled with their little green buds just ready to explode. Flowers are beginning to bloom and its just warm enough where you don't have to wear a jacket. I love this time of year.

A Monday Full of News

First and foremost; Maggie and Jay are coming to Minneapolis and will be here for the triathlon. I could cry just thinking about it. I'm running in honor of Jay and to think that he'll be at the finish line is amazing. So amazing.

Second. Doctor says that I have Bursitis in my left shoulder and I need some physical therapy. After a few sessions I should be able to swim again soon. I CAN start biking again right away though and that makes me very happy.

Molly is back from California and while I won't see her tonight - I'm psyched to know we're closer to being back on a schedule.

Saturday's run was great. Alone I did just over 4 miles, and everyone knows how much I hate running alone. This week is going to rock damn it.

I just had to swim!

Went to the pool last and swam. I had to. But I didn't use my arms, just kicked back and forth. I looked ridiculous, but I don't care. Pete was patient of course, I don't know how he puts up with me.

I miss Molly. She's been gone for two days. Come home soon!

79 Days to Race!

Ok, so when I realized that we only have 79 days to the race my heart skipped a beat. That means just over eleven weeks to go. I can do this. I can. Wash, rinse and repeat.

Yesterday I hit a wonderful fundraising high, but a training low. I am so close to reaching my fundraising minimum which makes me very happy. It sucks worrying about weather or not I'd raise enough money and have to fund the remaining myself. There was a woman that pledged me that I don't even know. She's a friend of my cousin Rick, Maggie's brother. This woman pledged me because she was inspired by how much my cousin supported me and she believes in the cause. She wrote, "The way that Rick talks about you, I would say that you are the incredible one. And for you to actually get out and do, rather than just sit and click buttons to donate verifies my thought. It is folks like you who actually get the dirty work done. Thank you." It really made my day and yes, brought me to tears. I hope that she knows just how much that meant to me. Not just her pledge, but her incredibly kind words.

I didn't run last night though. I totally crapped out. Frustration from not being able to swim or bike because of this dang shoulder is really starting to get to me. I'm anxious to see the doctor on Monday and hopefully can get back into the swing of my routine. I am trying my best to listen to my body, but the problem is that we aren't getting along right now. I'll keep running, I won't stop moving. I won't.

Some days are good and some are not.

I am officially sick of running and ready to get back in the pool and swim. How many blogs to I have here about swimming? Probably most of them. I love swimming and not being able to do it right now really chaps my ass. I would also like to get on my bike and ride as far out of the city as I can. But no, I'm stuck running. I know, I know, boo hoo. Poor me.

Where the Money Goes

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) is committed to curing leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma, and helping patients and their families. The support you provide is invested wisely.

In fiscal year 2008 $71.4 million was invested, including funding for 129 new grants to researchers in academic institutions and $4 million in contracts through the LLS Therapy Acceleration Program. As of June 2008, LLS was supporting 388 research projects and 9 research contracts in the U.S., Canada, and 14 other countries. LLS also provides financial assistance to patients; sponsors scientific conferences around the country; produces educational materials and videos; and runs dozens of Family Support Groups nationwide. Because we receive no federal funding, we depend on you for continued support of these needed programs.

taken from: http://www.teamintraining.org/firsttimehere/themissionandhistory/wherethemoneygoes/

Six Mile Loop

I am a running fool this week. Not being able to swim or bike, its all about the running. I could use it, hopefully it will trim me down a bit. I wasn't joking about turning into the Incredible Hulk. Molly and I missed the group run on Saturday but heard that they did a six mile loop (10K). Being the competitive freaks that we are, we just had to do the same thing. Molly leaves for Oakland, CA today and we'd be missing some workouts together, so what the hell.

It was incredibly windy out though. The loop was amazing as you can see from the map below. Six miles and it felt great. I'm pretty sure that among the obscenities I yelled at Molly (poor girl) included "You whore", she just laughs at me.

All Fingers Crossed

I'm going to the doctor today for what appears to be a shoulder injury. Its been over a week and the pain hasn't gone away. On Thursday I swam with one arm, and on both Saturday and Sunday I ran instead of any bike riding. I've been taking ibuprofen and icing it, but it hasn't gone away. I'm a little pissed off, ok, a lot pissed off. But as my dad always says, its better to be pissed off than to be pissed on. I haven't stopped moving though. If I have to run another week to make it heal faster I will. I just hope that... well yeah.

Who really kicks ass?

Its hard sometimes not to get discouraged with all of this training. I ask myself constantly if I'm doing enough. My goal isn't weight loss or even to be healthier necessarily, those are just bi-products of training for this triathlon. I have to remind myself why I'm training and why I'm going to put my body through hell on July 11th. I get an email from my cousin Maggie telling me that I'm the one that's strong and kicks ass. Its really people like her and her husband who is battling non-Hodgkin Lymphoma that do the ass kicking. How does she manage to keep it all together, her crazy job as a paramedic, her family, all of it? She's the one that kicks ass everyday and I admire her for it every day. You rock Maggie! And you inspire me.

Superfoods

Visit any number of websites dedicated to nutrition and they all talk about superfoods. These are foods that everyone agrees will help to keep you safe from heart disease, cancer, and high cholesterol. As I've been training, my diet has been getting better and better. Don't get me wrong, I splurge on some of my favorite "junk" foods from time to time, but everything in moderation. What I find is that the more I eat well, the more I want to eat well.

Add these foods to your daily diet and you'll start to notice the difference too. What difference? Everything from energy, to stomach happiness, and a decreased hunger for junk to name a few.

• Beans
• Blueberries
• Broccoli
• Oats
• Oranges
• Pumpkin
• Salmon
• Soy
• Spinach
• Tea (green or black)
• Tomatoes
• Turkey
• Walnuts
• Yogurt

If its packaged food, grey or fortified with something chances are it isn't good for you. Stay away from high fructose corn syrup and trans fats - period. Look at the packaging, if these ingredients are listed...don't eat it.

The funny thing is, I'm actually eating more. Clearly I need to eat more because I'm burning calories like crazy, but I'm eating smaller portions throughout the day. Today for instance I drank a smoothie on the way to work. I don't like breakfast, so instead I make these amazing smoothies: ice, blueberries, bananas, cranberry juice, flax seed and a small amount of protein powder. Before lunch I eat a handful of almonds...hmmmm almonds are wonderful and really help to curb my appetite before lunch. For lunch I had a huge salad with raw broccoli. About an hour after lunch I hate a banana. I'll keep eating about every three hours until 6pm. All the while drinking green tea or water, tons of water in fact. I am never without my water bottle.

Why am I rambling about food? Part of the reason is because what I eat makes such a huge difference in my performance levels during workouts. I know that if I ate a bunch of garbage today my ride tonight would suck, it would put me in a bad mood because it sucked and my motivation would be flushed down the toilet. I save the crappy food that I still like for the days that I don't need to rely on my body. But when you think about it, you need to rely on your body every day.

Click HERE to learn more about superfoods.

Happy Birthday Molly!

Saturday was Molly's birthday and of course, like a trooper she didn't want to take the day off. We joined the group at 8am for the group run again, because the previous week was so much fun. Honestly, we thought we'd be doing the exact same run - which would have been fine. But no. Of course not, we were going to be running hills. Or rather the same hill over and over and over again. After about a 1 miles warm-up run (give or take) we ran up and down this one hill near Lock & Dam No. 1 six times. It was actually pretty amazing. I hate running hills and I tell people this often. I asked Molly to stay with me so that I could keep up a consistent pace and like the amazing person she is, she never left my side. We kept a nice steady pace the entire time and I think we finished at just about the same speed that we started, maybe a little slower but not much. It felt great. The weather was amazing too. Its really starting to turn into spring. We had light weight jackets on - which in the picture makes us look like we're running for Nike, we're not. The sun was out but the air was cool. By the time we finished up and got home it was about 9:30, not bad at all.

This should have been the end of my training for the weekend, but no. Friday night I decided to join Keeler and Johnson for happy hour at NE Grumpy's - instead of going swimming. I guess a couple of vodka tonics don't count as working out. In any case, Pete and I ended up swimming Saturday afternoon. Since my legs were so exhausted I did mostly pulls (swimming with no legs and a holding a floaty-thing between your knees). Needless to say I slept like a baby Saturday night.

This was a good weekend. I feel strong and I am looking forward to (as of today) starting the insane triathlon training schedule.

Ok. So NOW we're swimming?

I always thought I was a good swimmer until I started training for this damn triathlon. Pete decided that he no longer wanted us to live and beat the hell out of us in swim drills last night. Yes, I realize that they will only get harder, but holy hell. ts a good thing we're in the pool twice a week.

Oh, and we've got 93 days until the race. That's a little over 13 weeks. Also can be seen as a little over 3 months. Which translates to holy shit. Are we going to be ready? I mean yes. If I had to swim the .93 miles today I could, but it would suck. I could absolutely run the 10K, no problem. I suppose I could bike the 40K - but who the hell knows because we haven't gotten outside yet, we've been spinning! So, yes - individually I could complete all of these, but together? Back to back?

Question for the audience. If you had to choose between running up a hill for two miles (no walking allowed), or swimming a 1/2 mile in a Minnesota Lake TODAY (the ice just broke), which would you do?

With Spring Comes Change

Last night (Tuesday) we had a TNT meeting about nutrition. All of the information was good, and luckily nothing surprised me. I'm eating all the right stuff, in the right amounts and don't need to feel guilty about anything. As always though I need to drink more water. I sit with a water bottle next to me at work and refill it two or three times a day, but don't manage to do the same at home. Apparently there are these great electrolyte tablets call NUUN that I need to check out. They're a good alternative to sports drinks which are just full of junk that I don't want, and I don't like them very much.

Next week Molly and I are starting our official Tri-training. Its a week earlier than we'd originally planned, but we're bored and want to change it up. We also want to challenge ourselves a bit more. And now that its nice out, its all the more reason to start crying "Uncle!"

I noticed that that tennis courts all have their nets up. I picked up some balls (tennis that is) on Saturday and I'm really looking forward to twisting my ankle trying to play tennis.

Thought I would also mention that my favorite sister in law completed her first 5K race a couple of weekends ago. I couldn't be more proud of her! Just as I suspected, this has motivated her to set some new goals. Shellie - I love you and I think you rock!

Saturday TNT Run

Molly and I changed it up this week by running with our Team on Saturday rather than by ourselves, like we would normally do on Sunday. Its an 8am run, which sounds like hell - who would want to run at 8 o'clock in the morning on a Saturday. Apparently we did. We met the group at a park not far from my house and ran along the Mississippi again, but this time, much further south. There were about fifty people there from TNT, some training for the sprint triathlon, other like us training for the Olympic-distance triathlon, then the crazy people training for the 1/2 Iron Man. We didn't know what the distance of our run would be, only that we'd be running for about an hour, which was perfect and in-line with our training.

Surprisingly during this run I finally met my assigned mentor, Paul. Molly and I had been running along, chatting up a storm when we came upon these two other people running (Paul, if you read this, please remind me of her name!), any we liked their pace so followed them for a while. At the Lake Street turn-around the guy asked if I was Jenny, and we realized that he was my assigned mentor. It was nice to finally meet him after several email correspondences. He explained that he's done thousands of triathlons, and that this woman (cannot remember her name!) had done an Iron Man. Molly and I just laugh when we hear that from people - crazy people.

View Larger Map

I think it was this woman's idea to go off the paved running/biking path and down onto the trails along the river to finished out the rest of our run. Brilliant! Let's do that. So we ran down a length of stone steps to the river banks and ran around in the mud, through the trees, and poor Molly was behind me and I kept trying to hold back branched but I know I whipped her in the face a couple of times. Long story short these crazy people took us on an "Adventure" run. Adventure my ass. It was great though. It was nice to hook up with the group again and remind them that Jenny/Molly are still kicking ass. I think we'll make the Saturday group run a regular occurrence, it was fun - so thanks TNT folks who were there!

99 Days to Race!

Under one hundred days to the race. Holy crap. What more can I say about that?

Spin last night was good. The instructor is great but there was a woman in front of us spinning that just floored us. I have no idea how hold she was, maybe in her 50s? I noticed her calves first. Clearly she'd bee riding a long time. She had the kind muscle tone that was so perfectly sculpted you know that Greeks would have used her as a model. The whole class she busted her ass but never looked for a moment as if she was struggling. I love riding behind people like that, it pushes me to work harder. Molly does that for me, even when she's not there. I think to myself "Molly would tell me to keep going" and I do. Pete's like that with swimming. He's quiet but I know what his intentions are. I know that he wants to make us the strongest swimmers we can possibly be. I know it will pay off.

I'm getting a little bored. I'm not saying that we're not working hard, I just need a little change of scenery. Once we're running and riding outside on a regular basis and can change up our routes, it will be must better. Tonight is always a tough night for me. Running after work on a Friday is tough. Yes, I'm always glad once I've done it, but my brain just tells me what an idiot I am the whole time. Then when I'm done and heading home I feel great.

101 Days to Go!

Holy cow. Just the thought of that freaks me out. I was watching The Biggest Loser last night and I keep wondering why they don't every have these people in a pool swimming. Swimming is an excellent no-impact workout that can really kick your ass if done right. I cannot imagine being 300+ pounds and putting such impact on my joints from running, jumping, all of it. I'm a fan of the show, don't get me wrong, but some of their activities hurt to watch. It is inspiring though, to see people work their butts off the way they do. I really can't complain about anything.

April Fools Day

Its snowing of course. Why because we're in Minnesota and its April 1st. I'm glad we're not swimming outside yet. I'm feeling like I'm in a slump, could be PMS, probably PMS, but this weather isn't helping much. I'm also feeling larger than usual today. So really, if you're looking for an upbeat posting on my blog, come back another time. A good hard swim will do me good tonight but really all I want to do is crawl under the covers with my laptop and favorite secret tv show. In a couple of weeks Molly and I will change up our schedule, and I'm really looking forward to that.