Friday, May 9, 2008

New little triathlete brewing in the fam..

I met the newest member of the family, belonging to my daughter Becca and son-in-law Dan today: Here he/she is:
She/he was busy doing somersaults at the age of 12 weeks. Only 6 more months and she will greet the world!

Monday, May 5, 2008

It wasn't that I got tired..

in my longest swim ever today. I got a little fatigued at the end but I completed the yardage-4500 yards. That translates into 2.56 miles to be exact. The biggest problem was boredom-I was left alone with my thoughts, which can be a good thing or can be just random flight of ideas, like it was today. It took me 1 hour and 45 long minutes.

As for the questions about water temp in Lake Coeur d' Alene: Today the water is 8 degrees Celsius. Let me see-hmmm..that is, according to my calculations, 46.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Now in my book, that is too cold for even a warming hut...However, it has been said that it can really warm up in June-up to a high temp of even 62-65 degrees which in my experience recently, is a heat wave! The water temp was 57 degrees in Lake Mead and I survived. So we will see, I am not going to stress about something I cannot control. The word is that this year there is a "late runoff" so the water may be "colder than normal". I need to get to Cochiti Lake to practice my cold water swimming..and pour ice cubes in my bath water every day..

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Thoughts on a Ironman training day..

Listen people-when "they"say the sun comes up at 6:15 AM, they mean on the west side, not in the eastern foothills of the great Southwest. I had this bright idea yesterday to leave out east side house at 6:30 AM yesterday morning for our 5:45 hour bike ride, followed by a 30 min. brick. I thought the sun would be out as Flamin' Mo, H and I made the trek down a pretty steep graded 5 mile hill near our house to meet the others on the west side. All I can say is that is the coldest I have ever been on a bike. I have ridden in colder, but since I didn't want to be carrying around heavy gear after the sun came out, I was traveling light. It was in the 30s to begin and 70s in the end. The ride was fairly flat the first 72 miles. Then we came back upon the cold hill from earlier and ascended it at the end. It was much easier, dare I say, than I thought it would be. We eek-ed out 83 miles, then I did a 2 mile run afterwards. The rest of the day was spent catching up on SRTV (stupid reality TV), specifically Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. Yep, I admit it. I Tivoed every episode and sat literally in front of the TV watching the whole thing yesterday. That was the end of my productive day.

Just some notes:

1. So sad about the poor filly that they had to put down yesterday at the Kentucky Derby. That is just awful!

2. I guess someone died on a run that many of my friends did yesterday. I was suppose to do it but Coach said no. S. Baboo was there and tried to help-I don't know the details yet..

3. This is a little disturbing: Something I read on our Ironman Blog by someone who trained on the course yesterday (he was doing the bike course):
"I was talking with an IM CDA official today and he mentioned that plans are being formulated in the event that Lake Coeur d’Alene does not warm up significantly prior to IM race day. Officials are planning on setting up a couple of warming yurts on the beach. These yurts will be readily available for swimmers as a part of T1 to combat the brutal chill that may affect many."

Gosh I am thinking at what point is it just plain "too cold"? Well, I survived the Lake Mead freeze-zone so guess I will this one..

4. My brand new Cervelo is at the bike Doctor here getting a new crank to hopefully fix the "chain slipping" issue, otherwise known in the Cervelo world as "ghost riding", I had at Rage and continue to have intermittently. So I haven't been able to train on it for 2 weeks (waiting for a part to come). My old Specialized certainly hauled up that hill quite nicely yesterday!

5. H & I are off to "Triathlon Camp" on Friday. I am really looking forward to it in Boulder!

5. On a positive note-the key to our Lake house in Coeur D' Alene is being sent as we speak!