Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Training with friends...

The graph above represents my ride on Saturday (CLICK on it to make it bigger). Shocking, I know, it included hills. And I tried to sing loudly under my breath as I was cursing "I love hills.....hills love me." Though, most of the time, I was just scheming to reach into my bento box and eat the rest of the amazing cookie, um, I mean "energy bar," that Shannon's boyfriend made. It was amazing....nuts....oats and oh yeah, brown sugar and some butter for good measure.


Dave and I finished off the last of the two bars with our ice cream on Monday night. Back to my original point here.

Last year for Ironman, I trained mostly alone...as in yes, hours of alone riding, running and swimming. Seriously, I think I did one run with my friend Juls and a swim with some people, and I rode a few times with my friend Elaine...but the rest of my hours.....all 20 a week (give or take) were by myself.

This year is a little different, I've gotten to know some girls a little better and have been able to sucker them into some training (see pic)

I'm on the left, the chick in the middle is rockin Awesome Autumn....a girl who isn't training for anything, but came out and rode with us on Saturday--all 58 hilly miles (Shan thinks the ride was about 70, but my Garmin said 58, whatever the distance it was a SOLID hard ride). Autumn just blew me away.....she's has a great rhythm when she's riding and just physically capable of handling anything that comes her way. The next girl, Sassy Shan (see blog roll)--she finished 7th in our age group at the heinous, unbelievably hot Ironman Arizona in April......so, you can see i'm riding with some super fast, hilarious and greatly motivated chicks. I'm excited that they'll train with me from time to time and I can't wait for our next ride!

It's hard sometimes to coordinate training schedules with people if I want to train with them, so what I end up doing is if it all works out great, but if we can't all train together, the group I posted about before meets up every month and we can chat about training. It's nice for me because sometimes I like to ask nerdy triathlete questions and these girls have the same thoughts, so it's nice to bounce ideas around.

Last year around this time I was probably still crying after the sufferfest of Wildflower (slightly kidding) and gearing up for the Camp Pendleton Sprint and then on to Big Kahuna. This year is so different, my first tri isn't even until mid-July--but my training is completely different from last year. Last year it was just about accumulation and mileage, getting things in.

This year..it's harder. I'm combining speed with intervals during long rides and hill repeats and I think more frequent swimming. I'm really anxious to see how the year unfolds---first on my mind right now quite specifically: the heat on the run at Vineman. Like I said before, I would love more than anything to nail this run at Vineman and we'll see how I do!

I'm off to a track workout, which i'm coming to really love for some odd reason. I realize one of the aspects I love of triathlon is watching myself truly improve. Going from a 10:00 minute mile runner to averaging around 8:30 for me is huge. It's taken about 4 years but it's worth the hard work.

Track report tomorrow!

8 comments:

:) said...

Isn't it fun to share the suffering!? Only slightly kidding, but I find I train way harder and more efficiently when someone else is there to keep me honest... Glad you have found those people. :)

Shan said...

Yay! I had so much fun riding with you and Autumn too!! Hmmm...not sure what the actual distance of the ride was - yours said 58? Hmmmm...well either way it was a great day (my odometer read something like 67...)!!

And anytime we make oat bars, I'll be sure to get one (or two!) to ya :)

Hugs!

Anonymous said...

Hola, Mer! I just checked your blog- cool beans! By the way, my computer said 67 miles... and it's way more fun to train with friends for IM! (I know, I tend to be solo, too)
-Autumn

Anonymous said...

P.S. Mer, if I had a blog, I'd tip my hat to you, too! Thank goodness for you girls for keeping things fun, motivating and *hilarious!* And yeah, I may not be gearing up for a race just now, but I'll still get out there for a good sesh with you gals from time to time. Call me if you ever want to run Torrey Pines + trails! Keep doin' what you're doin' and happy training!

Mer! said...

Hey guys! thanks for the comments! I'm about to kill my Garmin....it totally said 58..so, where does that leave me? I already took off my old bike computer and I was planning on just using Garmin for my mileage...grrr. Stupid technology!!! =0

Lauren said...

Hi! I'm glad you have some people to help pass "training time". I imagine it makes it go by much faster and much more fun! Sorry about your Garmin. My friend has one and her car always registers more distance than her watch does. Technology is so strange!

Jennifer Yake Neuschwander said...

Who says training can't be fun??? You ladies make me smile. I'm so glad to be friends with such a fabulous group of women.

Anonymous said...

I found your blog thru Meredith's and had fun reading it. I am like you, when I am relaxing, I enjoy reading people's blogs...yours is great and good luck at Vineman! :)
Jennifer Harrison
www.jenharrison.com
:)