Friday, August 22, 2008

Water with gas, rice for breakfast and an aquathlon

Today's post is a random Mer "list," post. I am stealing this from Jen Harrison (see blog roll) and sometimes it's easier for me to list my thoughts because I tend to be all over the place with my ideas than writing some long, boring, or somewhat inspirational paragraph about training. BORING. At least it gets boring for me to continually write that way.

1. Sparkling water: in an effort to cut back on soda, i'm drinking more sparkling water with lemon, like Aarowhead or....more expensively, i've become a snob of sparkling soda. I now require a few bottles of perrier. Dave is just rubbing this in my face because he's always liked sparkling water when we've traveled abroad before and i've just made fun of him saying "what guy prefers sparkling water." Now, I do. I didn't even really drink that much soda before, but the point is, if i'm drinking soda, i'm not drinking water, thus not staying appropriately hydrated.

AND let me tell you, when you have an Amanda Lovato schedule for 12 hours of training this weekend, it's in your best interest to stay hydrated. That wasn't really a whine, more like a "get it done and cry on sunday night, but be slightly smiley since you survived it."

2. Rice for breakfast. I have huge issues with being able to keep food down during racing. My stomach doesn't hurt perse, but I acid reflux just about anything. Water, peanut butter (the worst). The only things that have been tried and true are bagels and bananas with honey...and I can do waffles w/honey as well. No peanut butter, don't even mention yogurt (did you not read my race report from Florida when I threw up yogurt on the swim).......and oatmeal makes me have to go to the bathroom. So..my favorite coach who also has stomach issues suggested that I try: RICE. She did some research on newborn babies and parents traditionally give them rice cereal since it's gentle on the stomach (my brain correctly remembers Skyler, Mia and Finn--my nieces and nephew spitting up all their rice cereal) but I do remember it was easy on their stomachs. SO tomorrow before my long ride i'm going to try some rice with honey (YUM!) and a I gotta figure out if I can stomach egg whites for protein or if they'll cause acid reflux or not.

OH and please don't suggest I get all my calories in the morning from a shake...please, I need REAL FOOD. I do an "all liquid" diet for Ironman, and I have no problem, but when i'm cycling on the coast here in California passing people BBQ'ing on the beach and Tortilla/Mexican places making food for the day, I really need to make sure I eat FOOD before I ride or i'll end up eating a Carne Asada burrito at 10:00 and throwing off my whole ride.

3. What else was I talking about? See, joy of Mer's brain, the synapses don't connect sometimes. AQUATHLON! I did one last night: 1,000 meter ocean swim and 3 mile run on packed sand.

FIRST ocean swim of the year baby!!!

My friends just shook their head. What?
Whatever, I don't care--honestly, I knocked that swim out--and all that baloney about "practicing your surf entry" whatever....I dove in, swam and rounded the bouey's and came out. I didn't come in first or anything, but I always get slightly irritated when people think i'm going to suck at swimming because i'm not always swimming in the ocean.......I wonder what people east of California and west of Virginia do for ocean swimming? For the record, I do swim...a lot...just not necessarily always in the ocean.

I have a lot of fun times at the tri club Aquathlons because of the people and food and the event...not because i'm swimming in the Pacific. I have a lot of friends who love swimming in the ocean and that's great, but truthfully, it isn't even shark related anymore....it's traffic, sand and salt related =0

The Aquathlon went really awesome, people were great and I actually......ran in my bathingsuit instead of a tri outfit which was interesting because the entire time I kept tugging at my suit so worried I was going to flash someone....but...I didn't!

Mission accomplished: first occean swim, ran in bathingsuit....but, my plan to wear my stretchy "headband" to hold my hair back was quickly foiled when it flew off while I was taking off my swim cap, and I think I ran pretty hard. I don't have a time to report because

A: I didn't wear a watch because i'm trying really hard to find a watch that doesn't fill up with water. So far
i've been through: THREE Suunto watches and TWO cheapo Ironman Timex watches. ALL filled up with water and NO I wasn't pushing buttons underwater, they just all got mist in them and died.

B: I didn't buy a tri club timing chip. The lady handing them out was less than impressed..she shook her head very quickly and said "we don't have enough for you." I think she was expecting me to get annoyed and I just said "ok, no worries, I wear a hearing aid, so I was just wondering if you were going to be calling names for the loaners." ......

Lesson learned. Buy watch or buy a timing chip if I give two shits about my time =0 (sorry mom!) =0.

I had a lot to say today. Hmm, that's because i'm waiting for lunch to digest to go hit my 2 hour run...i'm supposed to do this run slowly, as in not leaving my Zone 2......i'm hoping this is all part of Amanda's secret plan to get me to run a 7:30 mile for Arizona. I can dream.

1 comment:

Paul said...

Hey,

I totally do the seltzer water thing to cut down on drinking beer. :) I buy the 4 six packs for 5 bucks from Vons.

Rice is best for babies so they don't develop wheat allergies. I should know I guess :)

Great work last night. :) I like the cheapo timex watches. Mine seem to last forever. I just go through the bands...