FTP bike numbers and then some

todays bike was tough but not what I thought. After a good 1/2hr of warm and doing some spin ups to get me over 500+ watts, the main set was 7 x 5 minutes at low end tempo with 2 min recovery. Well my numbers were:

231

240

244

242

240

247

249

Avg watts for the 35 minutes of FTP-241

NOt bad, with a max HR of 168. I'm liking those numbers and my transition run felt really good as well, I didn't have to sprint just a nice and easy run to get my legs going. 8:30 pace-great. Now I'm off to do my 6 mile run, I have decided that the treadmill is the place to go because god knows I really don't want to be in this crap outside and I really don't want to get sick. So back on the treadmill I go, then its:

a. pick up kids at school at 3p

b. violin for alex at 3:10

c. swimming for alex at 4p

d. OT for Alex at 5p

Other kids thank goodness will be with the sitter while I am trudging about town with Alex. Tomorrow is a long run and a long swim ( can we say, lots of 400 repeats folks, yikes)

Back in it.....

I had a nice swim and bike on friday, a 8 1/2 mile run on saturday and a 3hr bike today, felt good,nothing too hard because we start with a build week next week where my bike volume goes to about 7 1/2 hrs and my run volume to about 36 miles in total. My swims are the same, I feel like I can swim forever so whatever coachie puts out there I will do, just have to continue my speed work and hopefully do some continuous swims of over 4000 yds, I'm the one who needs to feel the distance to know they can swim it.

It looks like its going to rain for the next few days but I am going to force myself to run outside but towards the end of the week it looks like its going to be beautiful, around 70, I am so psyched to get out on my bike on Thursday and Sunday and crank out some warm miles.

Anyway, got a shit load of laundry to do and my house is a disaster, time to clean while my kids are making some liquid contraption in the bathroom. Lets just hope nothing explodes. Oh, my 6 yr old tried to climb onto the roof today, he's going to be trouble, good lord.

Life isn't all about working out

So I haven't been able to work out for the past two days, life has been so busy with the kids, their schedules, doctors appointments, therapies, etc... mommy hasn't had time to workout never mind pee. It's times like these that make me sit back and realize that being a mom is so important and that if I had to give up working out to be with my children ( for whatever reason, illness, medical or mental, school issues) whatever, I would do it even more then I do it now. I would do anything for my children and my family. I know having time for yourself is so important and it benefits not only the person but the persons family but sometimes working out doesn't make sense when you have to do so many other things to make a family of 6 ( not including pets) function and function with a purpose.

Even though my child hasn't been diagnosed with a significant medical issue trying to cooridinate therapies, doctors appointments, emails to various people, whatever, takes time, emotional energy and on top of doing all of that trying to sit in on your other sons therapy sessions, making dinner, folding laundry while listening to the therapist, mop up the dogs pee for the 3rd time in the day and make sure that your other two children don't kill each other with their light sabers can be a busy day.

As I drink my wine right now and right this all I know is that I'm lucky that I have physically healthy and happy kids ( however challenging at times) even though we deal with our own struggles on a daily basis they are truly amazing little people who continue to inspire me everyday.

Working out is very important to me, training and racing are very important to me, health, fitness, triathlon is very important to me but I wouldn't be where I am if it weren't for my kids and my family and for them my life has purpose. So even though I haven't worked out for two days, and even though I am so jealous that so many of my friends have been riding 75 mile rides and out their hammering it over the past two weeks, I know that I've been doing something that is more important at this point and that is nurturing and caring for my family. So hopefully we will get things all figured out over the next few weeks, hopefully everything will get back to normal and me killing it will be the norm. I'm tired, going to bed and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

Heres to our kids and families health, its everything.

It's been a long day.........

So my day went like this:

1. wake up at 5am to go to coachies bike class. 1hr 15 minutes of not all out torture but hard enough, tempo work today, kept my watt average for my intervals around 230-233watts. Finished up the ride and had to rush home to let phil go to work and for me to feed and dress the kids for school.

2. 7:15-8:30 Feed, dress, get frustrated and get 3 kids off to school

3. Bring Alex to the MAC for me to Run and do some resistance training, 8:45-10am

4. Bring Alex out to breakfast

5. Go food shopping

6. Pick Cade up from school at 12p

7. Feed Cade lunch

8. 1pm Alex's occupational therapy evaluation- didnt go great today, lots of doctors appointments I have to make, almost made me cry. After going through OT and all the stuff with my oldest to have to go through this again with my beautiful 6yr old, to not really know what is truly going on with him makes me very sad.

9. Other two kids get picked up from school- kellen to soccer

10. Alex to violin at 3: 10 and then to swimming at 4pm

11. Pick Kellen up at soccer at 4:30 and go immediately to Y to pick Alex up from swimming.

12. Go home feed kids, go to Seaside cycle from 5:45-8:45 to teach two cycling classes- so much fun, had a blast, can't wait to do it again.

13. Came home ate a salad and watched Lost with hubby, ( the absolute best show on TV right now).

14. Wrote long email to Alex's teachers and his OT about all of his up and coming appointments, stopped crying about what things could be and greatful of all the things he doesn't have.

Going to bed physically and emotionally exhausted and praying that everything turns out alright.

Utah skiing,strep throat, and........

So we arrived in Utah for some powder skiing this tuesday and there isn't much powder to speak of, but, the weather has been in the 50's and the views couldn't be any better. However, when we arrived on Tuesday within 4 hours I had to bring my daughter to the emergency room because she rapidly developed a high fever and couldn't swallow. She was diagnosed with strep pharyngitis and she was miserable. What was funny was that everyone in the clinic had their legs wrapped up and ice on their knees, arms in slings, head gashes, you could totally tell this was a ski town.   Anyway, after getting her her antibiotics and downing some Motrin we went back to the hotel. She slept but she continued to cry with pain and the tylenol and Motrin weren't holding her. I did all the tricks, lozengers, salt water rinses, spray, nothing was working, finally I begged for some liquid codeine so she could sleep and she did ( for a little while anyway). In the morning Shea and I rested while everyone went skiing and she took a nice long nap, no fever at noon so we decided to go skiing together in the afternoon, she was a different little girl with lots of spunk and energy. She was happy to get out in the sunshine and she was starting to feel better. Thank goodness.

I love the mountains, hiking, skiing, horseback riding, everything that has to do with the outdoors, however, skiing over the last few days has been very different for me. I don't want to hurt myself, stay in control, don't do that jump, stay away from the moguls, weird, I'm not being tentative but I also realize that this is a sport I could get hurt in so 4 months from ironman I'm not jumping off any cliffs this week or climbing up hills to go back country skiing, I'll leave that for Phil. 

With regards to working out besides the pool which is outside and close to 100 degrees, I've been able to get my runs, biking and resistance training in, which requires me to be up before 5am and getting back to the room by 7am, thank goodness for good coffee in the hotel because being on the slopes at 9am and skiing all day requires just a touch of caffeine.

Well, Utah is truly beautiful, Phil and I have been here before without kids a few times and his sister and husband live here so its been wonderful to see them both. We are supposed to get a snow storm tonight which would be great but the sun outside doesn't give me hope. Anyway, a few more days of skiing and then home to Beverly. See you guys soon.

The lovely weekend, ugggg

So this weekend was the first weekend where I had back to back workouts that were fairly long, not too difficult just long. 2hr ride with a 45 minute run on saturday and a 2hr ride with a 1hr run today. Doing the workouts are never really hard its finding the time between kids activities, cleaning house, laundry, husband ( oh did I say husband), birthday parties and whatever else, it just gets frustrating. I told my hubby that I am currently in the build phase of my training and my volume is going to bump up a bit, I told him to plan on me being gone x amount of hours both days, he says he doesn't mind but then the eyes roll, he's late dropping off the kids so my ride starts late and then I have to really hussle to get in what I need to get in. What is really hard is when people don't understand what your doing and why your doing it? How getting in this 3hr workout is very important right now and I wouldn't of signed up for Ironman if I knew it was going to be a problem.

I dont mean to sound like a bitch and I'm certainly blessed that I have supportive friends and most of the time my family but if and when I can't complete a workout because of one of the above reasons or if I hear one more time" just get up earlier to get it done so it doesn;t interfere with the day", " What I have to get up at 3:30am in the morning just so that I don't interfere with everybody elses day. Has anyone ever tried to do an interval bike ride starting at 3:30am or a run on a treadmill at that time and honestly thinks its going to be a quality workout, I don't think so. And, I'm usually more spent and useless on a day like that than if I was able to sleep till 5 or 6am.

Anyway, I really am blessed to be able to do these things its just ironman and my racing means a lot to me, I don't train this hard or spend time away from my kids just for shits and giggles, I want to do my best and I love the journey, and I always just want to make sure that I've done everything that I need to, to the best of my ability to do what I am capable of on race day with no excuses.

I want to be a great wife, mother, friend and athlete, I want to be successful in every aspect of my life as much as I can. I just want to be able to get in my workouts without my cell phone ringing to say when are you coming home ( I've been gone for 15 minutes) or any other excuses people have to not let me do what I need to do for me, why is it so hard to let me do what I need to do for me. I don't want to wait until I'm 60 before I can do what I need to do, I'm not asking for a lot. Oh well, I'm just bitching now, I'm sorry, I hope I don't sound ungrateful, long weekend and I'm tired and all I want to do is swim and run tomorrow, lets hope for some uninterrupted workouts, please.

Hard $#@$%^&% class, that's all I have to say.

So this morning at 6am we had our normal bike class from hell with coachie. Both Bob and I decided we would sign on for 4 more weeks of hell just because. Little did I realize that today was a day I should of just slept in. It wasn't that I was tired it was just it was really hard and with the jump in watts it made it harder. Here it is:
for the record I spun an extra 25 minutes before the class even started because I had to ride a bit longer today.

W/u- 25 minutes
single leg drills at intensive watts ( 150) 30 seconds one leg, 30 seconds both, x 4
ramp up from steady state watts to low end of vo2 max ( 180-260)

4 x 15 second spin ups ( high cadence and goal to get over 500 watts) achieved

Main set:
2 x 2 minutes at 15-20 watts over your 100% Vo2 max watts- so I needed to hold 305-310
2 minute recovery in between the intervals

2 minutes of recovery after 2nd interval

10 minutes broken up into 5 minute segments as:
start at low end of tempo watts with spikes of high end of vo2 max put in there ( 215-220- spikes to 285 watts) then at the 5 minute mark you had to bring your watts to your high end of tempo and every few minutes/seconds coachie would blow his whistle and we had to go above our 100% vo2 max ( that didn't happen- only able to get to 265-270 at that point)

3 minute recovery then:

4 x 1 minute at 20 watts above 100% of your vo2 max ( 305-310 watts)
1 minute of recovery in between intervals

Lets say I made two of them and I called it quits, at 50 seconds into the second interval I dipped below 300 and knew I wouldn't beable to hold my watts for the next two so coachie told me to cool down. I had to go home to the kids anyway but I was done.

Recover

Then it was off to home, get the kids ready for school and then go run for 45 minutes and do some resistance training. Lets just say, the run was hard ( more on the legs then the lungs) and I'm plain tuckered out. Heres to hoping for a good recovery overnight because I have a good swim and a long track workout to do in the morning. EEEEEEEEEK!!!!!

Chat later.
d

I passed, yeah........

I just got home from Minnesota and opened my mail and saw that I got a large envelope from the USAT office ( so glad not a small one- remember the good old college days). I got my official coaches certification in the mail and I'm so happy. I still don't know what to do yet but I'm hoping to continue to get my USA swimming certification, start coaching from there and also help others if they need with different clinics, etc... WE'll see, not tons of free time on my hands especially with ironman less than 5 months away.

My friend April ran her first marathon today ( not coming off a bike) and had a great race, I'm looking forward to her race report real soon. She went into this race with walking pneumonia and taking an antibiotic well known to give you the shits even when you sneeze, so she pulled off an amazing time and I just can't wait to hug her. I'm also waiting to hear how Mary did on her 18 mile effort along with her athletes at the Stu's 30k. I'm only running the max of 12 miles right now, I can't imagine doing either one of these races, good going ladies.

WEll, when I was away I missed the spinathon ( the Ride for Jules) but I road all alone in the gym at my hotel for 3 hrs watching my Syracuse team get completely spanked by Louisville, god knows I hope its no predictor for the tournament or we are really screwed. Anyway, spinning by yourself on a gym bike is no fun and all the stares you get from people like ( " your still here?, " I didn't know people sweat that much", " Don't you ever need to go to the bathroom") At this point and after the umpteenth question I was going to say, " yes, I'm still here, I'm doing my own spinathon for a good friends mother who died from complications of diabetes, yes I sweat this much, wouldn't you after being on this bike with no fan in sight for 3 hrs, and yes I do have to pee and I wish I could pee right here on this bike but I'm sure I would get kicked out of this hotel if I did it". Anyway, that along with a 11 1/2 mile run and some resistance training finished off my weekend and I'm finally home. I'm looking forward to a great week of training and can't wait to increase the volume.

Chat with you soon. Off to watch the oscars.

Vo2 max bike , the results are what they are... just ok

So in short tonight was #2 Vo2 max bike test to see how I have progressed with regards to fitness. I could say a few things:

1. late at night on a thursday after a full week of training

2. home with a very sick kid today

3. not optimal warm up and conditions-due to unforseen circumstances

4. pushing a bike ride on tuesday more than I was supposed to, completely my error, I read the workout wrong, however I felt really strong.

I could say a lot of things but at the end of the day I gave it all I had and the numbers don't lie. I was able to push only 280 watts for the 6 minute all out, which was a slight disappointment to my coach who was hoping for a 285-290 range. All my workouts leading up to tonight should of factored me in for that range so to say I am a bit disappointed is to say the least. I will not make excuses that is what I did and I'm very proud of Joe, Bruce and Julie who put out some sick watts in the same conditions as myself. And I'm hoping my friend Bob crushes the bike test this saturday and brings home some really high numbers. He's going to be someone to watch this year at Lake Placid, here's hoping to breaking 10hrs Bob.

My last vo2 max set I averaged 273, again a bit of a disappointment but coming into tonight I have been really solid so my hopes were pretty high.

At the end of the day I still went up and not down and really my goal is to improve my overall functional threshold numbers which have gone up considerably for ironman and the 70.3 distances. I'm not going into a sprint cycling event anytime soon where I need to crush those kind of watts but it still makes me a little bit sad ( sorry coach, I know the pep talk was great but I can still be wanting for more).

Anyway, at 140lbs ( yes I put that out there for everyone to see) my power to weight ratio isn't too bad and with some good/solid training outside I'm hoping to be cycling really strong, and maybe even try to be a bit competitive.

Anyway, back to the regimen tomorrow, swim/run and then off to Minnesota for a wake and funeral. I'll be missing my spinathon this saturday because of the recent death of one of my dearest friends mothers but I made sure the hotel I am staying in has a gym and I will be on the bike for 3hrs on saturday to honor all the people who pledged their money to me for the fight against diabetes. So thanks again. Then a 1 1/2 run on sunday and back on the plane to watch the oscars sunday night.

See you soon.

What's been going on.....

So before the storm, Thursday night I had my bike class, it was a tough one but I did it. I think that's why I am getting nervous for this Thursday nights vo2 max vomit fest, because I want to hit the watts and I want to be better/fitter than the last time. So the class was simple, it went like this:

warm up ~ 10-15 minutes extensive to intensive zone- 110-145 watts

single leg drills- ~ 5 minutes

3 minute ramp up building from steady state watts to mid range tempo- 175 watts-225-230 watts

Main Set:

4 x 6 minutes as described below, with 2 minutes of recovery in between sets:

1 st: keep at low range tempo watts with 1 1/2 minutes of high end vo2 max watts mixed in. ( low range tempo is 215 watts, Vo2 max 275)

2nd and 3rd set: mid range tempo watts ( 225-230 watts) with 1 1/2 minutes mixed in of mid range vo2 max ( 250-260)

4th: high end tempo ( 235 watts) with 1 1/2 minutes of high end vo2 max ( 275-280)

cool down.

I hit the watts, I definitely worked hard but I did it, max HR was 166. I can't wait to see how all this work pays off outside, I really am focusing this year and want to do well.

The dreams continue with all different outcomes but the one I have all the time is me running well and strong on the second loop of the marathon. Oh please god let that be me, let that be how I feel when I am at mile 16 when its really supposed to hurt and you have to dig deep and find whatever you have to finish the last 10.2. Its finding that race, that perfect race, the swim, the bike, the run, the nutrition, the transitions, everything. The mental game as well is huge, I want it all, is that selfish? Is that realistic? I think so, if you train that way there should be no reason why you shouldn't race that way. My new focus this year was to turn my bike into a strength and my run to be more efficient and strong and to keep the sport fun and exciting and to try to be as positive and mentally strong with every workout as well as with every race. I can do this, I know I can.

Anyway, with my little speal over with, training has been going well, I got to run with a good friend this weekend which was so much fun out in the snow/hail, but we didn't care, I loved chatting with her and just hanging out, it was a great start to my day. Now I am trying to recruit more friends to run with me on my long runs because I miss my friends, I'm hoping I can convince my friend Jess to run with me while she is training for the NYC marathon this fall. We'll see, everyone has their goals of what they want to do and what paces they need to run so hopefully they can all fit into my schedule ( I'm so selfish, I just need + want to be with my friends). I also think its time to take the plunge for the next 2-3 months and get back to masters 1-2x a week, my swims are fine but I'm lonely and pushing out hard sets ( even though I do it) I think I could go faster if I was pushed by other people. I haven't had that chat with hubby yet so we'll see how that goes tomorrow. Morning masters doesn't work because hubby is already gone and its so hard to motivate at 7:15 at night for a hard 4000yd swim. Anyway, lots to think about with race season so close and ironman only a short 5 months away. Gotta run, chat soon.

No computer, no posting....

Hey guys,
sorry its been so long since I last posted, since the storm last thursday we have been without TV, computer, phone and cable. I am currently typing away at the library until I need to pick up my little guy at school, which is about 3 minutes from now. Anyway, just a quick update. last weeks bike class went great, will post the workout later but hit all my watts. Unfortunately we are testing again this week ( 6 minutes of pure hell) and the expectations are higher, so a fairly standard workout week for me and some rest thursday morning and hopefully I will kick some ass thursday night.

On another note, I finished my USAT exam ( all 18 pages of a word document and 75 multiple choice questions) and mailed it last friday, hopefully I will hear soon how I did. Well, sorry for such a short post but I'm off to pick up little guy and hopefully if my computer is up tonight I can update you guys on lots of the cool stuff going on here.