Track Day, OMG so nervous

I always look on my schedule on Sunday to prepare myself for the week and I knew their were two workouts that made me nervous, Tuesdays 1hr 25 minute run with 2 x 15 minute Zone 3 efforts on the road and todays, 5 x 1 mile repeats at the track or road. I haven't had to do much speed until recently and it hards mentally for me to wrap my brain around it. Tuesdays workout was ok, I wasn't completely stoked about my performance on the road, I got my HR to the bottom of Zone 3 but I couldn't get my legs to turnover faster, their was a good headwind and some nice hills/inclines so I know my times were affected by this, still I was hoping the 15 minutes would be faster. I recovered well, ate what I needed and tried to rest, wednesday was just TRX and a short swim to help prepare for today's mile repeats. The last two times over the past two weeks I had to do them it was 4x 1 mile repeats of which I did on the treadmill at a 0% incline. My speeds were good, my heart rate got up to a max of 171 but the averages were low 160's, I was proud of the times I was getting but I'm never too sure how the times on the treadmill would convert if I did them outside or on the track. However, I would be lying if I didn't say the treadmill relaxes me I feel safe and in control of the elements. That being said today was a day I needed to embrace both mentally and physically, I needed to do this outside on the track or on the road and I decided the track.

I drove to Gordon College and sat in my car for awhile, staring at the track, I decided I would run a few errands first and then come back. Eventually I decided to just get it done, suck it up, enjoy the suck as MACCA likes to say, just do it.  I love to run but it humbles me everytime I do it. It likes Yoga to me or pilates, it looks like it should be so easy but it really isn't so I'm always in awe of the people that can do these forms of exercise and do it well, just like running.

Anyhoo, I decided to run my warm up in my Zr pace and man did that suck, it was slow and I was already battling the I'm going to run these repeats 4 minutes faster, ok, sure Donna. But I told myself to snap out of it and just do it. I decided not to look at my watch for the first mile, run by feel and just see what happens. Well 7:02 happened. Man that sucked, ok, lets do this again, 6:57, 6:55, 6:55, 6:57. I did it, I Pr'd my track experience, I've never done mile repeats in the 6's anywhere, I worked for everything I had out there. I know these times are not the quickest but for a 44 year old mother of 4 I was so proud of  myself that it could of been Kona for me today. I don't even know what to say but I was real happy and I want to thank all my friends on facebook who encouraged me to make the track my bitch today and to give it all my heart and I did. Thanks to Pat for telling me I could do it and hopefully the mental block with running will start to fade now. Anyhoo, off to kids activities. Thanks for the support guys.

Busy, Busy times

So life has been busy since the last time I wrote. I ran a half marathon at the end of September which was successful, a PR by about a minute, not huge by any means but still going in the right direction. Recovery from the race was good which hopefully means my fitness is returning after the big taper into my " didn't do ironman".

With regards to my injury things have been going well, I have been receiving ART twice a week ( thank goodness its covered by insurance) and once a month I travel to West Boylston, Mass to see Mike Roberts PT guru to keep me heading in the right direction. As of yesterday things are looking really good and he has advanced me on my exercises except that he has put a kabosh on some of my TRX exercises because of my poor form and that it was probably exacerbating my pelvic instability. He tweaked those exercises and gave me ones that did the same thing but didn't cause issue with my already existing issue. Anyhoo, things look good and hopefully we will be on the bike shortly.

Training for my 2nd outright marathon is much different then when I trained for my first, I think my longest run at that point was 16, which I did on the treadmill at a speed of 5.8mph and I was sore for like a week. I barely broke 5hrs at the Chicago Marathon so heres hoping for a much better finish this time around. The Miles Standish Marathon/Relay is new this year and there isn't a lot of information regarding the course the support, etc.  but its local and convenient, its a measured course and thats all that matters, I don't need the pomp and circumstance. Anyhoo, its going well and I'm hoping to stay injury free for a long time.

Times are crazy now and things have gotten really busy with the kids regarding school, sports and everything else they do, trying to be the mom who is class parent, class volunteer, driver, homework supervisor, food maker, discipline person, etc.. is tiring but I wouldn't have it any other way. Life is busy for everyone and I'm no different then anyone else. I like to bitch but only for the cathartic nature that it allows me to have, I am blessed in so many ways for my great family and friends who support me and my crazy family.

Anyhoo, today's my birthday, not my typical " OMG its my birthday days" but I'm 44 and well life goes on and there is a lot to do today. I was able to get my swim in which was nice and i'm hoping to get a little run in later while the sun is still shining, we'll see. Anyhoo, time for a doctors appointment for my daughter and pick up for the kids and then the sporting activities ensue. See you soon.

Mental demons in the pool

Just a quick post tonight. So my triathlon season ended after I completed an olympic at the end of July, I was hoping to go to IMMT and then do the Pumpkinman sprint but the hip and lower back said no. I am on the mend with some great people and we are working on getting me back on the bike which should be next week. In the meantime I am running and swimming, and swimming, and swimming. The running is good and getting better ( I think, right Pat?). I'm running without pain and unfortunately not doing much speed but at least I can get in a lot of zone 1 work with a little zone 2. I have a 1/2 marathon coming up and then a full in November as long as things stay the path they have been going. I'm excited to run a marathon, I've only run one in my life, Chicago in 1999 in a whopping 4hr 56 minutes. I don't count my ironman marathons since I literaly walked both of them.

The swimming is keeping my aerobic base high since I can't bike, but its so hard when your not doing a triathlon to push hard on the swim. I spend a ton of time during my sets saying to myself, " oh, just go easy, its september, you don't need to push right now, you don't have a race", its brutal, I spend the whole set bitching to myself about why I'm working hard, but then I do it and I'm happy about it in the end. But I tell you, I spend a good 5 minutes in the hot shower before going out to the pool contemplating my swim set and getting nervous. I never do this with my runs or bikes.

 Which brings me to today, the miles of misery, a good swift warm up and then 2 x 1600 with 2 minute recovery in between. The goal is not to go slower on the second and to hold a good pace. I always think I can go faster, or should i say I wish I could go faster than I do. I did a poor job on the first one, landing at the wall in 25 minutes flat. I was like, " what, that sucked, WTF", then I only had 2 minutes to rest and it was time to go again. Now during this last 1600 I had to convince myself to swim hard to hold pace to not give up to believe in myself that it was going to make a difference even though I wasn't doing a triathlon for another few months, it was crazy stupid, I was more mentally exhausted at the end of the set then I was physically. 24:56, awful, suck, suck, suck, suck, suck.

I think if I stop talking to myself when I swim I might swim faster. What the hell Donna, get a grip. My goal is to get in the low 24's on both 1600's we'll see how that goes by the end of the season.

Guilty on all 4 counts, finally.

Well, its been a long time since this event happened and I haven't been able to talk about it legally until the other day, I stewed for awhile about whether or not to write something about it but felt in the end it was important even if it just helped one person, so here it goes.

Last October we hired a babysitter to help me from 3-7p Mon-Thursday, mainly to help with driving the kids to and from activities and dinner if I'm unable to get home on time with the other kids. We have had a number of sitters over the years and they all have been very successful and wonderful and we have found them through various sources. This time I found her MS I'll call her on sittercity. I didn't have a lot of responses given that the job wasn't even considered part time and the others weren't the best even though for college students it should of been fine, but MS was good, she was energetic ( to a point) eager to work and had a good resume of working with children. Her background check with sitter city was good and her references checked out. My husband and I interviewed her for over 2hrs and the kids met her and liked her.  She was able to start fairly quickly after leaving another job but said the family was aware she was looking for more hours and was actively looking to leave. Needless to say ( I'll cut to the chase) for the 5 weeks MS worked for me she took a total of 8 days off for various reasons, she was incompetent from the day she started and I fired very quickly. I could list all the things she sucked at but it would take forever, she made my life harder and the kids and I didn't really like her. Enough said. 3 days after I fired her I noticed that all of my jewelry was stolen, except for a few things I wear on a daily basis everything was gone.

I filed a police report the next day and within a few days found out indeed it was her that had pawned all of my jewelry. It took several weeks of talking with her and the police and her working with them to have her finally admit her guilt and be arrested. She was arrested on 3 counts of felony larceny and 1 count of obstruction of justice.

After MS left my employment she actually found another job in Peabody with another family as a babysitter through sitter city and stole from that family as well, she was arrested within 2 weeks of employment with that family.

It took over 10 months but finally the court system prevailed and we went to court last Thursday and she pleaded guilty to all 4 counts and was given 3yrs of strict probation and multiple things she needed to abide by ( I won't get into it). We did find out that drugs were an issue and was probably the main reason for her stealing but in her very short time with me I wouldn't of thought that yet on hindsight her behavior was definitely conducive to a drug addict.

Anyhoo, I was a little bummed she didn't get jail time for her crimes given the amount of money she stole from us but because it was her first offense the judge was a bit lenient, however if she broke probation in anyway she would go to jail for a long time. That made me feel better but I still felt that she needed to know how she impacted all of our lives and that I didn't think that her behavior was going to change unless she went to jail. Oh well, that wasn't going to happen.

I left the courthouse last week feeling okay about the results but still pissed off that she didn't go to jail.

Well, only a little time passed when I got a phone call today from the assistant district attorney who said she was arrested today 9/11/12 for shop lifting in Peabody, for a measly pair of $40 earrings. She will be held in jail for 2 weeks until her hearing. Can you believe it, it didn't take her even a week before she committed another crime, if that doesn't scream out " help me" I don't know what does. I hope she goes away to jail for a long time.

What I learned:

1. I thought I did all the background necessary when hiring her. I should of asked for her most recent employer that she was leaving no matter what the circumstances.  Otherwise there was nothing else I could of done to prevent seeing this happen to me.

2. Thank goodness she didn't hurt my kids. If she indeed was doing drugs who knows what could of happened. I'm just grateful nothing happened.

3. I will never go through an online service again. I feel absolute guilt that I couldn't tell the other family what happened to me, I couldn't get her off sitter city in time to prevent something like this from happening. She wasn't convicted yet and if I went to sitter city I could of been slapped with a harassment suit or something worse. It wasn't until after the Peabody incident that we were able to get her off sitter city. She also went through craigslist to get jobs, it was crazy, who patrols these sites. If your a parent you need to do thorough background checks and have multiple references before hiring anyone. At least now she has a criminal record and she is in the system, she hopefully will never be hired again by a family.

Its over now and hopefully we can move on. I have felt completely betrayed and I've felt that I put my children at risk, never again. Momma bear is on the prowl and I will never have anyone watch my children that I don't know personally, if ever.

I will keep everyone posted on the outcomes of her court date in 2 weeks, I'm hoping she gets the maximum from her case with me which is 12 years.

There's a light at the end of the tunnel

So its been awhile since I last blogged, sorry for that, but I've had a lot on my mind since I raced last on July 28th. I was ramping up for IMMT on Aug 19th and my last race before ironman was good, really good for me, I did an Olympic distance race in Lowell, it was a little shorter than a normal race but I did well placed second in my Age Group and my time of 2:12 wasn't shabby, and a PR. After that race it was 1 more week of build and then on to taperville.

Things were going well until about August 10th when I started to notice a small pain in the center of my left glute, I've had this discomfort before and it was related to my performis tightening up and pressing up against my sciatic nerve, it was uncomfortable but bearable, I knew all I had to do is go to my amazing massage person Darcy and get some deep tissue done to work it out. On Monday before ironman I had my appointment and was set to go. Come tuesday and wednesday things were going south, the pain in my performis was getting worse and my SI joint was killing me. I couldn't sit on my bike without getting some significant pain down my hamstring and trying to go aero hurt my left lower back ( i.e., SI joint). When I ran the same thing happened, not as bad as on the bike but enough for me to start panicking and worrying about how I was going to ride for 6hrs and then run a marathon.

Ok, so I've had a really good year and making some good progress in my 3 sports I was hoping to head into IMMT and PR my race. Whether or not that would be good enough for Kona probably not but all I really wanted to do is have a successful race from start to finish and to run the run. The past two iron mans I've done Ive done at IMLP, the first year I had a really bad bike crash at mile 60 and the road rash was so bad I felt my skin was burning the rest of the race, but I finished in 13:40 or something like that, I walked most of the marathon it was just awful. The following year I went back for some redemption and I think I overtrained a bit, I was mentally exhausted and I placed very high expectations of myself ( and very unrealistic expectations) that when I didn't meet them I was crushed when I crossed the finish line and I wasn't having any fun, it sucked, I felt I sucked it was just awful. I said goodbye to ironman for awhile and decided I needed to take a new direction in my training and find the love again.

The fun and love for my sport came back when I joined QT2 just before the fall of 2011. My coach Pat Wheeler put me in the right place, was tremendously supportive and having a team to be there and support you made a huge difference for me both physically and especially mentally. Every race I did starting in 2012 I began to see drastic changes in my times and success in my age group. I wasn't burnt out, I wasn't overtrained and most importantly I really started loving the sport again. Also, I wasn't injured.

So onto this year, life was good, training was going well and I knew if I could keep mentally strong, still enjoyed the process it was going to be a good race for me in Mont Tremblant. My swim is always consistent, my riding good and my running was coming along, my last few key workouts went exactly as planned so I was ready. Like I said, I don't think Kona qualification was going to happen I'm at least realistic but I'm working on the long haul, if not this year maybe next, its always a possibility but you have to get to the starting line for it to be at least in the cards.

So come Thursday I went to my primary care physician she took x-rays of my lumbar/sacral spine and SI joints, there was some inflammation and arthritis in my L4-L5, she gave me pain meds and muscle relaxants. She really didn't want me to race but said we crazy endurance athletes can endure more pain then most so she said she would leave the decision up to me. Well after discussing with Pat and sitting down with my husband we decided that I've trudged through two iron mans before and that certainly wasn't the goal this year. I can finish an ironman, i've done a few I wanted to really race an ironman this year and I was ready, unfortunately the body finally said you need a few weeks to heel. Well, the decision got made and we decided we wouldn't race.

I was sooooooo sad on Thursday when the decision was finally getting made but at the same time my life quickly got put into perspective when I found out my dear friend and my co-captain of our high school swim team Michael committed suicide that day. When my friend David told me the news I was devastated, crushed, confused, I didn't understand how he could do this. I was so sad for his 4 kids, so sad for his mom and dad and brothers and sisters, just so sad all around. We will never really know why Michael felt he needed to do this and why he would do it on his birthday but all in all it put my life quickly into perspective. I could always do another race, I was alive, my family was intact, I guess me missing this race really wasn't that bad after all.

So after making this decision we headed up to Vermont for a little vacation and some mental and physical healing, I was able to swim and do some small exercises. I did run a little and since not riding my bike the pain was going away. When we returned to Manchester Pat suggested I see Mike Roberts at Central Mass PT in West Boylston Mass. When I visited Mike he was quite surprised that I hadn't fallen apart sooner. I wish I could completely articulate all the things Mike said but in quick summary I:
1. My left hip doesn't externally rotate very well
2. My pelvis I believe is anteverted
3. I have a very squishy Left SI joint
4. I don't fire my left glute much at all especially when I'm trying to engage it in both running and biking
5. I fire both my hamstring and my SI joint before my glute which has made both of them extremely made at me and thus the situation I'm in now.

What to do:
1. Trigger point exercises/self massage to work on hip external rotators
2. foam roller to work on groin and inner thigh
3. pelvic stability, setbacks with roller and setbacks with external rotation
4. pelvic stability and core exercises with both clam shell exercises and working on extensions with my pelvic bones on pillows .
5. A.R.T. twice a week for a few weeks.- have them work on hips/hip flexors, psoas release, hamstrings
6. f/u with Mike in 2 weeks for level 2 exercises

So our initial plan to maybe try to do Arizona or possibly Florida in November was kaboshed since Pat and I wanted to really make sure we heal up and get stronger in the areas that need to be stronger. So we decided our plan of attack will most likely be if everything works well and my healing and physical therapy go as planned:

Continue to swim, build up my run volume again, work on Mike's exercises and strengthen my core and left side and plan to run the Plymouth, Mass marathon on Novembre 18th, 2012. We will then recover and then plan for 2013 with most likely going to QT2 camp in Arizona in April and racing Ironman Texas in May. I don't know if I can squeeze in a 1/2 ironman ( for ex: texas 70.3) again given to the two travel times if I do both so we'll have to really tweak this when my annual plan is made. I'll probably front load my 2013 season and then do some olympics in the summer and then rebuild to do Pumpkinman half in September and who know's maybe Kona in October.

Thanks to all my friends who supported me and family over the last few weeks and thanks to my coach Pat Wheeler and QT2 for making me better and encouraging me every step of the way. I'm looking forward to a great race in november and hoping to continue my progress and dreams of one day making it to the big Island in 2013.

Its tough sometimes

So, its summer, kids are home, life is hectic but good, kids are doing a few camps but otherwise they are home. We are doing lots of swimming and playing outside and hanging with the dog. I'm trying to coordinate my remaining training for Mont Tremblant with the kids around and its getting tougher. Some days I have to ride my bike on a trainer while my kids are playing next to me or run on the treadmill late at night just to finish because we had 7hrs of swim meets to attend to and basketball games. I'm not really complaining, I have a great life, however I'm not quite sure scheduling an ironman in the summer is or was such a great idea, its so dam hard logistically trying to figure it all out, how I can get it all in. For example:

Two weeks ago I was starting my two week build and I had a 5hr bike f/b a 50 min T run scheduled, I got my cousin to come over early so I can leave on my bike ride so I could be home in time to pick up my kids from camp, which I scheduled for them to get out at 1:30p so we could hang for the rest of the day. Well, who knew that two flats later and no way of getting home because I ran out of tubes and C02 was going to happen. I called my awesome cousin who drove from Salem mass to retrieve me in Groveland, Mass, it took 1hr 15 min to get me and another 30+ minutes to get home, so only 2 1/2 hrs of biking got in because I had to go get my kids, I needed to fix my wheel and we had lots of basketball to do in the afternoon.  See, I have no flexibility in my schedule, if the ride didn't get in from x time in the morning that was it, I tried to think I could hop my trainer later and treadmill but I'm so tired by 8p with the kids I just want to go to bed.

Example #2: Swim meets, 7hrs a day of regional swim meets at MIT for my kids, how does one get in training when you need to be at an indoor pool all day, well, you get up at 4am, you run or do an early morning swim in the ocean crossing the heavenly gods that nothing happens to you in the ocean alone because its too dam early for the lifeguards to be out and its prime shark feeding time ( Well, thats a bit exaggerated, however early morning is known for fish feeding), anyhoo, its just not optimal anymore for me to get up that early, it takes forever for me to get my mojo on and by the time the workout is over I'm sure if I was able to perform it at a reasonable hour I might of actually hit my numbers. However, you do it because you love it, you do it because you have a goal in mind, you do it because, well, it makes you feel good, it makes me feel good.

Example #3: Today, I had a 40min swim, 1hr 30 min bike, 45 min run and 15 min of TRX to do, I squeezed in my swim early this morning then ran off and did errands and cleaned the house came back and picked up two kids at noon. Fed them lunch, cleaned up and it was time to pick up child #3. Ok, trying to figure out how the rest was going to get done I waited for my awesome cousin to come over and she was going to watch the 4 while I went downstairs to my girlie cave to get some workouts in ( I don't usually leave anyone in charge of my 4 kids so working out in the house is the only option). So during said workouts you have kids screaming, coming down to yell and fight around the bike and treadmill, one needs to stop treadmill workout to make sure kid in time out is staying in timeout, etc... You get the picture, chaos ensues, oh, and dog pooping in front of said treadmill during session not so great. I guess the kids forgot to take him out and he ( the dog) was pissed at me too.

Well, ironman is almost here and I feel like I did the best I could with training, I think I was able to get in about 97% of all my training, however missing some of the workouts always freaks me out and I get real nervous about that, but I'm healthy, I feel good and getting to ironman healthy is half the battle. I will be traveling with my kids and husband to this ironman ( ought to be interesting), so we'll see how it goes. I have one more race this weekend to see how things are going and I will continue the taper until August 19th. From now on when I choose my " A" races they will be scheduled in October and November and March through the end of June, its just too hard.

Untitled by donnafurse at Garmin Connect - Details

Untitled by donnafurse at Garmin Connect - Details