training: day one hundred and seven

40 minute jog, easypeasy. except that it was at the gym. at 9pm. ran out of time. didn't want to run in the morning as it felt muggy. at 5pm the skies opened up (the streets were flooding) and it hasn't stopped since.

the tri is one week away. i am taking a break from last minute packing to type this up. i'm not sure how i'll do updates, maybe find an internet cafe in tokyo and a library in hawaii. one week!

training: tapir

my taper started today. i'm sure between travel, pms and the taper, i'm not gonna be much fun.

training: day one hundred and six

brick. 30 min bike, 30 min run. wouldn't have been so bad if i hadn't had dinner 45 minutes before. oh, well.

training: weak!

i feel like a total loser for whatever reason. i need to do affirmations, but i feel like that guy on the SNL skit...i can swim, bike, run...and gosh darn it, people like me. AAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHH!

panic has started to creep into my thoughts. the race is just over a week away. also, having turning 35 panic. vacation panic. work panic. world war iii panic. panic panic panic panic panic. even chocolate is not helping. that's REALLY scary.

training: day one hundred and five

800 m swimmy. my freestyle sucks! gah, i'm gonna look like a goober doin' the swimleg breaststroke instead o' crawl. well, whatever keeps me from drowning.

training: day one hundred and four

supposed to run. it's hot and humid and i just didn't want to. switched it for an hour-long bike ride instead, and moved the 2nd workout to saturday.

training: meltdown

i'm getting a bad case of the nerves and it's manifesting itself as sheer, unadulterated crankiness. i had a total meltdown last night. i was hot, tired, frustrated and didn't want to do my workout; additionally, i seriously considered not going to the the tri. i haven't wanted to work out for well over a week (this may be indicative of burnout, i usually like my workouts) and i ended up procrastinating until 9pm and had to do my workout late, which in turn affects my sleep, etc etc. i was pretty bitchy. however, after i was done being three years old, it occurred to me that i owe that race not only to myself, but to my husband (who has swum countless laps in the pool with me, put up with take-out more times than necessary because i was asleep on the couch instead of cooking dinner and has really been a saint about anything and everything tri-related the last three months), to my friends who have taken an active interest in what i am doing for training (as well as offering encouragement and advice), to my family (who despite thinking it's nuts to try something like this, are still cheering for me) and even the people who have organized the race.

training: nekkid

i've gained a few pounds the last two weeks. i'm praying i'm retaining water. please. i don't want to gain back what i've lost! anyway, it's on my mind because i dreamed my trisuit (which is very fitted) got too big and fell off during the swim leg of the tri. it was either bike and run nekkid or get a DNF. i woke up going "WHAT DO I DO!

training: day one hundred and three

200m swim, five times. 30 second rest between each set of 200. i think i am getting burned out. it's hard to be focuses on the workouts lately.

training: day one hundred and two

1000m swimmy scheduled, opted for a 40 minute bike ride on the trainer. damn, i am still feeling the effects of the two-weeks-ago doctor adventure. holy sweet babby zombie jeebus. i am tired, cranky, crampy, constipated and bleeding intermittently. its definitely affected my training. sheesh. that was probably more than you all wanted to know.

training: sweet

kelly soup thought of me, forwarding an email about a woman triathlete (who's so cute!). an inspiration (both kelly soup and the cutiepie triathlete). it made my day!

training: day one hundred and one
it's 3am and i can't sleep. part of it was that damn pizza, i'm sure but some of it is nerves. i leave for hawaii in seven days. the race is less than two weeks away now!

training: to do
after i finish blogging this, i'll go do some laundry and other housework, prep a few more things for the hawaii trip. once the sun comes up in about an hour, i'll go for a run and then go to work. it's seems like it took forever to get to here from april, and now the week remaining doesn't seem like enough time to get ready!

training: running
what a horrible run. i should have learned long ago that pizza hut does not agree with me, not 15 minutes after or the morning after. i thought i was gonna end up puking in someone's flowerbed. ungh.

training: day one hundred

i'm taking another rest day. i am all off kilter from eating and drinking too much in tokyo. actually, i did great until i got home, had a bad case of the nerves and ate half a pizza. not used to the grease or the heavy food and not working out two days in a row.

training: short

my workouts are getting shorter! it's odd, but i have a harder time getting motivated to do a short workout than to do a long one. not sure why that is.

training: day ninety-nine

recovery. i'm glad i moved my workouts around. tokyo is hot and humid and i probably would have dropped dead.

training: day ninety-eight

1200 meter swim. at 5:30 in the morning! well, at least i was most of the way done before i really woke up. this is the longest swim workout yet. soon, i begin my tapers. the race is just a bit more than two weeks away. i keep thinking about it a lot.

training: day ninety-seven

scheduled for 30 minute run. it's still raining. rode the bike for 1:40 instead.

training: day ninety-six

swimmy. 900m. speed swimmy. not sure what was up with that, as the 900m workout usually takes a good 45 minutes and i was done in 30. okay, for the first time since i started this crazy endeavour, i actually had a good swim. i've probably used up all my supply of good swim. oh well.

training: day ninety-five

i'm really moving my schedule around, so that i can accomodate a weekend trip to tokyo. i'm trying to work it so my oyasumi (rest) day is on saturday of this week, instead of the usual monday. my rescheduled workout got rescheduled because himberg pool was closed today, despite having a "holiday schedule" printed out, which implied they'd be open. so no swim on the anniversary of our great nation's founding. so... i did ANOTHER brick, 30 min on the bike, 1 hour on the treadmill (hates it) because it's still craptaculuar out. i'm half tempted to say screw it, and go do my swim workout at komaki's and take TWO days IN A ROW off, but i'd get 100 meters into the swim and probably die.

training: grrrrrrr

goes my stomach, bladder and all the jumbly bits of plumbing contained in my "abominable region". will it ever stop being fucked up? it sure doesn't feel like it. what i really want is a beer, but what i had was a japanese tonic (a concentrated vitamin drink, which replaces b vitamins, mostly but has iron and magnesium, too) with a blackstrap molasses chaser (iron and calcium, 20% of my rda in a tablespoon) instead. i've been wondering if my heme count is a little low and that's why i've been so tired. not that the fact i'm WORKING OUT SIX FREAKING DAYS A WEEK for the last ninety-five days has anything to do with it...

training: day ninety-four

moving the workouts around. today's workout was actually thursday's. it's pouring out, so i didn't want to be outside. i rode the trainer for 45 minutes. it's boring. i hate it.

training: what would you do for a klondike bar?

ride the trainer for 45 minutes. duh.

training: day ninety-three

second brick. one and a half hours on the bike, 10 minutes running at high cadence. it was pouring down rain outside (and has been doing so for more than 24 hours now) so I changed the run to 10 minutes high-cadence, light resistance on the bike. not quite the same, but close enough.

training: wiped out

i've been taking a weeklong course of pretty strong broad-spectrum antibiotics, as a preventive for infection because of last tuesday's ongoings. the ongoings wore me out for two days, but the antibiotics have been continually kicking my ass. i'm so tired, and it's not the good, worked-out tired of training, but that grotty tired you get from medicines. it's made my training more difficult, because I feel so worn out. yesterday, i calculated that on average, i've been sleeping about 11 hours a day since last week -- i usually do fine on eight. however, there is one bright spot. in addition to not walking around with an internal infection-- the drugs cleared up my skin like you wouldn't believe! it looks great! wow! one dark spot, it cleared out all the beneficial flora in my gut like you wouldn't believe. time to buy lots of yogurt. erg.

training: you'll be in my dreams

dreamed about the tri again, just a sort of general dream. in reality, all the trip details are set, the itineraries and activities planned and printed out, tickets purchases, clothes laid out. i should post some pictures.

training: day ninety-two

my first brick. a brick is when you follow one workout immediately with another. so i did 30 minutes on the bike, then went and ran for an hour. it wasn't too bad. it was too great, either, though.

then i went home and took a hour and a half nap.

training: day ninety-one

800m swimmy. i was tired the whole time. chris claimed i was booking, but it took me about 30 minutes to complete the swim.

training: dreamin' redux

i'm dreaming about the triathlon a LOT. weird dreams, too. like being stuck in traffic on the way home from work and not being able to get my workout in. stuff like that.

training: day ninety

30 minute run. the loop that used to take me 40 minutes now only takes about 25. i had some cramping during my run as a result from my medical misadventure on tuesday, but i soldiered through.

training: buggin' out

i decided to eat dinner after my run, since it was a heavier meal. i had a light snack of some pineapple chunks and a handful of almonds and went for my recovery trot. well, currently the evenings are cool and clear, with slight breeze to blow away most of the bugs. i say most because i think i managed to suck down enough bugs (particularly around the open gutters) to meet and/exceed my daily protein requirements. it was beautiful last night, it was a really enjoyable run, i spent most of it looking at the horizon and all the gorgeous bands of colors in the gloaming.

training: day eighty-nine

a light 20 minute spin on the bike. thank goodness for recovery weeks.

training: dreamin'

i've been dreaming about the triathlon. i had a dream i lead the swim leg, but couldn't find my bike when i got out of the transistion area!

training: day eighty-eight

recovery. good thing i switched my workouts. i wasn't really in any shape to be running, biking or swimmy.

training: 989

my race registration packet came today! i am number 989. there will be about 900 people at the tinman, 33% of them first-time triathletes. approximately one-third of the 900 participates will be women.

the average time to complete the race: 2 hours and 26 minutes. the winner of my age group (35 to 39) completed the race in 2:07:54. damn.