With a little help from my friends…

What would you do if I sang out of tune,
Would you stand up and walk out on me.
Lend me your ears and I’ll sing you a song,
And I’ll try not to sing out of key.
Oh I get by with a little help from my friends,

If you are of a “certain age”, you now have an earworm to drive you nuts the rest of the day….you’re welcome.

Actually, I do need a little help from my friends.

If I am going to do a triathlon in July, I need at least two things:

→A training plan aimed somewhere between a raw recruit and a pro.  Not like I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing, but it has been a while.  There is a ton more information available regarding training for events.

 We had nada (unless you had access to a coach) when I was racing before.  It was pretty much “Let’s try this and see if it works…”   Then fine-tune the result for the next race.  Now every rock you pick up has a training plan under it.  But most of them seem to be aimed at 20/30-somethings who don’t already have to take inventory of functioning vs. non-functioning body parts every morning before they roll out of bed.

I have, if I counted correctly, fourteen weeks (including this one) to get ready for this race.  That also gives me some cushion to work around weather, injury (o, no, not again) and attitude problems.

I am already swimming a mile three times a week.  Some kickboard work, some alternate stroke work, a little speed work.  My thinking is stick with this for another four weeks (takes me to May)…work on speed through May and June, then steady on until the race.  Sound feasible?

While I was up to a long run of over thirteen miles before the ITB injury, right now I’m pretty much under five miles for the long run.  (Still nervous about the knee to be honest with you.)  Most of my running right now is on the treadmill.  I had been running at an incline of 1.5%, but starting last Friday I’ve gone up to 2.5%.  I’m planning to step up the incline by 1% each week for the next four weeks.  If the full 1% proves too much, I’ll drop the increase to just .5% each week.

We are still having snow…4″ this morning…but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and am hoping to get back out on the street soon.  Running 3 or 4 times a week with either hillwork or intervals (possibly on the treadmill) at least once a week seems like a good plan for me.  Mr. Ritis…Arthur by name…keeps my knees just sore enough that much more running than that and I start having problems.  And we don’t want to go there again, do we?

Jump right in here any time with your thoughts….

Finally, the second thing…

→I need a bike.  In my dreams it would be one of those lovely red Specialized road bikes like they rode in the Olympics.  That will not happen.  I need a bike that will be stable, reliable (read that no paper thin tires that puncture on a grain of sand), and that my bad back can bear to ride.  Remember the fall down the basement steps and resulting ruptured disc?  (You can’t break Murphy’s Law) Those things don’t go away, and they open up a place for Mr. Ritis to live.  Forever.  Any suggestions?

I’m thinking about riding my thirty year old mountain bike in this event.  It’s a beast, but I’m only interested in finishing this race.  Last year there were 70 entrants (who actually raced) with an average age of 31.  Not like Gramma is going to blow by any of them.

Unless of course they are fixing a punctured tire alongside the road.

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Gonna give it a “tri”….

I’m nothing if not obsessed…

Or, in corp speak, goal oriented.   That at least sounds better.

I’ve been rummaging through the online upcoming race listings looking for a new goal to replace the recently abandoned “let’s run a marathon” one that turned out to be not quite as do-able as it looked in November.

I think I’ve found one.

Turns out, there is a triathlon in my very own back yard.  Well, sort of.  My back yard when I was a young’un.  The Holmes County Triathlon, July 20, 2013.

There actually IS a triathlon in my current back yard…but it’s the first weekend of June and with the snow and frigid temps we’ve had this spring any lakes will still be too cold to swim in that early in the season.  I did one early June race (back in the day) in Michigan…Ann Arbor…Great Lakes Triathlon.  Hahahahahahaha.  When I came out of the lake, my entire body was numb with cold.  My brain refused to put two words together into a sentence.  If a friend of mine hadn’t been there to help me tie my shoes my race would have ended right there.  No thank you very much ever again.

By July open water swims should be, if not warm, at least OK for a half mile anyway.  If I remember correctly, this lake is spring fed which will keep it on the chilly side.  I don’t own a wetsuit and have absolutely no plans to buy one either.  I’ll need a bike sooner than I need a wetsuit.  (Much sooner, since I still don’t have one.)

The bike course, 13 miles, ascends Sand Run Ridge described (in those flowery terms only a race director can be proud of) as “a challenge to even the seasoned triathlete”.  That means don’t eat a hearty breakfast.  You won’t believe the damage stomach acid can do to the finish of your bike.

The run, a 5K, is on the Holmes County Trail through the Killbuck Valley marshland.  Another race director euphemism, marshland.  Read that as swamp.  The area has been referred to by locals for years as “The Mosquito Capital of the World”.  Wonder if being carried across the finish line by tiny winged critters will be grounds for disqualification?

There it is.  What looks, on paper anyway, like a good idea.

Here we go again.

If you’d like to join me, here’s race info….   http://www.trifind.com/re_107359/HolmesCountyTriathlon.html

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Takin’ the “A” train….

I’m officially back on track.

No, not THAT track.  The track I was on before I got sidetracked.

The losing weight and getting back into racing form track, not the fast track to Boston track.

It feels good…and more importantly, I’m feeling good about it.

I was afraid I would go into a tailspin after abandoning Boston (for now) and give up.  But really, it feels like a large weight has been lifted from my shoulders.  Workouts are…er…fun again.

Twice this week I’ve been able to swim a full mile-practically unheard of recently with all the newbies in the pool.   Sharing lanes makes for heads up swimming and, once in a while, no swimming.  Grab a kickboard and do drills, and thanks to Maria, Katie, and Vicky, I had a some great ones to turn to,  http://waterbloggedtriathlete.com/swimming-drills/ .  The drills helped.  I’m pretty sure I swam my fastest mile to date today (no stopwatch when you really need one).

You know what else helped?  I finally braved the dressing room mirrors long enough to buy a new swimsuit.  No more yanking the shoulder straps of the old, too big one up at every turn.  Or horrors, worrying that I was going to swim out of it halfway down the pool.

Call me a fair weather cyclist, but winter being what it is in NEOhio, I’m convinced no one in his (or her) right mind would attempt to ride outside right now.  I say that, but I can remember far enough back to when yes, I rode right through every season.  I wouldn’t even consider it now.  Unless I was getting ready for another Ironman.  (grin)  The five minute walk to the indoor cycle in the fitness room is just fine, and I’ve been riding thirty minutes of  hill interval workouts after my swim all winter.

From the bike, it’s a five second walk to the treadmill.  There’s a transition time for you.  I ride in my running shoes…yes I know it’s not good for them, but I don’t have a pair of cycling shoes yet.  Or, now that I think about it, a bicycle either.  Tena’s, where are you with that endorsement money?  

When I stumble off the treadmill thirty-five minutes later I’m done.

I know I’ve had a good day if I have to lean against the wall at any time walking back to the locker room.

Swim…bike….run.  Yeh…I’m back on track.

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Rest works….

Our weather broke out in sunshine yesterday afternoon, and I decided it was now or never.

Alarmingly, it was beginning to look more and more like never.  Not only was the knee still twinge-y, but I was beginning to not care.  

I went out the door with “somewhere around three miles” in mind, but ended up doing four.  A far cry from the thirteen plus I’d run just three weeks ago, but four more than I’d run since.  (Well, there were those couple false starts on the treadmill, but that’s all they were-false starts-a couple miles, mixed walking and running.)

It sure was nice to be able to go out and run neekid!  No hat, no gloves, no turtleneck, no tights, no jacket.  Just shorts and a tshirt…and the Garmin, of course.  I even forgot my phone.  (That kept me close to home, since I didn’t want to have to crawl too far home if it all didn’t work out.)

It was….OK.

Just……..OK.

The knee tightened up later, but wasn’t horribly uncomfortable, which means I probably picked up again at exactly the right time…not so soon as to have done more damage, but before I lost all my conditioning.  

Speaking of which…I’m shocked by how much I did lose in three short weeks.  It wasn’t a struggle to do four miles, but I didn’t want to go much further.  I’m guessing my age, and the fact that I’ve been riveted to my desk for the last three weeks finishing my other project, really took a toll.  And eating everything that didn’t eat me first.

Qualifying for Boston is definitely out for this spring.

Possibly for the entire year.

I’m going to concentrate on building a solid mileage base, getting stronger, and improving my pace.   I have very serious doubts (thank you Mr. Dragon) as to whether I could have run a Boston qualifying time, even by June.

It was, in the end, probably too soon.

And speaking of dragons, next year Loch Ness Marathon for sure.  I know, not technically a dragon but you get the picture.  Loch Ness is a commitment with Carole, whose fault this all is anyway (lol Carole), and I’m not letting her out of it.  

I don’t think the knee injury was over-use (o, hell no, I’ll never admit that).  It was clearly a result of running on the snow and ice.  I was fine until then, and that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

So now, there’s a new “Plan”.

Back to basics.

Get stronger.  Get longer.  Get lighter. Get faster.  Get a few races under my belt, hopefully placing well.

And yes, do a couple triathlons.

Hope you all have had much success these last few weeks.

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Having a piece of (gluten free) humble pie…

I never was one for dietary restrictions.

I felt people who laid claim to some rarefied food allergy were just being “precious”.  Victims of a princess syndrome.  Looking for sympathy.

You get the idea.

Guess what?

After reading several articles about gluten free eating, most of them specifically addressing digestive issues I’d been having for some time, Gramma decided to try an experiment of one.

 

I’m here to serve up a big piece of gluten free humble pie to myself in apology to all those I doubted in the past.

 

I’m outta here!

The last two months have let a lot of air out of my gluten-free-is-just-a-craze balloon.

It’s difficult to put my finger on it exactly, but I do feel better.  Maybe there is something to the whole foods as inflammatory agents argument.

And, I seem to be losing some of my subcutaneous fat layer even though I’m not dieting.

Maybe it’s my age.

Maybe it’s the phase of the moon.

 

Who knows?

The experiment continues.

For me, I think gluten free will be a way of life from now on.   Good-bye butterscotch pie…good-bye homemade bread….

Definitely NOT gluten free…

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