new to training...?

"'like wild banshees on the hunt for peyote'...who says that?! oh right...that'd be me. the things i come up with..."

i've sort of forgotten what real training is like. i had two great conversations last Wednesday evening with people who really know their tri shit, Luke and Brian. these two are (from what i gather to date) are not only fantastic coaches but also great chatters. it was good to hear some of their perspectives on tackling the whole half ironman distance, how to handle the training, the importance of good quality training and the need to work harder than you thought possible to achieve the results you want.

training so far this week:

Mon - 10X100m swim TT - so not fun


Tues - Core Power Yoga & 40 min run around OB - felt really really good and tired


Wed - swim lesson with Coach Gurujan - by the time i finished 45 min of re-learning how to swim, i was so tired and weak that i literally could not lift myself out of the pool and the girls next to me laughed...oy

Thurs - ended up working pretty late into the evening - texted CB with a "DIRE" message (i am only allowed to play with my schedule in "dire emergencies"), where i then received a return text that basically called me a puss. i took note and then continued to run around like a crazy person to pack and get ready for a 4 AM leave time the next morning for the Vineman trip.

Fri - where do i begin...?

Bri, Dana and i finally went to bed around 12AM Friday morning. i was trying to get my laundry done before we left because i had absolutely no clean clothes - although it was a general consensus that i didn't really need clothes for the weekend, i opted for the more modest approach to vacationing in Sonoma Valley for the weekend - i set my alarm for 1 (to change the last load to the dryer), 3:00, 3:05 and 3:18. we finally got our butts up and moving about 3:26, packed up the car and headed out. because i don't know how to drive a stick, i was banished to the backseat and immediately fell asleep for the first 4 hours. it seems that i would wake up just in time for every stop along the way and then fall right back to sleep soon thereafter, classic katieb for ya. its a good thing the two of them were so hyped up on caffeine that they were able to keep each other occupied during the drive as we were subjected to Bri's very questionable taste in music (note to self: never let Bri be in charge of the radio...or the ipod). we finally arrived in one piece - Dana extremely sleepy and highly annoyed at the two of us monkeys, me antsy to get a ride in because of my pussy-itis the from last night and Bri just happy to be out of the car.

now to the the actual reason i started this blog...Bri decided to tag along for my ride - meaning he was nice enough to volunteer to accompany me on what was to be a 60 min jaunt mainly because he knows me well enough to realize that i get lost easier than any other person on the planet. what should be a simple out and back can and usually does turn into me going the wrong way at some point. its really quite artful the way i lose myself in any given situation. we had planned on doing an out and back, easy ride to last 60 min. i was to do 5X2' power-ups followed by 5X2' speed-ups - boy oh boy were we in for a shock. Paul Anderson directed us down the path that was sure to be a pretty easy ride with a couple of rollers and off we went.


we got about 13 min into the ride and all of the sudden, like the earth threw up its breakfast, we started to climb. and when i say climb i mean forget about the big chain ring, out of the seat, easiest gear, skyrocketing heart rate and the threat of your lunch coming back up to settle on the side of the road as you are bending over, taking it like the weak little girl you are - no Vaseline. we climbed for 20 straight minutes. in that amount of time, we covered approximately 1.4 miles and made over 960 feet of elevation gain. ARE YOU FRIKKEN SERIOUS?!?! nice easy ride my ass, which by the way never even touched my very expensive Adamo race saddle for more than 1 minute at a time - it was like an invisible force was keeping my ass out in mid air. i think it was the constant threat of toppling over that might have been the driving factor here. i ended up stopping at minute 21 to bring my heart rate down and try to regain some sort of composure. Bri just kept on trucking. i took about 3 minutes to calm myself and get some water (we had absolutely no nutrition on us). after trying to clip back in twice and failing miserably because the damn mountain we were ascending wouldn't allow gravity to work with me, falling and beating up my knee and elbow pretty badly, i decided to turn to a higher power. i knew i needed to continue but if i couldn't clip in, i wouldn't be able to get any further. i pleaded with God, said a Hail Mary tried one last time and was finally able to maneuver my clip into the heavenly space that only the angelic sound of **CLICK** can muster. not 2 minutes later, i see Bri coming back down towards me with a "there's no end to this climb." because i had not done ANY climbing before this ride since last year, i yielded to the mountain gods that housed the magnificent Redwoods that surrounded us on either side and began the slow and painful descent back to where we started. we couldn't go any faster than 5 mph down because of the road quality and grade. we would have most definitely been seen flying off the side of that beast had we attempted any speed greater than a tortoise.


miraculously, i was able to hold an 18 mph average to and from the monster mountain and for that i was proud. i was, however not surprised to have gotten myself, yet again, into some kind of conundrum and brought Bri along to witness the achievement of my first climb back on the bike - all 960 ft of it :) we only covered a total of 9.16 miles in one hour. oh and we just noticed that i have a standard 53/39 in the chain rings but - and here's the innate problem with the situation - i only have 11/23 on the cassette...what?! so my easiest gear is significantly harder than Bri's and maybe just maybe might explain why i had to make that stop at minute 21 to regain my respiratory functionality so my lungs didn't continue to congeal the oxygen coming in...oy vey!

(here is the info from Bri's garmin...nuts)

i can't wait for tomorrow's ride...and the swim to follow in the Russian River. good weekend kids, good weekend. oh and BTW: it's official - i am locked in for my first half ironman, my training is loaded in preperation and now i only have to execute it all. October 5, 2008...get ready kids - here we go ;)