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July 10th, 2009
crabbyoldjaws
 | 09:57 am - improvement
Thanks for the input and the reminders to stretch/roll/ice bath! I'm doing all that now plus I cut back on my mileage this week. I am feeling a lot better. Took today off and am swimming.
Not sure if I'll do the long run tomorrow but knowing me, I will ;)
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porkcracklins
| 07:56 am - Chorizo
http://notasgoodasporkcracklins.blogspot.com/2009/07/chorizo.html 
Homemade chorizo, on a pile of eggs scrambled with [not my] homegrown peppers, farmshare onions, tomatoes, and a little sprinkle of cilantro.
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porkcracklins
| 04:48 am - Animal Print Cookies
http://notasgoodasporkcracklins.blogspot.com/2009/07/animal-print-cookies.html 
I have a vivid imagination. Whoever gave these cookies their original name does not.
Marbled Chocolate-Vanilla Cookies, Fine Cooking #54
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July 9th, 2009
cruisergirl
 | 09:48 pm - 20
Texas Iron open water group workout. After running this morning when the temperatures already were verging on unbearable, I couldn't bear the thought of looking at my wetsuit, let alone putting it on at 6:30 PM to swim, even though it seemed doable at last week's swim. After work, I made the drive out to Emma Long Lake Park sans wetsuit and swam in my tri-suit. And got my workout on, as our warmup was a thirty minute continuous swim, with the first fifteen building, second fifteen strong. Yikes. I'm still not comfortable swimming bilaterally or breathing every three strokes for extended periods of time, especially out of my wetsuit, so I stuck to breathing on one side, every two strokes. The problem is that I have a bad habit of pulling harder with my left arm as I breath to the right, and it makes my left shoulder sore, and my back gets a little achey too. And my neck chafes on the right side. So I focused on pulling through more with my right catch, which did propel me along faster or at least it felt that way. The problem with that was the extra force from my right side pulled me off course and I was swimming at bizarro angles to the buoys. That was frustrating. It seemed like it did balance my body more because I don't have the usual chafing and soreness now.
After the warmup, we practiced starts again, and making left turns around the buoys, doing four shorter loops. Being in the cold water felt great, and was worth making the long drive from downtown.
I think maybe some of the sluggishness this morning may have been due to the hot tub last night. I consulted the interwebs about hot soaks and the consensus was it is pretty much not recommended after endurance workouts. The only exception was as a "contrast bath"- immersion in hot water, then cold water. I liked the way the jets in the hot tub felt on my legs, so I was thinking maybe next time I try it, I'll pick up some bags of ice afterwards and have an ice bath at home. There should have cold tub days at the Gregory pool- pump in refrigerated water or set up an ice machine to fill the hot tub.
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cruisergirl
| 02:59 pm - 19
50-70 minute run, 10 minute easy, 40-60 minute moderate. Wow it was tough to get out to run this morning. My body definitely needs to readjust to the early morning routine, not to mention the extra weekday run. I think I always managed to find reasons to skip these in previous training programs. I had to do the run before work because of the group swim workout after work today, and I really didn't want to use the indoor track again at lunch. My heel was still a little tight during the first part of my run today. I felt very sluggish and plodded through most of this, without a lot of "moderate". The Olympic schedule was fifty minutes and the distance was seventy minutes and I started on the same Congress route that I've been using for my long runs. On the way to Congress after passing the S. 1st bridge I wasn't quite ready to do my long run distance as a midweek run, and turned around to go back to the ramp up to the 1st St. bridge, which in the end didn't trim that much distance. I stopped running sixty minutes after leaving home, which brought me back to YMCA after crossing back at Mopac and taking the "pedestrian underpass" under Cesar Chavez.
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July 8th, 2009
cruisergirl
| 11:55 pm - 17, 18
Trainer workout this morning. I modified the sixty minute workout on the Olympic schedule to be a little longer by adding an extra build interval, because the trainer workout for today on the long distance schedule was seventy-five minutes, and my workout clocked in at sixty-seven minutes. It's fortunate that I'm able to position my handlebars less than three feet from one of my window AC units, and there also a fan on the other side of my bike, so while sweat soon started to pour, it was mostly evaporated before hitting the floor.
After work, I headed over to the Gregory pool for another sixty minute swim workout, the highlight of which was the "swim test": 4x100 as strong as you can hold for all four, with two minute recovery after each 100. The idea of a test stresses me out in general, and I decided to not try anything fancy, like flip turns, and swim steady for all four. The first two went by with no struggle at all, the third took a little more concentration, and the fourth was harder to hold, but all four clocked in at 1:50, which is about what I expected, though I was surprised to have to struggle through the fourth, after having the long two minute recovery, which I spent swimming a very easy 50 with the rest after each length.
I also worked more on flip turns during my cool down. One problem I noticed for me is that sometimes I scrape the bottom of the pool during part of my flip because it's so shallow (3'9"). I played around with the turns for fun, mainly to get comfortable with underwater manuevers with little pressure to get through the workout because it was mostly over.
After the pool, I ventured over to the hot tub. Hot tubs always sort of scare me as being possibly unsanitary, but this hot tub looked very clean. And hot. Even hotter than the pool, which could be considered a very large hot tub on its own. It seemed pretty silly to be sinking into still yet even hotter water, but it performed the miracle of making the air temperature feel cool. As I let the jets massage my IT bands, hamstrings, and quads, I wondered if there was any actual scientific therapeutic value to this as opposed to say, Advil. It definitely felt good, which is enough to qualify as therapy to me!
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leahruns
 | 05:18 pm - Arrgh
Frustration--I've goofed up some things today and I'm in a pissy mood.
I decided to do my run this morning since I was up early and had things to do this evening. I went to St. Ed's park. When I turned into the parking lot, there was a car backed into one of the spaces closes to the road; I started to pull in next to it, as prefer to be out by the road as opposed to pulled in to the trees, but changed when I realized there was a man sitting in the car. I pulled into the spot across from him. That park is notorious for car break ins, so I sat there for a minute, watching to see what he was going to do. It was odd; the windows were all rolled up, there was no front license plate, and he didn't seem to be doing anything. I waited. I waited some more. He started the car, and I opened my door to get out. But he didn't pull away. He sat there with the car running. I went about my business, getting my shoes on and my stuff together. He still didn't do anything, only now he began gesticulating wildly at times, putting his hands in his head like he was upset, weird stuff. So I got back in the car, closed the door, and got out my phone. It had been more than 10 minutes and so I called 911. They put me through to the Travis County Sheriff''s office, as the park was their jusidiction. I described the situation and that it was off and seemed suspicious to me. They said a car would be out to check.
i figured I had two options--to leave in the car or get onto the trail. It seemed pretty clear he wasn't getting out, and the sheriff was coming by, so I quickly got out and bunnied on down the trail. I turned to look, and no, he hadn't gotten out of the car.
I ran from St. Ed's over to the entrance at Bull Creek, the full trail. I was so dang slow but I just told myself time on my feet was important. Oh, it was hot. Ugh. And I was pestered unmercifully by a horse fly. But the run back was better than the run out and I was happy to get back to my car and find it alone and unmolested.
I pulled out of the parking lot and headed towards 360. Now, there is a second, small parking area to the side of the road...and guess what I saw there? You guessed it, the creepy guy sitting in the car. This was 2 and a half hours after I'd called the cops. Now, a grown man sitting in a car outside of a secluded park for 3 hours is just trouble. I pulled over as soon as it was safe and called 911 again; it took another 10 minutes to go over everything because the dispatchers were disagreeing on whether this was APD or Travis County. Suddenly, he pulled out of the parking lot and drove away. I got the first 3 digits of his license plate but he was going too fast (and had no front plates) so I didn't get it all.
Just creepy.
If you're at St. Ed's and you see a guy parked in a metallic green VW Passat with no front plates, that's him.
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gmatom
 | 03:35 pm - Last update
I've decided to stop updating the workout blog, I just am not keeping up with it, and have ended up just keeping my handwritten workout log like I used to.
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July 7th, 2009
cruisergirl
| 10:37 pm - 16
Texas Iron run workout this evening. It was again very hot. After a twenty minute tempo-ish warmup (ten minutes easy, five minutes moderate-easy, five minutes moderate-strong), we re-convened at the section of Zilker bordered by Stratford and the Trail of Lights road where we learned our workout would be drills and strides, then the always popular ten repeats of one minute ON, one minute rest. This was my first real attempt at speed work in some time. I had done 3 strides last week during my run on the indoor track at Gregory, but those weren't very ambitious, plus we aren't supposed to sprint on the track there anyway.
By the way, I think my thirty minute run on that little track (seven laps to a mile) messed with my left heel a little. The direction of the day was counter-clockwise, so I was turning on my left foot. I tried to keep it wide and stayed in the outer lane, but that's a lot of turns in a half hour, even at my pace. My heel was sore at the beginning of my run on Saturday and it was still sore today. I guess I need to get over my phobia of treadmills if I want to run inside.
So I was pretty tentative when we started, and took it easy during the strides part of drills and strides, and kept basically the same pace for the first four repeats of one minute ON. We were to get an additional two minutes of rest after the sixth repeat, so I nudged up my pace for five and six and covered a little more distance. After the break, I finished with the same distances for the last four. For the last two, I was going to try and really blow it out and cover even more ground, but only was able to stay constant with the previous two. That's probably a sign that I wasn't sandbagging too much at the beginning!
We ran back to the pool parking lot at Zilker and I almost didn't make it. I got really tired about halfway there, and had to revert to the basic Ironman shuffle, and was pretty much zapped by the time I got back. I had a nice leisurely ride/coast home, with a stop at Whole Foods. It is a longer ride from Zilker to my new place than it was to my old place in Barton Hills, but at least I don't have deal with any hills like Robert E. Lee.
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crabbyoldjaws
| 01:38 pm - screw the b's knees...my knees
My knees are killing me, WTF? I have one that bugs me off and on...always and forever has...now both are bugging the sh*t out of me.
Srsly, am I just getting old? Do. Not. Answer. That.
ice and ice I guess.
Other than that....nothing new....I'm back on the can't buy a good run kick....so soon I should be having a good one!
I could fix my diet a little, the last week I've been eating unhealthy and there has been an above avg amt of beer consumed ;)
There was a piece of pecan pie too...darn my mother for sending that home with me.
Oh and if you've not noticed...it's hot again, still...*sigh*
Side note about diet corrections, I really really want to have the whole body comp thing done at UT's FIT but I need not spend any $ right now. So sad, so sad.
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shubbe
 | 12:04 pm - A pointless lunchtime story.
I love to write, but I have real trouble sometimes coming up with things about which to write. Maybe I should start doing those Writer's Block things, where LJ offers up a potential topic and you write about it. Or.. I could just continue my trend of neglecting my blog for long periods of time.
But I promised that there were some Hawaii anecdotes that I'd share later. I can only remember one now.
So there we were hiking in a volcano, and Laura exclaims, "There's another one!" Random exclamations coming from Laura are not uncommon, but I dutifully inquired. She told me that she kept seeing pistachio shells all over the place, the whole time she'd been in Hawaii. I looked around. I saw no shells. I'd seen no shells. Laura has a reputation for making things up that nobody else can see (okayokay, there was just that one time we were riding our bikes and Laura kept seeing dead frogs in the road, and I never saw them). So I told her to point out the next one she saw.
We wandered on. She thought she saw some several times, but they always turned out to be sunflower seed shells, which I was willing to accept, but she said those were an anomaly, and it was pistachio she'd been seeing.
We get to the Thurston lava tube. We go through the dimly lit main tube. We come out the other side, and there's a gated area that is completely unlit, and you have to have a flashlight to navigate. We have no flashlight. But we go in the gate just to peer into the darkness. There's a family further in and we can see a dim beam of flashlight and hear their voices in the dark tunnel, and then there's one mid-teens boy back where we were, just where the light from outside meets the complete darkness of the tube. We shuffle along carefully as far as we dare, given that the ground is rocky, uncertain and wet, then decide we'd be dumb to go further without a flashlight and turn around to head back out.
As we're almost back to the gate, Laura says, "There!" and points triumphantly at the ground. Matt, Laura and I gather at the point at which she pointed (John hadn't wanted to follow us through the gate) and stare at the ground, and sure enough, there's a pistachio shell. We gazed at it for a couple seconds with rapt interest, talking quietly among ourselves about how Laura had been right, then we got bored and filed out through the gate, back to the light of the real world.
As we were going out the gate, I saw the teenage kid trying to act all nonchalant as he rubbernecked to see what we'd been gathered around. I jabbed Laura and jerked my head that direction so she'd look. Then as we walked up the path, we glanced back and saw the kid motioning his family, who'd returned from the darkness, to the spot we'd been gathered a minute ago. They were shining the flashlight down at the ground, trying to figure out what amazing feature of the Thurston lava tube we'd been admiring.
I imagine they were rather disappointed.
Laura and I couldn't stop laughing for about 10 minutes.
The End
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leahruns
| 10:22 am - Running and writing
For a while, I'd been working on some running-related writing. Then it just kind of petered out; to be honest, I found what I was doing to be very dull and not satisfying to me. It was non-fiction "how to" kind of stuff. It wasn't a good fit; it wasn't scratching the itch inside of me that's been festering.
So I started mulling over writing from the standpoint of "what is it that I like to write about?" I'm not a fiction writer because I don't sit down and create short stories or outline novels or write poetry (anymore). I do, however, spend a lot of time with personal writing. And it came to me that I should write what I love and then mold it into something.
Duh.
I'm going to a conference in August that will have some work shops on writing and publishing. Not only should it be fun (I'll be attending with friends) but educational and, hopefully, inspirational. I'm going to try to have some pieces to bring with me.
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July 6th, 2009
cruisergirl
| 09:26 pm - 15
Sixty minute swim workout. I worked more on breathing every three strokes and DPS. The bilateral breathing is coming along but DPS is still not very high. I'm thinking too much about the breathing rhythm I forget about maximizing my stroke. I did 2x300 fartlek swim (25 strong, 25 easy, etc. to 75s) and kept up breathing every three strokes until the strong 75, then it felt like my head was going to explode and I went back to every two. I had some time to kill at the end of my workout, so I reviewed flip turns. I'm afraid I haven't been very diligent about using them. Had the perfect opportunity to practice during the swim classes at UT this past year, but no, I continued to opt for lazy open turns. After about a dozen attempts I finally watched someone else do a flip turn in the pool, then I got it and tumbled through three turns. The person I watched planted his feet under the cross on the wall, so he was pushing up to the surface. I've always land my feet, if I make it, at the top of the cross, and wind up somehow pushing down at weird, not forward, angles. Not sure if dropping my feet on the wall is correct form, but it worked for me tonight.
A grad student here highly recommended the hot tub at Gregory outdoor pool. As many times as I've been in the pool, I've never ventured into the hot tub there. Apparently not many people do and most of the time, you can have it to yourself. And I forgot tonight, even though I meant to try it out. I wonder if it will help for recovery purposes. I haven't been so wiped out yet to do an ice bath, but I may be in need of one after this week, as I transition onto the long distance schedule from the Olympic distance schedule.
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leahruns
 | 10:02 am - Heat and humidity=chafing
Yesterday I got up extra early (if you know me at all, you know I am loathe to set an alarm for any time with a "4" in the hour position) so that I could get an 1.5 hour trail run in before I met the TriZones group for an introductory trail run. That meant I had to be running on the Greenbelt starting no later than 6:15, which meant I had to leave the house no later than 5:40, which meant I had to get up at (ugh) 4:40 for the appropriate amount of medicine taking/breakfast eating/system clearing time.
I was tired when I got up. I had an relatively early morning Friday with![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) crabbyoldjaws for 10-miles on the trail (I just joined in for part of her long run) and then Saturday was a bike ride out of WilCo. So third morning in a row, with the earliest for last. And I'm one of those people who just can't seem to go to bed early to save my life.
My start point was the 360 access and after a final pit stop and gearing up, I was running at 6:15.
( My run, complete with description of chafed bits )
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effendi
 | 08:33 am - update
Been a good week - took off last Tuesday and rode 100 miles with Iron Drew (with 2 hours or so in the rain - fun!). Managed to hit masters swim on Tues,Wed and Fri. Woke up yesterday and got a long run (90 mins) at Walnut Creek. Man was I super dehydrated after that - this humidity is killing me.
Figured I wanted to be a bit more like Gordo, so I'm working on the 100 push up challenge. I'm only two days in (and today will be an off day) and wow, I'm a bit sore.
Julia's in town for the week so I didn't have to wake up and drive her to the airport this AM. Instead I woke up early and got in a 30 min run around the 'hood before catching the bus in to work. Thwe weather looks iffy at the moment, but I hope to ride a couple of hours after work.
Made it to Cailyn's bday party on Saturday morning and got to see a number of old friends I hadn't seen in awhile. Good times.
Overall life is going pretty good. I'm having to be careful about managing my workouts right now as I seem to have developed a bit of a nagging cough - annoying, but who knows, maybe I'm getting allergic to something?
We had a little Michael Jackson memorial party on Friday eve - we played some trippy MJ movie and random MJ/Jackson 5 music. We also had to make the usual bad jokes - we had cans of Pepsi next to the memorial photos and open flames, so we could fondly remember when his hair caught fire. We had an inflatable monkey there we called Bubbles and also had the bubble blowing stuff so people could blow Bubbles. I put out some trick or treat size candy with a note "Candy - for young boys only" and finally i did some grilling - people had their choice of little bite size weiners, bun-length weiners, or Brats, depending on your mood.
Overall it was a good weekend of training and relaxing and reconnecting with Julia.
Plans for this week - well, besides the usual work and training, nothing really comes to mind.
Oh, for those who didn't realize you could follow mojojoey's tbb updates on livejournal, I've syndicated the feed on LJ - just go to www.livejournal.com/syn and add mojotbbrss to your friends list!
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July 4th, 2009
cruisergirl
| 03:57 pm - 13, 14
So I had a full night's sleep but have to get used to rising extra early again. Workout #1 was a base run. It's been so long since I've done a run first thing in the morning, I forgot about the need to let nature takes its course before hitting the road, and it was after nine by the time I was ready to start, even though I was up at 7:30. I did exactly the same route as last week, and it took almost exactly the same amount of time, sixty five minutes. Workout #2 was a base ride. After re-sunscreening, I loaded up the bike on my car and drove out to the Veloway. It was indeed hot by that time. For the first part of the ride, there were still a lot of clouds dotting the sky and helpfully blocking the sun so the heat wasn't so bad but by the third loop on S. Mopac, the sky was hopelessly clear. I had planned on three S. Mopac loops and three Veloway loops. I did one Veloway loop after S. Mopac and decided enough was enough, and rolled back to my car at two hours ride time. It was the only one parked on LaCrosse. :-P
I kept everything at a high cadence and small gear for most of the time and didn't worry about my mph, especially given how hot it was, and was surprised that it was 14.6. It seemed like every time I glanced at my computer I was going 11 or 12. Or 8 or 9. And my legs felt gratifyingly fresh for not having pedicabbed last night. I'm going to have used to the idea of letting pedicabbing go some nights in order to have a quality workout in the morning, both in terms of recovery and time of day. Even with the late start today, it was only (only- ha) breaking 100 when I finished. If I had pedicabbed last night, I would probably have been starting at the time I finished. I would have been tired, and it would be too hot out anyway to have any decent training value.
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July 3rd, 2009
cruisergirl
| 10:45 pm - ef pedicabbin
Rode down to the pedicab shop this evening to get my cab for the night, was dismayed to find one my tires flat. &@##2**! I picked about a hundred bits of glass out of my tire, replaced the tube, and decided it was a sign from the training gods to bail on riding for the night. Went home, got my stuff ready to run and ride tomorrow, made a big batch o' pasta salad for the week (and tonight) and am about to crash. Just like old times.
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shubbe
 | 01:45 pm - One person's unfun.. may become that same person's fun?
Rogue posted to their blog:
Before the celebration comes the run!
You probably have today off* and are starting the festivities early, but don’t forgo tomorrow’s long run! A handful of people were honest with themselves and put their miles in today, but if you weren’t one of the few thinking ahead, do everything you can to get that run in tomorrow morning before you hit the lake or the bbq. You may not be in the mood, but just think how much better those burgers and that beer will taste, knowing that you earned it.
I tilted my head and realized.. the run IS the celebration for me now. I plan my weekends around running (slash biking slash swimming), and then I fit in anything else. I wasn't much of a lake and bbqer in the first place. But now it's never "Oh, I have to slog through my run before I can enjoy my weekend." It's getting to hang out with my friends and gossip and see the city from outside the car and feel good about myself and feel like I'm doing something FOR myself, and yes, enjoying my breakfast all the more for feeling I've earned it. My weekend long runs bring me more joy than going out all night and drinking ever did.
I have this old blog entry bookmarked as "Remember Me". I like to go back and read it sometimes, and I wish I could share with 2003Me what it feels like now. But I'm not sure she would believe me. And 2004Me, even feeling like I'd come so far, wouldn't have wanted to, or believed I'd ever do an Ironman. Or two. Or soon three.
* No, I don't have today off, Rogue. But thanks for rubbing it in.
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