Race Schedule and Results

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Speeding up

I'm sitting patiently waiting to see if a trip to Hawaii is going to pan out. Of course I want it to, who wouldn't, but I don't think it's going to happen. Bummer because I got new flip flops yesterday in the mail (no, that's not the only reason I'd be sad, but I'm longing for a good excuse to wear them and Hawaii seems like the perfect reason!) I have fingers, toes, legs and arms crossed, but it doesn't look promising... some day!

I did something this morning out of the ordinary. I swam hard. Ha! Yeah, I decided that since IM Louisville is probably not going to be wetsuit legal, I'm going to have to work on getting better so that I don't see my swim time drop drastically without a wetsuit. It was my crutch for the last two years. There's nothing better than not having to work to keep your legs up (the salt water helped too). I've been looking at Speed suits, but just haven't brought myself to spend the money on it. I mean really, it's one race. And I'm not the kind of athlete that will have my day ruined in my swim is 5 minutes longer. But will I only be 5 minutes slower in the Ohio River without a wetsuit? It scares me.

Today I busted out the good ole' Swim Workouts in a Binder for Triathletes book. I was going to do an endurance workout but decided to do some short sprints.

PA-THET-IC

Let's just say that I have a lot of work to do. But I'm going to really start incorporating s good speed workout at least once a week in my swims and see where it gets me. As it stands now, I swim at one speed all the time so if I can increase that one speed, even just a little, I'll be a happy triathlete. :)

It's been a long month... I feel like February has dragged on and on. Not that February was a bad month... I think I'm just ready for March. My first tri is in 10 days which is exciting (it's indoors... some of you probably had a vision of it being outside, but silly people... I live in Ohio and it's not going to be warm enough for that for at least another 3.5 months!) March Madness starts soon. It's St. Patty's day in a few weeks (hello, my name is Colleen which is Gaelic for girl) so that's fun. Plus, maybe just maybe I'll get a day that will be warm enough to try out the new flips (still hoping that Hawaii comes through though!)

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Showdown

I don't tweet. I don't get it. But I do know that a crap ton of people do. Lance Armstrong is one of them, as is Chris Lieto. Lance does things called Twitter Rides where he posts where he's going to ride and anyone can join him. He's done it a few times (once in LA, once in Dublin I think). A crazy amount of people come out. Lance has said that it's totally unsafe and that he rides out front so that he doesn't get caught up in a wreck between people who don't ride often or are too consumed with seeing him and taking pictures. I digress..

I guess the other day, this went down via twitter (I've seen this posted on a few blogs including Kim's,and Steve's and actually braved twitter to see the actual posts which were kind of foreign to me, but whatever. That's why I don't do it):
  • Lance wrote on his twitter page (are they called twitter pages?) Just passed @chrislieto going the other way. He was hammerin. Hey Chris, a little TT showdown on the Queen K tomorrow? You, me, and whoever.
  • Chris came back with: @lancearmstrong see u on the Queen-K! Will have to be after 8am cause I have to swim first. Flying out mid day. Give me a call.
  • Lance Armstrong sent out the invite for anyone, including Chris: Queen K Hwy TT Challenge. Tomorrow 9:30am. Start – Waikeloa Beach Dr to Kukio Nui Dr. 14 miles. Full gas. Take it easy on me @chrislieto. This won’t be a twitter ride. First ever “twitter time trial” Love it.
  • Lance wrote: Start times 4today. @lancearmstrong @ 9:30, @chrislieto @ 9:31. Others every min. Honor system! No starting ur clock late/stopping it early! (I think that Chris started before he was supposed to though!!!)
  • Lance posted the results first: http://twitpic.com/13t6bo - My time 4 the 1st ever twitter TT. @chrislieto 2nd - 15 secs back. Post ur times here. Thx for coming out! (he averaged about 35mph, but they did have a tail wind! - still it's not right!)
  • Chris then posted his time: Official time for @chrislieto is 18:44. Thanks @lancearmstrong (think his time was 18:35) for a great TT.

Then there were two videos on you tube:

Before the race: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhvMhDKXj8k

After the race: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4fa7CE-Daw

So while I still don't get twitter and I'm not following the fad (what's the "@chrislieto" or "@lancearmstrong" all about?) I thought it was great! :) Good competition, good fun! Gotta love when the road biker and the triathele go head to head cause God knows how different our worlds are. And I liked that Lance threw in the old "maybe we duel again on the Queen K with a swim before it and a run after it".

Do it Lance... Do it!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Flip Flops

Funny how buying a pair of flip flops makes me feel better. Almost like there's a glimmer of hope that I'll get to wear them soon even though we have like 4 feet of snow outside and are supposed to get more this weekend. And it's probably too cold to even wear them inside. And I need a pedicure before I can even think of putting them on.

But they still make me smile! :)

(ps... they are Crocs and were only $5.99 with shipping included! SCORE!)

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Getaway

I will recap my trip to Gatlinburg, but I have to just start by saying something.

There's something weird about my gym. It happened again last night. I took a spin class and some dude (different one this time) was hooting and hollering throughout the whole workout. I DON'T GET IT PEOPLE! He was also the guy that when we were hill climbing was about to spin out of his seat. Resistance dude. This time though, people laughed. The girl next to him had to look away. The instructor laughed every time he did it. Where do these people come from???

Alright, so my trip to Gatlinburg was awesome! We had a great time with Rhiannon and Gabe, ate way too much food that I shouldn't have, saw the Dixie Stampeed, shopped until our hearts were content (although I only bought running socks), the guys skied, we laughed until we almost cried (the victims of Haiti aren't a family down the street unlike the girl we ran into who asked if we'd like to "help the Hati family, you know the earthquake family". I honestly believe that she thought it was a family named "Hati" (pronounced Hat- tea) who needed help. So sad). But in any event, it was awesome!

Our cabin was amazing. I'd stay there again, although I don't know how people get up there when it's snowy or icy. Guess you get there and stay there!
The boys played a lot of pool and air hockey.

Me and Rhiannon outside our cabin.
Me and Tom (I look like I'm 5 here... really, it was my 30th, I promise!)
Gabe finally got to see his bear...
We stopped at a candy store and couldn't resist getting some desserts to split. Clockwise from the bottom are white chocolate covered marshmallows, smore's covered marshmallows, a caramel pecan chocolate dipped apple and a peanut butter and chocolate dipped rice krispie treat. YUMMO!
And of course we had poker night until Rhiannon and I couldn't keep our eyes open any more... which I think might have been around 10:30 at night! :)
All in all it was perfect... very relaxing. Tom and I did run one day in the mountains and I yes, I can officially call them mountains. :) It was a lung burning workout, but so much fun! I literally couldn't walk for almost 2 days following our measly 1 hour run, but it was worth it! We ended up having rain the whole weekend and came home to Delaware having been dumped on with snow. I think we had 15 inches over the weekend and another 8-10 at the beginning of the week. I think it's supposed to snow again this weekend maybe. It's pretty, but getting old fast. My car doesn't do well in the snow (the truck in the picture below is my mother-in-laws). Plus my puppies can't walk in it because it's taller than they are so potty time is great...

Charlie was happy to have her mom and dad home though!

Oh... and I didn't forget my picture of the b-day gift from my hubby. I don't think I took a picture of it in Gatlinburg and now he has the camera in Atlanta with his TT1 training camp. When he gets back I'll post it! :)

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

5 line update

Home from Gatlinburg...
Had a fabulous time...
Lots of laughs and good times...
Now snowed in...
And busy as heck...

Will write more later and update with pictures (including a great one of what my hubby bought me for my 30th!)

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Just to clarify...

I'm not a total pansy! :) I have been running and biking a crap load this offseaon. I have been really working on my indoor speed work on the dreadmill and hill climbing on the bike. My last post made it sounds like I'm a total wuss, as opposed to a triathlete training for her 3rd Ironman! :)

That doesn't mean that I was lying when I said that I didn't like running outside and that it was my first outdoor run in... well... I can't remember how long! :) You are all so supportive and treat me like I just ran across the county.

And this is why I love you, my dear blogger friends!

My hubby thought that I should have written that at mile 2, we were averaging 9:08's though so to finish with an average of 8:47's, we were pretty zippy the last 2.7 miles. :) Minor details!

I'm off to Galinburg for the weekend. Looking forward to another outdoor run in the mountains! (It's supposed to be in the 40's there!!! HA)

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Oh the off season...

You ready for this???

I ran outside today.

Yeah, I put on my big girl panties (and as many layers as I could) and ran 4.7 miles outside. It was 38 degrees.

Have I mentioned that I hate running outside in the cold? The burning of my lungs, the freezing of my toes, the sweat the accumulates under the layers that are supposed to keep me warm. All of it. Not fun.

Anyway, went 4.7 mile in 41:14 minutes. Eh... a good 8:47 pace. Thought I was going to die.

But I didn't...

Monday, February 1, 2010

Another random post

I just don't have time to formulate my thoughts... might as well just bullet point some random thoughts and get on with my day. I'm a slacker, shut up!
  • It's my birthday week! YAY! I'm turning 30 and I'm totally fine with it. My mom said "my baby is turning 30" to my grandma and she in turn told my mom she shouldn't be surprised since she's already 60. Nice! I think maybe my mom is having a harder time with it than me. Maybe it's because when my mom was my age, she already had two children and she's desperately hoping that one of these days I tell her that I'm not scared to death of being a mom and will provide her with a grand baby! :) I love you momma!
  • Speaking of my birthday, I have the best friends in the world! On Saturday night, 18 of us went to Dave and Busters (which is like Chuck-E-Cheese for big kids) and we had the best time. It's amazing how simple things like dinner and games with my friends makes me realize how fortunate I am to have such a close group of girls and guys to call friends. I love you all! Here are some pictures from the night...
  • So at said b-day party, my friends got me some amazing gifts - restaurant gift cards, Sugar Daddies brownies, cookie monster sandwiches and best of all, an Ironman charm for my Pandora bracelet. It has 2 m-dots on it and two 140.6's. I'm sure the place they got it will shut down soon because of trademark issues so I'm glad that I got it when I did! :) It's perfect and really, can an Ironman have too much stuff to remind them of their accomplishments???? I think not!


  • We're leaving for Gatlinburg on Friday with my best friend and her husband. I'm so excited. We rented an unbelievable cabin on the mountain and I can't wait to get away. I think we all need the vacation. We have some fun things planned too - the guys are skiing, Rhiannon and I are outlet mall shopping, we're hitting up the pancake places each morning and we're watching the Super Bowl. The cabin has 3 bedrooms, a hot tub, a pool table, an air hockey table, etc. It looks like my little slice of heaven from the pictures!
  • Workouts have been going well. I ran a 50:38 10k the other day (it was on the treadmill, but whatever). I'm getting closer and closer to a sub-50 which is a goal this year. I about died on the treadmill, but it's in sight!
  • I'm still doing the "challenges" - you know, the sit ups, push up, and squats. It's going well. Back in December when I started, I couldn't do more than 11 girlie push ups at a time. The other day I tested at 19 full push ups and counting! It'll take me all year to get anywhere near 100, but it's progress! The sit ups are going great too... I feel much stronger. The squats are my enemy. They aren't as hard, but I think they hurt my knees a little. That or the biking and running that I've been putting them through. Ehhh... whatever!
  • My first "race" is a month away... an indoor tri. I'm working hard to see where I'm at then.
  • But... I haven't biked or ran outside since before Christmas
  • And I only swam twice in January.

:)