Here we go again…

Posted on January 20, 2011 by mfournier

Yeap, this is it. Time to start training again, and time to be disciplined again. I must say that I surely enjoyed my December month of doing essentially what I wanted, when I wanted workout-wise. No pressure. Sure, I’ll have a doughnut…and maybe one more glass of wine…or Port…or even both! Well, that’s then and now, it’s a brand new year and the start of a brand new season.

Guess what: I am nervous too. My coach told me, or instead, begged me not to be too lazy in December. And she even warned me that my 1st two weeks in January “ain’t gonna be pretty”. She was right. And I knew it. But hey, that’s what I am paying her for, so that someone else is responsible for my hurt, and not me!!!

Joking aside, the reason why I was nervous is that I know enough, with all my years of racing that it never gets easier. Only faster. And faster means harder, which = hurt. And you know, part of me is looking forward to that hurt, the one that begs you to stop, but you just want to keep going to see how far you can push yourself.

here we go again…

I must say though that the Team is doing extremely well. They are so motivated and encouraged that it helps me on days that I don’t want to wake up early. I know they do it, so I better get myself out of bed, and work out. They are such an awesome bunch and I can’t wait to see them evolve in this new type of training.

Thanks for reading!

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Feeling good..

Posted on January 16, 2011 by angies

With two weeks complete I am pleasantly encouraged.  Don’t get me wrong, I fully realize that over the next 8 months I will not only not be encouraged, but probably discouraged.  But I am going to take the good feels as they come and try to hang on to them through the not so good feel times.

Saturday swam for an hour and then a 45 minute run.  I was able to finish the run with a nice pace in which I felt strong and in control.  Pam is adding an extra 15 minutes to each of our runs because she is running the New Orleans 1/2 Marathon in about 4 weeks.  I was super impressed with her running this weekend as well.  Longest bike on the trainer this morning, 1.5 hours, and I did not HATE it.  I can’t say the same for Rob.  He was definitely Diva-like (just like the Snickers commercial) during our ride.  I am not sure if it was the workout or something else, but he sure was bitchy.  We alternated between higher gears and lower gears with easy spinning.  By the last high gear, my legs were feeling it – but the time went relatively fast.  I definitely think the Law and Order episodes help pass the time.  I sure hope that time slot is kept for Law and Order through the spring 🙂

We have decided that the ability to sleep a couple hours longer on Saturday and Sunday mornings is very helpful in feeling good with these weekend workouts.  So… with tomorrow being our day off, I am looking forward to changing the alarm clock to a later wake-up time.  Happy start of the week!  I am a bit nervous as my evening gig teaching at Viterbo University starts Tuesday and Thursday this week.  I will let you know at the end of the week how it goes with all of the workouts.

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Neurologically deranged…

Posted on January 13, 2011 by angies

that’s me, according to our common Chiropractor, Dr. Julie Potter.  I had my first appointment with Dr. Potter since starting this training plan.  She called me deranged.  My neck was a mess, my foot had “crunchies,” and she said I was really working on trying to get shin splints.  Then there was the whole hip/sacrum spread thing.  She was trying to figure out how on earth the ligaments that hold the hip and sacrum in place got stretched.  I basically sprained my hips.  One theory is too much……. well you know. But then she said, you and Rob are training for an Ironman so that means you go to bed at 7 pm and don’t, you know….. we cracked up!! (the Youtube video about becoming an Ironman)

I just read Pam’s post and thought, man… she stole my thunder.  I was going to fill you all in on the fatigue this morning.  After our swim yesterday, 30 minute run on the treadmill and kettlebell and core work – I was famished.  We had ordered a pizza, but I couldn’t wait.  I dug into the fruit loops to tied me over.  🙂

The bike this morning was definitely more of that mental training.  The last 15 minutes of our hour and 15 minute ride we played mind games.  I said, “we have 3 more 5-minute segments.”  Pam added, “that will be about 3 more sets of commercials.”  It worked.  Kept our minds busy enough to pedal right through those last minutes.  I am finding myself enjoying this evening of no workouts.  Of course I am blogging here instead of being productive doing my schoolwork.  I have 2 whole more hours before I have to hit the bed (I really don’t go to bed at 7, 9 is my goal), so I will get to working those genetic problems for my AP Biology class.

I am looking forward to the weekend for a couple of key reasons.  The swim and run tomorrow will be followed by our new tradition of Friday night dinners at a team members house.  Friday means the start of the weekend, which means wine.  Saturday morning we will double with our swim run.  After the great food last weekend at the Blue Moon, we are heading back up to Onalaska for our workout and a great meal!

Until Sunday……. have a great weekend everyone!

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Ahhh, now I get it….

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Pam

So I am figuring out the rationale behind this 9 month training program – If you exercise tired for 9 months, you will think you have died and gone to heaven if you only have exercise tired for up to 17 hours! Maybe you all figured that out awhile ago but I just did this morning! Okay I am slow but also tired!

Yesterday was a challenge in more ways than one. We started the day with a good swim and then we had that dreaded evening run! I have the utmost respect for you people that can find the energy to exercise after work or in the evening! Wow my hat is off to you! I am not one of those people! I like to get out of bed, get the exercise done early and behind me. Well, yesterday was one of our “agony sandwiches” – up early to swim and then right to the treadmill after work with a long day of work in the middle! ICK! Anyway the run was good. I was able to warmup and then run most of the 30 minutes at a 9:15 min/mi pace and then the last 5 minutes I increased the pace one treadmill notch each minute ending with a 8:27 min/mi pace and still feeling strong and no stitch! Then we did our kettlebell and core workout with the entire team. The entire team includes a few smart folks that didn’t sign up for Ironman – Dave, Libby, Andy and Nancy. Fun to have a few bright, shiny, different faces to chat with while you are exercising tired! So I got all the workouts done and came home to a less than warm house! Nice! After a bit of troubleshooting and a call to my friendly furnace company, my house temp went from 54 – 65 when I crawled into bed around 10pm!!! Yikers! I had to be up at 4:20am to bike.

So finally to the point of my whole post!!! Angie and I both got on our bikes this morning starting our 1 hr 15 min spin and said at the same time “Wow my legs are really fatigued!” At that point you wonder, how am I going to pedal for over an hour???? Well we did it, it wasn’t fun, it wasn’t pretty and it certainly wasn’t fast but we got there! I guess this is probably the biggest part of the Ironman training – training the brain! No wonder it takes 9 months!

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In the rain

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Paul

Week 2 on Wednesday and the normal routine has been disrupted. Got up at 5.30 to swim, but we are having a heavy downpour, with some thunder and lightening. Almost a relief as my knees have been playing up again and I had very uncomfortable night. The forecast is for rain all day so will do some core work later. Decided to use the time to blog.

Managing to keep to the training schedule schedule so far, although it is tough without the “motivation” that comes with being with the team. Only a few more weeks and I’ll be back. Decidedly difficult being the only person around who wants to go to bed early while everyone else is partying, but at least I don’t have a hangover the next day.

Borrowed an old mountain bike yesterday and rode around the island for an hour. Felt good to be on a bike again, but was very uncomfortable riding without a helmet. Heading into Cancun shortly to buy one as there are none available on the island.

That was a quick trip!!!!….spent 8 hours in Cancun and visited countless stores to find that most only stock childrens bike helmets.  Safety is not a big concern here.  Finally got one though so no excuses now, should be out on the bike tomorrow.  Although the forecast is for three days of “El Norte”, winds and rain from the north, so we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

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Week one is done…..

Posted on January 9, 2011 by angies

only 35 more to go 🙂  Well, it only took me 3 days to get back into the swing of things – by Friday I felt way ok with the alarm sounding at 4:20 am.  We did come to the realization that we get up BEFORE the crack of dawn, as a matter of fact – we are done working out before the crack of dawn.  So take that all of you roosters!

What a great week.  I am encouraged and invigorated with this training plan.  In addition, this is so great to have a “team” working together, supporting each other, and there to suffer alongside – and laugh!!  The “refueling” is proving to be just as much of a sport as triathlon.  Pam was very Rob-like Saturday morning after our swim-run double.  It is a good thing that Rob was not his usual “Rob-like” with the food, or there would have been spitting on food by Pam…. more on that later.

We decided to start a Friday tradition of dinner at a team member’s home after the evening run.  We are still waiting for Mike to start the “official” training program, but he has the food gigs down pat.  It will be nice when Paul and Brook come back from Mexico so we can rotate to their house too.  Brook is clearly the most talented cook of the crew.

I am still not getting on the scale until Friday of this week (the hiatus from workouts plus Holiday food did a number on me), I feel much less soft and leaner. As well I should – after logging all of our workouts into my Garmin Connect calendar, we totalled 9.5 hours of workouts this week.  Woo hoo!! Keep your fingers crossed for both me and Pam as we head toward that very scary step onto the scale at the end of this week.  Racing weight by July????  We will see 🙂

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Whew…. had me worried

Posted on January 8, 2011 by Pam

Yesterday we had a double – swim in the morning and 30 min run in the evening. That 30 minute run was a killer! I am not sure why, but it was! I got a stitch about half way and could not get rid of it! I felt sluggish, heavy and slow. ICK, had to take two 30 second walk breaks to try and get rid of my stitch. Didn’t help. Just tried to run with it. Not fun. We had a great dinner at Rob and Angie’s after, which made the whole thing more bearable.

This morning the La Crosse pool was closed for a swim meet so we decided to sleep in and head up to Onalaska to be in the pool by 8. Our workout was a one hour swim with some 50 yard sprints followed by a 45 min run. It was a great swim even better tri training when the water aerobics class started and they created waves and their floating dumbbells kept being dislodged from the lane line (mostly because I would hit them as I swam by – not on purpose!) and floating into Angie’s and my swim lane! What a hoot! We were taking on water from laughing as we swam our second set of 900 yds. After we rinsed off the chlorine, we went up to the fitness center and ran 30 minutes on the treadmill and then 15 minutes on the track. Really enjoyed the openness and windows of North versus the basement in La Crosse! We all had Great runs!!! Not sure what the difference was from last night… 1. more sleep, 2. morning workout, 3. more open environment???? Who knows but we had a good one!

We then showered and headed to Blue Moon for some food. I got a little “Rob-Like”! Food!!! I needed Food and I couldn’t say or do anything until I had some food! I was Ravenous!! We warned the waiter to keep his limbs away, as I was starving. He was quite impressed with not only the amount of food we consumed but especially with the speed at which Rob consumed his! I think we might develop a reputation around town after Sat workouts! We might need to issue Public Safety Warnings to let people know when and where we will be eating post workout, so they can keep small children at a distance – It isn’t a pretty sight!

Nap Time!!!! 🙂

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Getn’ in the groove

Posted on January 6, 2011 by angies

Pam’s story (I received an email this morning) about her oops nap, and hair appt debunk absolutely cracked me up.  I think this may be just one of many such stories that will evolve over the next several months.  My need for a nap seems to be hitting me at about 1:30 in the afternoon, when I am teaching a rowdy group of high school freshmen, I think that may qualify for a quadruple yikes!!!!

There was a hilarious youtube video being sent around our team about ” I will be an ironman.”  If you have not seen it, look it up – too funny.  Well, after two mornings of 4:20 wake-up, I was dead crashed at 8:45pm last night.  My appetite has officially kicked in from the frequency of workouts, as has Rob’s – yikes again.  I don’t know how I will afford to feed him any more than he already eats.

The trainer for 1.25 hours this morning was a challenge.  I had to keep standing to return feeling to those “parts.”  Pam and I created a term to describe the location of the injury, giggled, then giggled some more when Rob told us that any activity that causes that type of injury should be quit immediately.

Gotta get my finals written so I can get to sleep early and up at 4:20 am again tomorrow morning for a swim.

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Guess I need to go to bed earlier

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Pam

This morning was Day 3 of 4:30am wake up for a workout. Wed morning was a pretty easy swim – 30 minutes of drills and then in the evening we did our plyometrics, kettle bells and core. This morning we did 1.25 hours on the bike trainer in Angie and Rob’s basement. That was tough! Even with company to chat with, it was boring and my butt and general “seat” area were hurting. I know in the long run these long bike trainer rides will help my mental weakness on the bike and I will be in better “butt-shape” and pedaling shape once we can go back outside this spring…. but MAN they suck right now!!!

So after the workout, I went home and got a few things done and decided to lie down and watch the morning news…. Well ONE HOUR later I woke up. YIKES!!! I jumped into the shower (it is 7:45am) and was about to wash my hair when I remembered I had an 8AM hair appointment!!!! DOUBLE YIKES or S–T!!!! I quickly soaped up my body to remove the workout stench, toweled off, threw on some clothes, called the hair salon and tried to get Lula in her crate. NOPE, not going in the crate without a walk!!! and she plopped her butt by the front door!!!! (Lula is my 115 lb Chesapeake Bay Retriever) GRRRRR I ran into the kitchen found a few treats and coaxed her into the crate, slammed the door and hurried off to get my hair cut! Needless to say I had to go home after my hair cut and get dressed, put on makeup and walk poor Lula. Still only 13 minutes late for my hair appt and at my desk by 9:30! Not too bad but WAY TOO STRESSFUL!

Must get my act together! More sleep???? Blackberry permanently attached to hip once I figure out how to get my computer and Blackberry calendar to sync???? Or am I just going to live for the next 8 months tired and by the seat of my pants????

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Day 1 – Done

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Pam

Well today was the day. First day of the Ironman training program workouts – 45 min bike and 30 min run. Okay the program has them separated AM and PM but really two sweat sessions each of less than an hour??? No thanks I’m making an adjustment and doing them together so I can lay low tonight! Can you already see the “adjustments” so I can rest more?? Yep, I can too!

Anyway this morning was really good mental training for me. Since I haven’t changed into my “trash” tire on my bike, I didn’t want to put it in the trainer and since I wanted to run right after, I needed a treadmill so I went to the Y. 5:15am spin class – okay I just occupied a bike and did my own thing. Well I did the increased cadence and climbs I just did everything with my butt on the saddle. Our workout called for a Z1 and Z2, I guess I better find the glossary and figure out the actual definition. I just did a steady moderate workout, since I haven’t been biking or spinning at all it was good to get it done. Again I forget how bored I get without scenery to distract me. Good mental training to sit and grind it out, bored silly.

Run was good too. 30 minutes on the treadmill and we all know how comfortable I am on the treadmill! Not! I am getting more comfortable 🙂 Wasn’t quite so scared this morning and was able to grind out 20 minutes at a sub 9 min pace! Pleased with that.

So Day 1 is done! Oh the program does say Core so maybe I will do my balance ball and other core exercises tonight while I am watching tv.

Now it is time to hit the shower and go to work! Can you see the smile? Feels good to be underway…famous last words, let’s see how I feel on Day 101!

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