Well I’ve just completed a week worth of training for my “may never happen triathlon” and I have come to a couple conclusions:

1)   All of my bikes are trying to kill me.  The road bike just doesn’t seem like it should hold my “beautimous” body.  But it does!  I still feel like I’m going to topple over and crash into a car resulting in my painful death.  My cruiser bike, on the other hand, is going to kill me via heart attack. Seriously, after riding the road bike for a year, the cruiser takes so much more effort. It only has 7 gears and I am constantly struggling to make it go.  How in the world did I go 15+ miles on this thing before the road bike? I must have been in better shape. The route I biked last night is one of my favorites (7.5 miles through town) and I can normally do it in 35 minutes. I took me 50 minutes last night…and I had to pedal…the…whole…time. I seriously want my road bike back from DJ.  (She is borrowing it for a road race she is doing in a couple weeks…she called me Monday to ask how to shift…LOL I guess I forgot to tell her. Oops!).  And my mountain bike is in desperate need of a tune up…the brakes still don’t work well. I wouldn’t even consider taking it out.  I can see it now…going doing the hill by Lion’s Park and my brakes fail and I run into a car…died.

2)   Running is really overrated. I don’t understand why some people are so happy when they run. They are strange or mental, or both.  How could you like it?  I dread it every time I go out and I’m still stuck on walk 5 minutes, run 1 minute.  It is more like a shuffle than a run but I’m moving faster than walking and according to Eric that is running. I feel good afterwards but getting there isn’t fun.  I managed to walk/run for 3.25 miles.  That is 3.25 miles further than I did last week so yay for me.  But last night I started to get pains in my shins again…ARGH my stupid shins.

3)   Why isn’t the swimming longer. I love swimming. I could swimming for an hour and still get out of the pool and go for a bike ride.  It is by far my favorite sport.  I’m not fast but I could hold my own in a race. It is probably my fastest event out of the three sports.   

So if I were to plan my own triathlon it would be ½ mile swim, 10 mile ride and 2 mile run.  I would walk of course with a little jog…or shuffle thrown in there.

Last night I did my first, what we in the triathlon racing world (LOL!), call a “Brick” work out.  I biked for 7.5 miles and immediately ran (walked and shuffled) 2 miles. My “transition time” was 2 minutes.  I basically dumped my bike in the garage, grabbed the iPod, slapped on my GPS running watch and out the door I went.  There are two transitions in triathlons.  Swim to Bike and Bike to Run.  The bike to run, I have been told, is the most difficult.  I believe it. After dismounting my bike my legs are like Jell-O and to immediately start running is hard.  But I did it.

I wonder if I keep blogging about this training if I would be more inclined to keep it up…probably not.  You have been warned you 4-5 loyal readers…whoever you are (and thank you for reading) that I’ll probably be yammering on about my training.

Training Update:

Week 1: Swim = 1600 yards; Bike = 16.8 miles; Run/Walk/Shuffle = 6 miles

So I have this crazy idea that I want to complete a sprint triathlon by myself.  A sprint triathlon is usually ¼ mile to ½ mile swim, 10-15 mile bike ride and a 5K (3.1 miles) run.  Swim…not a problem. I swim that regularly, a couple times a week.  Next is the biking.  Well I just did that at the triathlon on Sunday so that doesn’t scare me too much…I just have to make sure it isn’t an extremely hilly course…or I just have to train harder.  Finally is the part I dread the most…the run.  Can I do all three?  Yes!  Can I do them one after another in a short period of time?  That remains to be seen.

So I have started training.  Now I’ll probably stick to this training for a couple weeks. But inevitably I’ll fall off the bandwagon and in no time at all, I’ll probably be sitting on the couch eating cookies and watching TV. I hope not but I’m not very good at this training thing. All I had to train for the last triathlon was biking and I didn’t do a very good job at that. With any training program, there is a tapering period at a week or two before the race where you do less miles.  My tapering period was like 6 weeks before the race and I never got on my bike until race day.  So I’m not good at committing to this but we will see.

My training so far has been 2 swim sessions where I did 700 yards and 900 yards.  And a 9 mile bike ride.  So that is pretty good for the first 4 days of training.  You notice there was no running or even walking yet…right.  Yep.  Running ugh. I need to do that but in due time.  I need to ease into it.  Hopefully I keep it up.  But right now I want cookie dough…So I’m sitting on the couch and possibly will be eating cookie dough soon.  This isn’t a good sign. LOL!

Well, well, well.  Yesterday was the One Last Tri triathlon in White Bear Lake.  It was a very early morning as it is almost an hour away from home.  We got there with time to spare.  We ditched the bike in the transition area and walked around the lake. The water was freezing and the outside temp was around 60 degrees. I really feel for Carrie. She didn’t have a wetsuit. She wasn’t the only one but she was definitely in the minority.  They started the long course swimmers first and then the short course.  I had to hurry back to the bike area to get ready for the ride.  By the time I got back to the transition area, some of the long course participants were already on the bike.  That is crazy fast!  Carrie came in just over 13 minutes and we exchanged the timing clip and off I went on my ride.

I was really nervous that I wouldn’t finish or I’d be really slow.  It started out sort of flat but the first hill was a beast.  And it really was hilly and the first 9 miles was mostly up.

It really sucked and I wasn’t prepared.  I was cursing myself for not training more during that first 9 miles. The road was not the best but that is no excuse.  I only passed two people…one was fixing something on the bike and the other was changing a flat.  I was passed by a bunch of people.  When the long course bikers caught up to me at my mile marker 8 (their mile 24) it was a bit discouraging.  Oh and the 68 year old guy that passed me too.  I was on my bike just over an hour.  I got back to dismount area and ran into the transition area on wobbly legs. I gave Eric the timing chip and he was off on his run.  Carrie took some pictures of me with my bike, the missed getting me on it. 

We had some bananas and water and went over to the finish line.  Eric shocked me when he crossed the finish line 31 minutes later. 

He was saying he wasn’t going to make it and he would be dragging his ass over the finish line.  He is such a liar!  So here is our picture after we finished.  We survived!  Our times weren’t the fastest but we did it and we weren’t last! :)  Our overall time was 1:52…I’d like it noted that I did most of the 1:52! LOL! 

Survival of the Unfittest

After the race we headed to Caribou Coffee for some warm drinks…I was so cold!

We got home and left right away for Mankato for a picnic with DJ and kids.  We stopped at Emma Krumbees for raspberry picking.  Overall it was a good day…I’m a little sore now.

So the 2014 MLB baseball schedule was released yesterday at 1pm.  And the planning started at 1:01pm.  It seems crazy to be excited about 2014 but let’s face it the Twins suck this year so interest is waning but hey next year is a new year and they will be better…right?  I hope!  So the schedule has the usually suspects but the thing that interests me the most is the interleague games.  These games happen very rarely and there is a 50/50 chance the games will be played at their ball park.  That means road trip!  So this year was DC and the two Texas stadiums (the two Texas games were not interleague.) 2014 is the year we play the NL West.  I have not been to a baseball stadium out west…the closest I came was Arlington, TX and that is barely over the Mississippi River. Ok so it is 369 miles away but you get what I mean, right? LOL!

I thought wouldn’t it be nice if the Twins could play back-to-back series in LA or SF/Oakland.  But of course the schedule wasn’t that nice to us. Here are my complaints:

• The Twins play at the Rays in April and it is a mid-week series so…can’t go because work is crazy.
• The Twins play at the Mariners in July and it is a mid-week series so…can’t go because work is crazy.
• The Twins play at the Rockies in July…we have to be there in May for Matthew’s graduation and I really don’t want to go to Colorado twice in one year…so no.
• The Twins play at the Padres and Giants when we are going to be in Colorado for the graduation…this may work.

So my travel brain started thinking.  I really don’t care if I see the Twins play the games or not at the stadiums...I really want to see the stadiums. It would be nice but not required. So in May when we are in Colorado we will go see the Rockies play the Padres.  And if Cuddyer is still with the Rockies, I can wear my Twins shirt of his.  So we can check that stadium off the list.  Now after the graduation is when the Twins play two games in San Diego and 3 games in San Francisco.  I thought might as well check out this crazy multi-city flight.  “The Minneapolis-Denver-San Diego-San Francisco-Minneapolis flight.”  I was thinking this was going to be ridiculously high. I mean round trip flight from here to San Fran is over $500 alone.  Well nope, $583….did my eyes deceive me?  Nope $583. Well that really got me going.  But I thought to myself, we have 2 days to get to San Fran from San Diego. We’ve done San Diego so many times; there really isn’t anything left that we HAVE to see.   So I checked out renting a car in San Diego and driving to San Francisco. I have seen pictures of the drive on the Hwy 1 in California and all I can say is yes, Yes, YES! So this is my tentative plan…hopefully this will work out for us.

May 16-20 – Denver (Rockies Stadium)

May 20-22 – San Diego (Petco)

May 22-23 – on our way to San Francisco

May 23-27 – San Francisco/Oakland (AT&T and Coliseum)

4 Ballparks in 11 days!  If you want a map, I created this cute little map of our plan.  See the little baseballs, planes, the car and the graduation hat? I feel so clever.