Taper. . .

The final weeks leading up to my marathon are considered a taper period when I reduce the amount of exercise I do, and I eat only the most familiar and friendly foods.  I was on the treadmill in the work gym today, and thought about how easy nutrition is for the modern American runner.  We are able to decide exactly what we are going to eat for the entire week, and we can predict to a tenth of a percent how much of our caloric intake is from carbohydrates/fats/protein!  So, with all this information and modern research at our fingertips, why are we still slower than Kenyans? :-)

This next week, I have some difficult days ahead.  The two days prior to the marathon will include a very unfamiliar form of exercise, indeed. . . rest.  I think I've forgotten how to do this one.  Granted, I am supposed to have a rest day every week, but I use that day to lift weights or play racquetball.  The idea of not going to the gym on my break at work kind of scares me.  What am I going to do with this time?  It isn't like there are tons of things I can get accomplished at midnight or 1am on a Thursday/Friday night.  I will not be running any shopping errands, that is certain.  Perhaps I can meet a friend for lunch, HA!!  I guess I will be reading sans stationary bike.  Can you do that?  What will my legs do? 

Becoming Beautiful

One of the cliche things we're always told is that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder".  The question it leads me to is, "How do you know when the eye beholding you thinks you are beautiful?"  The second question is, "why do I care?" :-)  Being beautiful is emphasised everywhere in our culture from magazines telling us how to become beautiful to surgeons who will use modern techniques to remove fat from unwanted places or even reconstruct your face.  We are passionate about beauty.  We crave the softest skin, the shiniest hair, and the longest lashes.  We are constantly told how to get flat abs and eliminate cellulite.  It all seems perfectly wonderful, we all can hope to achieve beauty if we find the right formula of hair products, make-up and weight loss drugs.  But, one is only beautiful in the eye of the beholder.  So, I wonder to myself, who is it that makes the choice of how my hair should be and what clothes I should wear?  And will they ever actually see me to give me positive feedback when I do it right?  If they will not, then I cannot become beautiful.  The only thing I can do is give up on the magazines and un-named persons putting this pressure on me, and find a beholder who can verify that beauty has been acheived. 

I spend a good hour a week enjoying articles on the latest in diet, make-up and hair care products to help women on their journey to becoming beautiful.  I read theses at the gym at work where I am not allowed to use hair products or make-up because, while they makes beautiful women, it makes ugly chips :-).  On some days it makes me feel hopeless, like I cannot be beautiful while I'm working.  Other days, I feel relieved because I do not have to stress about these mundane details.  Today, I found myself realizing that becoming beautiful is not something you can do in a day, and it is certainly not something you can be told how to do.  The only person who can decide if I am beautiful is me, and today, I decided, I will be beautiful on January 16th when I cross the finish line for the PF Chang's marathon.  Sure, I will not be beautiful to most of the people who see me at that moment, but I know that on that day, I will prove my physical strength and my strength of will, and I will feel beautiful as every muscle in my legs have been pushed to the limit, and helped me reach my goal.  Though, I will probably look more beautiful after I have gotten a shower and put on some make-up :-).

well, you can't win 'em all. . .

Hazelnut cream coffee. . .I cannot believe how amazing this stuff is.  Has there ever been a beverage with more love to give than hazelnut cream coffee?  When you are feeling tired, and work has you bummed out because you just spent 6 hours on a project someone will tell you was done wrong, this wonderful cup of coffee comes to your aid, and fills you with energy and joy.  Truly, even my beloved Diet Dr. Pepper cannot lift my spirits in the way that this cup of pure heaven has.  Thank you Intel for being, perhaps not the greatest "great place to work", but certainly the greatest place to get a cup of coffee.

And with that introduction, I will now expand on how difficult it is to adjust your sleep for a full night shift of 6p-6a.  I was planning to go for a run yesterday, my long, 18 mile run.  Alas, I made the choice to try to sleep instead.  Well, sleep was not easy, and in the end, I wished I'd just gone for the run instead.  Now, it looms over me to complete it today after work.  I will come home after 4 12 hour 6p-6a shifts, and I will run 18 miles (that's almost 3 hours).  No!!  I refuse!  Next week, when I do my 20 mile, I will go right after work, but not today!  "The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!"  "This is madness!!"  I am only training for a marathon.  I do not need to kill myself before I even begin seriously training for IM.  I will run after sleeping for a while.  I will run in the evening, when Steve will be going to bed.  I will go home this morning, sleep, wake up as close to noon as possible (got to go to church), have some food, hang out with Steve, get some grocery shopping done, flake out on the couch with a movie or play some Prince of Persia, have an awesome dinner, go for a run, go to bed.  Yup, I am loving this plan. 

Next week is Christmas, and on Monday, I need to finish up my shopping.  It is going to be a horrible Christmas. . .Get off work, drink a red bull, drive out to the west side, eat some Christmas breakfast, imbibe a red bull, open gifts, admire gifts, chug a red bull, come back to the east side, make a pie, take a nap, down a red bull, eat Christmas dinner, laugh it up with family, open gifts, open another red bull, play with new things, IV-bag of red bull, play games with family, bathe in red bull, eat some pie, take an ambien, go to sleep.  Nothing to it, day shift pansies!

Sat on my butt all day. . .

I started out early this morning. . .8:40 on my epic bike ride.  I tried a new route to South Mountain again, using kyrene instead of 48th to cut across, and felt is was a bad choice.  My speed in town was a lot better than last time (comparing myself to myself with a cold in this case- yeah, let's hope it was better).  Let the climb begin!!  I reached South Mountain, and I was happy to have a ton of energy for the ride.  Potty break!  My bladder empty and my heart full, the climb was easier than it had ever been.  Except that one part, that still kicked my a--!  My dad drove by me during this part, and I couldn't muster a "hi" for my puppies who were staring at me from the car window.  I was also passed by my paragliding crew!  Carlos was there with a tandem and student.  Bill from yesterday was there too!  I reached to top to a team of PG pilots cheering me on :-).  And then there was a debate over whose way down this mountain was more dangerous.  I voted the bike would likely get me hurt before the paraglider- you don't have to worry about cars in the sky (not yet anyway).

WOOOOOO!!!  Roller coaster ride back down (don't put your hands in the air, keep them safely on your brakes, please)!  I had a van pull over to get out of MY way I was going so friggin' fast!  As always the ride ends too quickly. . . I would go again, but if you think waiting in line at Disneyland is slow, imagine that wait while pushing your heart rate up to . . .wish I knew (I still haven't replaced the battery in my HRM :-\).  Is it worth it?  Hells yeah!

My ride in town was pretty mundane.  I was about 15 miles out when my brain and stomach wanted to do something else. . . EAT!  So, I could think of nothing else for the rest of my ride back to the house.  Soup. . .Bread. . .Ham. . .Swiss. . . Should I heat the sandwich up and melt the cheese?  That will take too much time. . .but it sounds too good. . . .and so on for the next hour!  I wonder how much of my workout time is spent thinking about food.  Ahh, lunch- it was all I'd hoped it could be. 

A quick wardrobe change and sunscreen reaplication later, and I was off to tackle another mountain- "the little one this time" is how I phrased it in my head.  It felt like it took no time at all to get there, and I was still maintaining a pretty decent pace (for me).  The initial climbing was harmless enough, and I got my fun ride down again.  I think I got a bug in my teeth from smiling too much!  I need to check my garmin to see how fast I was going- it was FAST.  Garmin say 51 mph?  I am going to say, no. 

When I reached that hill on Usery Pass, I discovered my legs were on fire.  Not literally, that would have put an end to cycling for me if I found that could happen.  Note: my 3rd least desired way to go is by death in a fire.  I climbed up that hill, and it felt like I would never reach the top.  Did I stop?  No!  I reminded myself that in not very much time I will have to run a marathon on legs that feel very much like they do now.  In other words, "quit your b----ing and climb that hill!"  I reached the top, had a little snack break, and started the journey home.  I was pretty proud of myself.

On the wa home, I encountered a small hill, and discovered something strange.  I decided to stand up to pedle instead of shifting, and the lactic acid burn I usually feel actually tickled. . .I'm concerned on a number of levels.  I hit every light on the way home, and I hit a car which was making a right hand turn and decided to park in MY bike lane (sometimes I hit cars).  I tapped it with my front wheel, but that just doesn't have the same drama to it.  Time slowed down, and the miles just would not go by fast enough.  I was ready to take a nap. . .My butt hurts so bad, my shoulders ache and my lower back and obliques are tight.  But it was well worth it to have reached my goal :-)  I was home by 5 just like I wanted!

The Century

Today is going to be my first day riding over 100 miles.  I am going to take my normal route from the house up to the towers at South Mountain.  My dad is going to meet me at the top with a few extremely cute and excitable little dogs.  I am then going to ride home and enjoy some soup and a ham sandwich on fresh sourdough, yum.  Once I have eaten, I will be riding up Usery park rd., a 45 mile round trip.  I am starting my ride at 8:30 and have set a goal to be done by 5:00.  Am I nervous?  Nope.  Do I fear I won't make it?   Nope.  Am I thinking it is going to be a bit cold on the way out there this morning?  Yup.  50 degrees is a bit cooler than I normally ride in :-).  I will be warmed up well before I climb the mountain, and once I'm there, I am not going to need to think about wind speed. . . I ride up SM at a whopping 6 mph at some points!

You may be right. . .I may be crazy

I registered to run Ironman Arizona next year! I have started working toward new and exciting fitness goals. I feel like a virgin, running for the very first time ;-). The idea of this race is enough to make all my "old boring routes" seem brand new. I think to myself, "this time I'm running for Ironman!" I completed a bike ride which by all my calculations and planning was ill-advised at best, but I proved myself wrong again. I biked 90 miles last week, a 30 mile jump from my longest ride. I will not pretend I made any kind of record speed on this ride, but I was amazed to have completed it without incident (heck, I didn't even get a flat!)


My next race is the PF Changs Rock and Roll Marathon in January. I signed up for this race believing it fell on my short week (so I would have Saturday off), but I was wrong. This means that I will be leaving work, going to the race, running 26.2, getting food, and, as rude as it may be, falling asleep at the table. I hear you saying "why not take a day off". Um, because A. I'm too much of a bad a-- for that and B. because I'm already blowing all my vacation on a trip to -wait for it- AUSTRALIA!!! boo ya! I am going to learn to scuba dive and dive the reef! That is another blog entirely, and I am looking forward to some fun stories from that 17 DAY CRUISE by the way :-).

Back to the training. . .This morning, after I got off work at 3am, I went home and ran 12 miles. I was scheduled to do 18, but sleep won my attention at last, and I finished up the last 6 after a good 5 hour nap. Next week, I am heading up Usery and South Mountain on Tuesday, with a lunch break in between to make it feel like a work day. . .it should take me about 8 hours because I am way too slow. After I do this, because it was a goal from last year and needed to get done, I am going to start working on speed, and keeping my long rides a tad shorter to save up some energy for the rest of the week.

My nutrition plan is being thwarted by hunger. I am using sparkpeople.com to log my fitness and food, and it is a judgmental little beast! Too much fat, not enough carbs, too much fiber. . .not enough calories? Well, that is new. I have started planning out my whole day's food so that I can be in range on all these nutrients. The program makes food feel like a chore, and it makes me want to eat a Twix in defiance. 

So, in conclusion, I am training for a Marathon, spending a day on my bike, feeling good about life, and eating on purpose or with purpose.  It is time to start my weekend, and I am ready to get some sleep :-)

A week of ups and downs

Work was a roller coaster today.  We started out in a happy place, but dark clouds were on the horizon.  Little did we know, the gremlins would be casually removing semicolons from our code.  The gremlins are real, though I have not seen one myself.  I have seen their handiwork: changing settings, rearranging charts, hiding production lots.  On my team, we have one ambitious gremlin fighter.  He notices when things are amiss, and make it his responsibility to undo the damage the gremlins have done.  Today, he bravely tracked the location of the gremlin mischief, and started the factory running smoothly again.  My hero. . .  And, as I leave today, things are back as they should be, quiet as a church on Monday.