8/10-8/16

Wed.

Good workout. Bike was a little longer. Rode for an hour and went to park for skills then rode home. Ran. Did the lifting. Realized most of my effective skills practice comes from racing. Have been really enjoying dedicating time to this. Practiced jumping off and on, riding in sand, riding and off camber trail, and running up a hill and mounting

Thursday

Did the run after work before swimming. Wasn't as easy as it should have been. It felt really good to open up and run a little faster. It didn't feel good at first though. My legs felt like stumps for the first 20 minutes.

Swim- An old coach was visiting. Her workouts are pretty fun. We did a good warm up then dove off the blocks a bunch. Then did a lot of kicking drills. The point was to burn out the legs. Yes they were burnt. Maybe not the prescribed yardage, but a good hard workout. The next day my stomach muscles hurt so bad I had to take ibuprofen. Means I am using my core.

Have been getting some great swimming tips from a good swimmer at Masters and from that old coach. Some stuff I can work on to improve my form.

Friday

Took the mt bike up S. Cottonwood. Wanted to try the new back tire that I got before racing on it. Nice ride. Tried to take it easy. The climbing there isn't too steep. Bike felt good.

Sat.

Race day- Got there a little late for my liking but got in a pretty good warm up. I was definitely huffing and puffing before the start. Didn't really have the best race. Started out in the back because I was chatting when the gun went off and was in the wrong gear and couldn't get into pedal. Got on the single track and a cub crossed the trail in front of me. Pretty cool. I was very excited and sat there for a minute not sure what to do. I wanted to warn the two girls behind me but didn't see mama and got a little freaked out. Turns out Frank Gonzalas almost hit the cub and came in between it and the mama. Crazy. Then Josh Crutcher almost his a moose with a calf.

Anyway, the course is a lot of pretty steep climbing and I guess I just haven't been cranking my bike that hard. There was maybe one gear that didn't make noise. I though I might break the chain. The front derailer has always rubbed so I tried to keep it in that noise but it made it annoying to shift into different gears. The cassette is maybe loose or just toast. Very distracting. Then I just didn't really have it on the climbs. My legs would load up way before my breathing became the hindrance. We should talk about this. I feel like this is how I keep feeling on hard hard efforts. Just want to know what you think. The leg workout on Thursday probably didn't help. I definitely felt better on the 2nd lap though and could have gone and done another one. The downhill was pretty steep and my breaks just don't work well. Definitely would love a new bike, or at least some disc breaks.

Ended up winning. Had no idea until awards. There was only one other girl in my category though. Got a helmet and some other great stuff from the raffle. Running shorts, headphones, 3 new shirts, some kids riding gloves. That race is great just because of the raffle.

Didn't feel too devastated after the race but went to bed early.

Sun.

Met Jamie (the good Masters swimmer) at the pond. She looks like a fish. I look like a flailing non swimming creature. We swam pretty consistently for over 30 minutes. Then headed over to the M for some trail running. Wanted to see another bear and there have been sightings in the area. The trail is pretty steep getting out but we did good and ran most of it. Ran harder on the way back but it was downhill so not sure how effective that was. Ran for a little over 80 minutes.

Came home and did some yoga with a lot of focus on leg. arm, and core strength. Erik went on epic mt bike adventure with John and Lisa. Am having a little devastation envy. Can I have an epic next weekend? Even a long trail run would be awesome. Miss it. Feeling soft.