So much to tell

Swimming
I can swim a 50 with fins only a second or two faster than without fins. Is that a good or bad thing?

Schedule-
Next week my Grandma is having eye surgery. She has to keep jher head down for 5 days. I was going to go to Laurel to spend some time with her, see my cousin, and relieve my cousin. Thought that going down Sunday after Masters would be good and stay until Monday. However, masters is doing the 1 hr swim. I am not super into it, unless you think that is exactly what I need right now. So , maybe swim at MSU ( but that is 1-4 and I was hoping to get out of town earlier) or skip it for the day? Thoughts? Bottom line, going to Billings Sunday and coming home Monday.
Tuesday - Big 24 mouse experiment. Will not be able to get away during the work day. If swim will need to go to masters. Probably won't get finished early enough to make it to MSU.

Computrainer
First, you were right about questioning my real time power which made sense as I was riding and thinking about it logically, I can get real time power but it does have to have some sort of basis.

Workout 1- I did a course that was supposed to be for endurance and it was hard to do the high cadence because it wanted more power so even if I shifted it made it harder. I could go the other way though, push more watts than asked for so the intervals were good. As I was watching the numbers though I don't have the same sense of feeling as just doing them by feel. The numbers provide a huge distraction. So, I did those 40 k intervals starting at 165 watts and moving up to 175 to 180 for the last few. Probably to hard for 40 k because I was pretty tired after the last one. Probably didn't have 9 more in me.

Workout 2- Total bust, but I am giving myself points for patience. Brought all my stuff to work(whole other story there) but forgot the bike. Had to pick up a dog and then get the bike. Bike had flat tire. Couldn't get tire back on. Used Erik's wheel. Set up computrainer. Took forever to figure out. Finally got it going and I couldn't get more than 117 watts. Something was wrong. Really annoyed. Did workout disregarding the numbers.

Grizzly- What do you guys do for timing? It isn't chip timed is it?

You know you are swimming a lot when the timing button on your watch never hits its maxed out time. I usually can tell when I last swam. 23 hours ago etc.

The week
Everything went fine. No missed workouts or changes. Maybe swimming on Tuesday was a bit of a bust. Coach Jamie said we hit an all time low. I think nobody was motivated and we all just kept feeding off of it. Still swam high 2000s though. My back SI joint has been feeling a bit sore but my hamstring is feeling better. Have been trying to do those "SI" joint exercises more often. Maybe running up hills bothers it?

Somehow this got away from me. Tired and going to sleep.

Some days are just awesome, some days suck....

So, some at some points in life it feels like the universe is smiling down on me. On Friday morning I received a very, very nice email from the tri club kid CJ. He said they had a meeting and decided that September would be the best time for The Bobact and that they thought it would be okay if I was race director and that they would be very privileged to have me on board as the clubs faculty/staff adviser.  Now how about that as completely what I was looking for and how awesome is that!!!!! A fall Bobcat! Plus, I can be active in the community of triathlon in Bozeman and try and help some of these kids love the sport!

# 2 Totally awesome and great thing that happened this week. My good, good friend Lawrence has been telling me about this bike riding program he has for weeks now. I think I am stubborn and don't listen to him very well sometimes. He has a computrainer (the "Tritons" bought one and he ended up with it in his basement when the club basically died) and he has the computrainer hooked up to this other sweet program which I can't remember the name of. It has threshold testing programs and then workouts etc. I asked him if I could use it to do that workout on Thursday because I didn't want to bring my workout to Annalisa (I think she will want to write the workouts) and of course he said yes. He isn't claiming ownership of the computrainer since it technically isn't his. Anyway, he has this sweet setup. A monitor to watch videos or bad TV while doing the workouts. Basically, access to it anytime. Basically free. The program is 10$ a month if I want to do my own threshold testing and workouts with my own target power. Cadence. Heart rate. I actually think that if I borrow Lisa's power tap I could set this whole thing up myself. It used some sort of wireless connection to link the program to the power. Anyway, my questions for you. Is this something you see as ideal to use as a training tool for the next few months? Can you write the workouts for it? How do I tactfully tell Annalisa I don't want to use her system? ( Sorry about the last question, I hate those kind of conversations)

And then some days just suck. Get an email from the boss this a.m. His wife and I do book club together. I had heard he was leaving in two weeks and asked her what for and asked her if it was another interview. She said yes. Maybe a little out of line, but we are "friends" and friends talk about work. Anyway, the email is reprimanding the whole lab for talking to other people about his work/travel life and telling us HE is the only person we can talk to about it. My thoughts, FUCK YOU Josh, and I really, really need to get a new job, and FUCK, I guess I can't be friends with your wife. Tears. (Sorry for all the F***) In Bozeman people are friendly. I hate this whole thing of having to keep a line between work and friendship. Really they can be both.

Schedule-
Thursday- Work day but I think I can get that stuff done that you already prescribed.
Friday- Going to the Banff Film Festival with my sister. In the evening. Will be able to work around everything.
In general- Lab meeting for this semester just got scheduled from 3-5 on Fridays. I said I wasn't available from 11-1 basically for the tri club and swimming but it does sort of hamper swimming in the 4-6 shift if I have to. Usually meetings are only an hour though, so hopefully doesn't affect me to much. (Obviously not so into being a good employee right now)

The week:
Thursday night swim. Did not feel it. Kept trying to focus on form and it just wouldn't come so I gave up (halfway through a 100 consciously thought the words fuck it) and just tried to keep up with the people in my lane. We did a bunch of 100's getting faster each set. I think it was a good strategy. Abby in my lane said she felt like crap too. Maybe we were tired from all the IM ing from Tuesday.

Friday
Big work day again. Sorry I don't think I put that in the last correspondence. Three big work days in a week. One is the usual and three is a lot of work. I was so tired by the end of the week. Did time it absolutely perfect so that I could get the swim in. The swim was pretty hard and after Tuesday and Thursday at Masters I felt like my arms might fall off. Didn't get to the run. The weather here has been awful. It is so, so, so icy out there and running on that in the dark has been deterring me a lot. Hopefully I will get those ice grippers today.

Saturday
Good day. Rested up from Friday. Had a good swim. I can do a 25 on 20 seconds basically, I have to work really hard to make 20 so if I am slacking a bit it is usually more like 21. Did the first bunch going as hard as possible but was getting frustrated because I know my form was off. I know I was really flat. No rotation. Faster arm turnover= less rotation (not sure if this is for everybody, but this is my pattern). So, I tried the last 4 25's using good form. I was surprised that with good form and less effort I could still swim 25 on ~20 seconds. So, what to do on these? Fast and hard? Or good form and just as fast? I just can't quite get hard, fast and good form to fit into the sentence together.
Rode with Lawrence. Very glad we did that ride together. It was hard. Probably harder than any other ride this year. We were convincing ourselves of that last 20K effort.

Sunday
Masters! Fun swim. Did a 500 where we all swim and the last person has to sprint around and get to the front of the line. I couldn't believe how long it took. Almost the whole 50. Had Lawrence watch my again because I sort of feel stagnant swimming right now. He said to keep working on the high elbow on my right arm and start working on my reach. We kept calling it an extended reach. He says me rotation looks fine but it is the reach I need to get more streamlined. Actually started to get a cramp in my shoulder. You know the kind that you get in your feet or calves. First time for everything. It didn't actually fully cramp up.
Cold, windy, and super icy. I convinced Lawrence to run at the M with me. 1:30 or so of trail running. Going up some pretty steep stuff. Like I said above the outside running is absolutely terrible right now. Maybe not what you prescribed but in town I think running consistent is impossible.

Bobcat

         I met with one of the kids from the tri club about the Bobcat. I am so impressed. Super nice kid and the club has done an amazing job of planning their race. So many more details taken care of than I expected and along the lines of what I was already thinking. Because they are a club it sounds like they can get insurance through the university and they don't even want to work with USAT.  The only thing which I totally I understand is they want to do it in the spring. The officers of the club and basically the ones who have gotten it started are graduating in the spring and they want to do it before they leave.
They had the date as the Saturday after the Grizzly. The more we talked he was really open for changing it to the end of May. Which sort of comes with it's own set of problems, such as all the students are out for the summer. I am not sure if he realized that. I realized that I probably shouldn't put on the exact same race in the fall and likely won't have university support and don't want to step on the tri kids toes. I really want to help them. So I kind of volunteered to help direct the race. So as a race promoter in Montana what do you think about an end of May race in the pool. Damn, I wish it was in the fall. When do UM students get done with school? The Grizzly is the most perfect weekend out there. 

      Also, what do you think of me taking this on in May? I think it might work out well. I can focus on the Grizzly in April and then I don't think much is on the calender until the end of June. That way I will  have the rest of the summer to focus on racing!!!

Been looking at races but don't have anything decided yet. A few mountain bike Mule events in the mix too!!!

ATTENTION- I want to go in and meet with Annalisa for doing some computrainer workouts. Can you help schedule a time for next week? What I mean is set out some time. I can do the actual appointment :)

Schedule- Need to work for a couple of hours on Saturday. Also, Dylan (the badass swimmer from here) wants to do some trainer rides with us but works on Sundays. So it would be fun to ride with him a little on Saturdays if that works out. The MSU pool is now open on weekends again!! No more swimming at the Swim Center!!!  Except Masters on Sundays. Otherwise next week I don't have a lot going on as far as work. I will probably have an experiment on Thursday. It will have a two hour incubation, so probably a long day although I can get a small run in. Will probably be able to make it to Masters. 

This week. I know there were a few runs in there. Borrowed somebodies rubber things that you attach to your shoes for running on ice. They were absolutely amazing!! I think I can get a free pair from MSU. Going to look into that in a minute. 

Thursday- Masters- I think we was about 3200. I can't remember the workout, just that I was feeling motivated. 

Friday- Swim workout was hard. I was feeling like my arms would not go around for that last 150. I worked myself hard at masters the night before so was probably feeling it. I feel like maybe I am comfortable swimming faster in that 2100-2500 range but as soon as I go over 3000 I feel it. 

Saturday. I did totally fail on Saturday, which I already told you about. Missed the swimming hours and then tried to ski but it was really cold out and my lungs rebelled. Got in about 4.5 miles. Then went home and took a nap for a couple of hours. Not really sure what happened. 

Sunday- Had a good swim with Masters and then rode the trainer with Lawrence. Nice to have somebody to chat with. The time went by very quick. 

Monday- Had a big experiment. Felt really tired and crappy all day. Went to the gym to run on the treadmill at ~645 and it was all I could do to get through it and get the PT done. Slept really, really well that night and felt soooo much better on Tuesday

Tuesday- Meeting with CJ. Went home and did trainer workout before Masters. That was kind of hard. Not much break. Then went to Masters. It was IM night. 300 fly (50drill/25swim) followed by lots of 200s. Can last longer than 25 on my fly. Almost get to 50. I was kind of glad for IM night. My shoulder was really tired from pipetting at work on Monday. 

Wed- TBD

New Year!

Schedule

Monday (1/6), Wednesday, and Friday are big work days. Probably not much longer than 8 hours, but won't have time to leave in the middle of the day. I will get in early though so I can make it to the pool for the 3:30-6pm lap swim time. I might have to go to masters these nights if the day gets to long. Does that make sense?

Saturday- 1/11 - I will have to work for a couple of hours.  Finish up some stuff from Friday.

Other- Have gotten in contact with an MSU trip club member and a student senator. They are planning on putting on a race in the spring. I think April. I don't know how they are going to pull off anything good in four months. Further, everybody I have talked to says if I want MSU support for putting on a triathlon it should to be student directed. I call BS on this. We saw what happens with that this year with the cross race. Students come and go and have no long term interest in keeping a race going.

So this got me thinking and I think I am going to try and meet the pool director tomorrow. I might not even need MSU support to put the Bobcat on. I might have to pay to rent the pool, but I don't really care about MSU engagement for the race. The ultimate purpose would be to put on an awesome Montana race. It always has been.
Stay tuned.....

Nothing super exciting happened this week. My asthma went away on Friday. I guess the Advair really works. Maybe stress.

I got back at it on Friday and after some really good sleep Friday night felt so much better.

Saturday
Swimming was an adventure.  The 50 m pool was all lap swimming with one lane line in the middle of the pool. I was telling someone this and they were thinking we had to duck in the middle, but no the other way. I am so glad school is starting and I can swim at MSU on weekends if I need to. Worked a lot day. Came home and rode the trainer.

Sunday
Masters swim. I had fun. We did lots of sets of 14. In the end we had sprints and there were three of us. Tried to all sprint in one lane at the same time. Good open water but in the pool practice. It was pretty funny. Then we raced each other with just two each time. Ran after the swim. It was cold outside and the ground a little precarious at times.
Am feeling good about my run right now. One hour is pretty easy. I remember this not being the case in the past couple of years.

Monday
Swam. It was okay. Feeling a little off this day. Very wiggly when I try and go hard and have to breath on one side.
Rode rollers and watched bad TV. I feel guilty about it but I really enjoy the rollers in the winter. I like bad TV I guess. I don't like riding outside when it is cold.

Tuesday
Met a friend for the swim. She is usually faster than me but I held her this time. Excited about this! Also excited to maybe have a swim partner at MSU. I like having people to chase when I am supposed to go fast.
Got engrossed in my Bobcat planning and ran for an hour. I'm having a hard time finding a good 45 minute loop.

Wednesday
Ski was just shy of 3 hours. Wow, I am tired though. The snow after the 5 mile mark was really heavy and not recently groomed. I am blaming that on why I am so tired.  Went uphill for 8-10 miles and came down the same way. Beautiful. Love skiing up there.

Christmas

This blog isn't going to be very good. It's Wednesday night and I am pooped.

So some thoughts and highlights of the week. May be a little scattered. I keep thinking it is Sunday.

Sunday masters was Christmas fun day. We did the 12 days of Christmas. For example 5 golden rings was 5 50s doing a flip every 5 strokes. 8 was diving off the blocks 8 times which for some turned into  front flips etc. It was really fun and even hard. I was worked in a lot of strange places when it was all said and done.

Monday- the MSU gym is remodeling making it very easy to sneak in. Lawrence came and did the swim with me. We raced on the builds and really pushed the descends. I was keeping him in sight which has never ever happened. He even said I was getting faster. I can attribute a lot of it to my super awesome flipturns since I practice them so much in that pool.
BTW- why so much kicking with fins and strong kick? A more consistent kick? Stronger kick.

A cycling girl in Bozeman who is also a PT has two computrainers. I chatted with her about cycling a bit. Can we revisit power? Annalisa could set me up with some numbers (threshold test) and John and Lisa have the equipment I could borrow. I would like to get faster this year especially for doing those shorter races.

A downer of the week
I seem to be having as bout of asthma right now. My chest felt very tight yesterday skiing and I used the nebulizer 2x today. I think I would have been okay after the first time but Erik's moms is full of animal hair, dust, and smoke from the wood stove. Since my lungs were already bad I don't think that helped. Not actually feeling very well right now. Not sure what triggered it. Maybe have a little cold coming on. So, after all that I didn't get to enjoy my wonderful Christmas run.

Some quotes I accumulated in the last couple of days

My mom bought me a t shirt in a cute little bike shop in Wisconsin called Zuzu pedals "for a groovy bike life" the shirt says "run wild, my child"
Suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance, character. (I am not religious, but I got that from the bible. The bible says that character leads to hope but I don't really understand that last one yet, maybe someday)

Schedule-
Long work day Friday. A few hours of a work day Saturday.
Next week, not much going on. Lawrence is out of town and I am not sure I want to swim a long set by myself on New Years Eve? Thoughts?

Wouldn't mind skate skiing again. Either on the weekend or New Years day.

Hmmm (can't think of a title)

I changed the settings so if you go to those video links that I sent you last week they should work. I think

I think I should get a C- this week for my ability to read instructions and actually execute everything on the list. My ride on Sunday left me a few minutes short which made me suspicious because you never and I will repeat never, get the timing wrong. So upon further inspection those high cadence intervals were supposed to be done 3x not 1x. I was sooo tired though and it was already late. I didn't have the energy to do it. Then in the pool on Monday I ended up at the other end of the pool and didn't have my workout so wasn't sure what I was supposed to even do. Missed a 25 FAST. Made up for it by doing a 25 FAST but not in the correct order, so am not sure how effective that was. Also, forgot to use the paddles for a 200. Really not sure what is wrong with my brain.Suggestions for brain superfood?

Schedule- In Bozeman for Christmas. I only get Wednesday off. :(  However, I am going to take Tuesday off but am going back to work for a big day Thursday (ugghh). I was hoping to get in some good skiing on Tuesday or Wednesday. Most likely Tuesday. Will definitely have time for a run or ride on Wednesday. I need it after spending the morning with the mother in law.  Maybe a little ahead of myself for New Year's. When are you gone? Not sure about what we are doing. Also, only get Wednesday off. It would be fun to go on some sort of skiing or hotspring adventure.  I still need to think about it some more. Or, an epic New Year's eve day swim. I might even be able to round up some people. Will you write me something fun?

This weekend- Home with nothing but errands and some shopping for Christmas. Wouldn't mind getting in a ski!

Friday-
Wow, I was tired on this day. Masters swim on Thursday was a 1300 warm up. Long warm up, 800 descend, 600 (100 fast/100easy), 400 (50 fast/50 easy), 200 easy. 3300 total. I got lapped on the first 800 so only did 3200. My arms were tired and on Friday's swim my arms were more tired. Full PT session included all of the stretching. I woke up on Saturday feeling like I got beat up. Probably good to have a couple days to recover. Monday felt great!!

My weekend got kind of ordered around by my mother. Which means no inclination that I might need to get some exercise. It was a very nice Saturday though, so I am not really complaining. Lots of family in one day. My cousin makes chocolates, cookies, cakes etc. and I think I ate my fill for the whole year. Her's are just so delicious. I don't have much of a sweet tooth and still feel like I need to counter it with salty and vinegary. Feel like I gained 5lbs (stepped on the scale and have confirmation, need to get rid of that).  Sunday I got up and went for a run in Laurel. I decided these runs are my days to make peace with the wind. It was so windy I think I was stopped more than once and blown off the road when I finally got a crosswind. Got home from Billings/Laurel at around 6 and got on the bike. You already heard about that above.

Monday- Swim. Good swim. Finished 2700 in just about an hour. Liked those faster sets. Also heard about this above. Did this swim at lunch but had a huge work day. Left work at 8. Got on the rollers at 8:24. Got off at 9:24.

Tuesday- Went and did full PT session after work. In about 30 minutes I got in most of it.
Masters swim was very fly focused. In the 50m pool, so drills were 50m long. Chest press drill. I think it helped my fly. That is too long for me to swim lots of 50s. Focused on form etc for 25 and then swam free if I needed to. Did 2 400s where we did either 3 or 4 fly off the wall. That was really fun. Made the 400 hard but also broke it up. I could handle some of that in more workouts. Good solid swim

Wed- Another good solid swim. Liked this workout too. Going home to ride rollers.


That's about it. Nothing exciting. Not much new. Feeling good about the swim. Oh, I have bought some good shampoo but still go around feeling itchy, staticy, and like my hair is dirty.

Bobcat

First, I have decided to move forward with the Bobcat. I composed a letter appealing to the MSU year of Engaged Leadership and am sending it to a bunch of offices/people on campus to see who will bite. I was very nervous to hit send on that first letter. We will see how it goes. I think that if I can get permission to use the pool and campus the goal would be to have most of the ducks in a row before the Grizzly. Advertise at the Grizzly and maybe even open registration the Monday after. If I don't have things organized enough to do it by then, then maybe the race will start in 2015. A lot to do, but I need to get MSU permission first. Fingers crossed.
Can we talk a little more about the insurance. I don't really understand how you save $15,000 so was hoping for some more details. I am all about trying to save money so that it can go back toward the racers.

Also, should start trying to take a harder look at races and schedule? I can work on that this week. Got signed up for Calgary!!

Schedule- I am going to Billings this weekend for my Aunt's birthday. Probably a good weekend to go. No Masters because of a swim meet and no MSU pool because of the holiday schedule. Will leave mid morning on Saturday and come home Sunday.  Maybe a list for the weekend would be good. I can run in Billings on Sunday morning and can ride Saturday morning and Sunday evening. But I think a list would be less stressful.
Next Thursday I think I am going to some Christmas play with my mom. It probably starts around 7 so no Masters that day. As far as work, so far I am free. Have a meeting in a couple of minutes so will know more then.

I had Lawrence film me at the 30 minute swim. Out of the water, but thought you might like to have a look. I am the one in the awful black swimsuit. We had an ugly swimsuit competition and Audrey is the one wearing the skirt.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos?pid=5955140980780659634&oid=116359595224112393355

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos?pid=5955139337978423490&oid=116359595224112393355

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos?pid=5955138091404705922&oid=116359595224112393355

(By the way, I may have tried to share these videos with you through google. I am still trying to navigate the google apps. I think I found a way to store them and thought I could email the link. I don't think it worked)

30 minute swim- I felt good about it. 1585. Stayed within 50 of almost everybody in my lane (a few were ahead by a bit more) at Masters and only missed the flip turn 2x. I think in the past my speed on the 30 minute swim was about 2:00/100. I think this year it was more like 1:50/100.

Did Sunday's run on the treadmill.It was still in the negative digits outside. Got a lot of Bobcat stuff workout out in my head. I cannot run fast on the treadmill. Not fast at all. This is one day where I was feeling particularly slow. Put the machine on random so I did go up lots of hills though. Is that bad or should I force myself to go a more normal outside pace?

Monday- Had one of those "couldn't deal with the day" mornings and called in sick. Finished my letter for the Bobcat and did some stuff around the house. Went to the pool and had a great swim. Was feeling really good. Did the whole PT routine. I did some straight leg dead lifts instead of the exercise ball for my hamstrings. There is another one called hamstring exploders that we used to do in g-fit. Is that okay? I find that plank, bridge, the back exercises etc really work my lower back. By the time I get to the hamstrings my back is so tired I don't get in much legs. Even if I do the lower back and then the hamstring it is tired. I guess I could do hamstrings first? What do you think.

Tuesday- Oops. Missed the pickups. Gave myself 30 minutes on the treadmill before meeting my mom for lunch. Didn't remember there was more to the workout until I was starting the run but then couldn't remember what was more to the workout. Ran faster than normal if that helps.

Rode the trainer in the evening. Since I have been avoiding all my bike issues since IM Wisconsin my cleat still had two screws in it. Ended up getting stuck in my pedal and I think I broke the cleat trying to get out. Crap. Why didn't I just fix it earlier? I meant to have Erik look at it. The metal part is still stuck to the pedal. Might have to switch to different pedals and shoes until I can get new cleats.

Wed- Swim. Looks pretty doable. Am going to get in a good PT routine tonight too.