To brick or not to brick

What is a brick you ask? 

From the google Gods:

A brick workout refers to the stacking of two disciplines during the same workout, one after the other with minimal to no interruption in between. As you switch modes of exercise, your body needs to effectively and efficiently prepare for the next demand while recovering from the previous exercise demand. Your heart rate increases significantly as your body tries to shift the blood flow from the muscles of the first exercise to the demands of the muscles of the next. Brick workouts help your body handle the aerobic, anaerobic, and muscular demands of a triathlon event.

http://breakingmuscle.com/endurance-sports/what-is-a-brick-workout-and-why-do-triathletes-do-them

In real life:

A brick is this insane back and forth workout that makes you think, why did you sign up to do a triathlon???

Other common questions to yourself during the brick include:
1) Is it extraordinarily hot today?
2) Why are we practicing in the only part of the park without a shaded run?
3) Who decided you couldn't have music on this event?? Some iTunes would be incredibly helpful right now!

Last week was our first long brick.  Coach Jay said it best:

So there were a few things I kinda got the hang of about myself.
- I need to start running again regularly.  I really haven't done so since I moved.  I love my little heights loop!
-Houston summer is here. 
-Flat tires...seriously?! Still nonsense, but definitely on a small tri loop. 

So it was an experience 4 total miles running and 20 miles biking later, I was pretty exhausted.  If there is one good thing I'm learning about all this, is that I might continue these workouts post-tri just because I burn so many calories in such a short amount of time.

Now if I could only get the post ride drinking and eating down I'd be all set.  Too bad I use that heart rate monitor to know exactly how many calories I can eat back over the weekend.

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What are you doing Friday night?

Happy hour?
Dinner with friends?
Partypartypartying all night long?

Nope.


Went swimming, gonna attempt to catch up on the hydrating I havent been doing, and sit on the couch.

And blog about it. 

Oh and get excited about my s-caps and tinted goggles that came in the mail.
Oh and lay out my clothes and put my bike rack on my bike and pump tires.

Livin' the dream. 

Go TEAM

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The First Donor(s)

This year it was Melissa H., Lillie, Trevor, Mama Floyd and Michele M.

In years past it has been Nick W., Katie, Rocky, Ms. Pat, mom and bro.

Who are these people I'm calling out?  They are my elusive FIRST DONORS.  For all my thinking, considering, kinda training, kinda talking about my century ride, half marathon and now triathlon...

These are the people who make it real.  Who make me think. Oh crap! I need to seriously get into my training.  Because they've held up their part of the bargain, so now it's time to hold up mine.

So thank you first donors for making it real, you can join them here

Now back to training....and GO TEAM!

End of spin class selfie of my knee.  I assume that counts as a selfie

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The Art of Quitting

quit¹ [kwit]

1. to stop, cease, or discontinue

2. to depart from; leave (a place or person)

3. to give up or resign; let go; relinquish

As I drove to swim practice this past Wednesday, I thought long and hard about quitting.  After all it had been five weeks of dreading team practice, 5am training swims and depression about this whole process.  I made it to practice despite these feelings and at some point in the pool I thought People can’t quit cancer, so I can’t quit raising money for cancer research.   I began thinking about some of the people I have known who have been affected by cancer:

·         Andy - 10 year old son of longtime Team in Training (TNT) participants who relapsed in February 2014	Ten year old Andy and his mom
·         Coach John - my TNT coach who was diagnosed after several rounds of treatment is in remission
·         And the one that impacted me the most, my grandmother who lost her fight with breast cancer in 2012.

So I can’t quit.  And once again I’m asking for your support. 

On Labor Day I will once again join Team In Training to complete my first triathlon (1500 meter swim, followed by a 25 mile bike ride and a 6.2 mile run) and raise money for blood cancer.  Over the last four years, you have helped me complete two century bike rides (100 miles) and one half-marathon (13.1 miles) to raise $10,705.39 for cancer research. 

Could you make a donation to support research and support services for blood cancer?

Thank you for your consideration.

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The Backstory

It all started with a pretty innocuous statement. 

"If I can do this, so can you"

Despite what you may think at first glance, I'm a pretty competitive person. I don't like finishing things I can't start. And I like to be right. 

Like I really, really like to be right. 

So when that statement was spoken to me a little over three years ago, it was basically a challenge I couldn't refuse.  

Three years later, I can't believe where that statement has taken me. 

It's taken me to countless small towns, shady bathrooms, mom and pop shops and seemingly every FM 12934833773 road around Houston. 

It's taken me to specialty bike shops, to specialty running stores and to incredibly painful sports massages.

 

It's introduced me to one of my best friends who I would've never met but now can't live without and many new lifelong friends and my worst enemy (myself, hot and tired). 

It's taken me to a diet of peanut butter crackers, pickle juice, cookies, chips, bananas, oranges, potatoes, gu, gels, sport beans, chomps, nuun, gatorade, powerade, cytomax and plain old H20, all eaten on the side of a road who know where. 

It's taken me to outbiking chasing dogs, out cycling crazy motorists, and out maneuvering dead squirrels, dead frogs, dead birds, dead dogs and dead tbd animals at inhumane Saturday morning hours.  

It's taken me to many a post ride beer and post run brunches.  And the next morning hangovers of regret         

It's taken a lot of money out of my wallet for shoes, bikes, helmets, pumps, tubes, gloves, cycling shoes, pedals, bike computers, heart rate monitors, clothes and water bottles.  

It's taken me and dolce (my bike!) to the rolling hills of amazingly beautiful Hawaii, the punishing mountains of Las Vegas, the beautiful, wouldn't trade it for the world country side of Houston to Austin Texas and the cool breezes, cool views and steep hills of San Diego. 

Correction, that San Diego foolishness was only me, my best iPod mix and running shoes. My good friend anti-chafing body glide wasn't there and I immediately regretted it's absence.  

That statement has taken me a lot of places but I never forgot the mission of team in training or ms150 along the way. Thanks to friends,family and  colleagues along the way, In those thread managed to raise over $10,000 for cancer research and $2,000 for multiple sclerosis research. 

And I also have never forgotten why I really started this.  One of my first donors from 2011 who is no longer with us but always in my mind when I'm at the end of a particular hard run, and long punishing ride or a pride swallowing swim practice. Someone who had been there to walk me to preK and elementary school, drive me to high school and look on proudly as I walked across that college graduation stage.  I will always aspire to make my grandma proud, and give a big eff you to the cancer she fought against. 

So that's the background. If you just happened upon my blog, thanks for reading.  I hope you will consider a donation to my triple crown Team in training event, the towne lake triathlon this fall.

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Reflections

So I decided two hours into my flight to Los Angeles that I hadn't blogged in a while.  Not because I haven't thought of it several times, but because I haven't put pen to paper after I did that thinking.  So I figured now was as good a time as any to start writing.

So what have I been up to since I declared this year was the year I'm going to do a triathlon? LIFE. May was filled with a ton of craziness. A diet bet that had me consumed with non- tri training workouts, moving in with my BFF (y'all,moving for real sucks), trying to decide if I was really in or out with this tri and work, work and more work. Work has been really stressful. I know everyone says that about their jobs, but not having enough hours in the day to do all this is driving me crazy. 

Plus I really do enjoy staying up late with the BFF  and talking and drinking wine instead of training. Ah well. Such is life. 

So to be completely honest, that's what I've been up to. I lost 19lbs along the way, but I'm sure my drinking and eating in the weeks since has put a dent in that total. But I need to do better. I'm committed to do better and I like to stand by my word. So post Ana bachelorette weekend, I'm about to get really focused.

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The good, the bad, the swimming.

So I went to the Y this morning because:

a) needed to swim
b) figured its the least populated time to swim. 

A few notes. 

There is nothing quite like an alarm clock going off at 4:45am to send you into a "WHAT HAVE I SIGNED UP FOR?!?!" rage.  For reals yall.  Fo. reals.

Swimming is not cool.  I mean it is something when you can knock off running as my least favorite sport.  Perhaps they tie.  #1 on land and #1 in water. Straight tedious.  I got there at 5:25 and at 5:30 I was in the pool.  (pro-tip - assemble three swim cap situation at home and put wrap on head to goto gym) So at 5:30 I start with this non-sense. 

at 5:45 I was certain I was swimming so poorly that the Earth was literally moving backward.

at 5:47 I was like 'Ok Christopher Reeves in Superman 1 (1978, yall) is literally turning the Earth backwards to save Lana Lane's dumb a$s, forcing me to repeat this.

Y'all know I just watched this Saturday

at 5:50 I decided to try my swim snorkel. 

at 5:50 and 25 seconds I decided eff this swim snorkel, can't figure it out.

Dear Finis, Your one-line instructions are not sufficient.

at 5:55 I wondered, can I backstroke this entire tri? I mean this freestyle stuff is totally optional.  Let's do a few backstroke laps.

So much more enjoyable when you can breathe at all times.

at 6:00, ok let's freestyle 50m and then get the eff out.  Screw this hour nonsense.

Later at 7:14am I still smelled like chlorine and was dff to work.  And much like 4:45am I'm thinking "WHAT HAVE I SIGNED UP FOR?!?!"

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Leaving first tri swim practice....

There was only one thing I could think of...

Of course my version was more like

 

I guess there's no where to go but up huh? Right after I figure out this breathing thing...

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marrow

"marrow" by Ani DiFranco

the answer came
like a shot in the back
while you were running from your lesson
which might explain
why years later all you could remember
was the terror of the question
plus, you weren't listening
you were stockpiling canned goods
making a bomb shelter of our basement
and i can't believe you let the moral go by
while you were soaking in the product placement

where was your conscience?
where was your consciousness?
and where did you put all those letters
that you wrote to yourself
but could not address?

i'm a good kisser
and you're a fast learner
and that kinda thing could float us
for a pretty long time
then one day you'd realize
you've memorized my phone number
and you'll call it and find
it's a disconnected line
cuz i got tossed out the window of love's el camino
and i shattered into a shower of sparks on the curb
you were smoking me
weren't you?
between your yellow fingers
you just inhaled and exhaled without saying a word

where was your conscience?
where was your consciousness?
and where did you put all those letters
that you wrote to yourself
but could not address?

there's a smorgasbord of unspoken poisons
a whole childhood of potions
that are all bottled up
and so one by one i am dusting off labels
i am uncorking bottles and filling up cups
so go ahead and have a taste of your own medicine
and i'll have a taste of mine
but first let's toast to the lists
that we hold in our fists
of the things that we promise to do
differently next time

cuz the answer came like a shot in the back
while you were running from your lesson
which might explain
why years later all you could remember
was the terror of the question
plus i'm not listening to you anymore
my head is too sore and my heart's perforated
and i'm mired in the marrow of my (well... ain't that) funny bone
learning how to be alone and devastated
where was my conscience?
where was my consciousness?
and what do i do with all these letters
that i wrote to myself
but cannot address?

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