12 January 2007

Tagged.

Duane got me. Do you realize this is the first time I've been tagged since I started this blog in 2004. Up until today my record was clean, thank Duane....

This is how it goes:
1. Find the nearest book.
2. Name the book & the author.
3. Turn to page 123.
4. Go to the fifth sentence on the page. Copy out the next three sentences and post to your blog.
5. Tag three more folks.

1. Got it. Had to look, I don't keep books in my computer room.
2. Out of Africa. Karen Blixen. I bought this at her home in Nairobi. I could not stand the movie so I thought the book might be better.
3. Okay.
4. 'That will mean years of your life and mine,' I said. He asked me to be allowed to remark that this was no consideration to be taken, where the execution of justice was concerned. Kaninu looked to me; for a moment he believed that he was being trapped.
5. Since I've seen this every where, if you haven't done this consider yourself tagged.

Here come the weekend......

I love Fridays for a number of reasons.

1) Well, it's Friday, duh!!!

2) It's immediately followed by Saturday - woo hoo.

3) Hubby has off so I can just get up and leave, he takes care of the animals.

4) It's a swim day.

Those are enough reasons to love Friday.

So, it was a swim day and today is where the real work begins. I did drills and intervals for 40 minutes. A total of 1300 m. I have a goal with my swimming. Funny how I get down about how I'm not a great swimmer; then I move into the well, let's work at it; now, I have a goal. I want to swim 100m under 2 minutes. It can be 1:59 but I want it to be under 2:00. So that's what I'm working towards.

My plantar is acting up and I haven't run in 3 days. Yesterday was weights and my foot started hurting last night. I got some new shoes for work, I wonder if they could be the problem???

I have decided on a reward for myself. If I do 100 days of 1 hour activity I will get myself a Nano. I have been lusting after one of those strictly for the Nike+ system. But I have a perfectly fine 3rd generation iPod so really could not justify buying it in my own mind. So, a reward it will be. On April 15th, 100 days of activity down, possibly my first tri of the season that day, my 48th birthday, seems like it will be a good day.

My local running store is starting a women's only running group in February. I'm thinking about joining. They have a running group on Weds. now but it tends to be loaded with marines and they run wicked fast. There is no way I can keep up with them. They have also managed to scare all of the slower women away. It will be Tuesday and Thursday evenings. It should be fun.

What else........ Nothing I can think of. Have a great weekend.

10 January 2007

Just for the record...

I do not suck as bad as I thought at swimming. Last week was just getting my butt back in the water. This week it's time to get serious about training. So, first I must know where I am in order to determine where I'm going, no?? So I did a test. 3 x 100 with 20 second rest in between. Average the 3 times and this is my T-pace. So the times were; 2:05, 2:15, 2:10. Not fantastic but better then I thought they'd be. So my T-pace if officially 2:10. Now when I stopped swimming last year I was doing 100 around 2:15, so I'm already 5 seconds faster. Wow, who knew???? Anyway, every 4 weeks I will retest to see how I'm improving.

So yesterday I said how my shorts were a little looser. Well, anyone who's lost weight knows that that can happen 1 day and the next the shorts not fit at all. So I put my shorts on this morning with some trepidation only to discover these were loose too. WoooooooHOooooooooo!!!!

Okay, that's all I got. Things have slowed down a little bit here at work so today I begin the cleaning of the lab. Oh, what fun :)

09 January 2007

This guy's been awake since the 2nd world war......

That's for all you BNL fans out there.

First off, things are going so well I can hardly stand it. I am starting to see results however slight. In weight training I'm having to increase the weights, some moves are getting too easy :) I know I'm losing fat in a couple of ways. The main one being one of my "resolutions" which was to stop wearing elastic waist pants. Since the new year I have been wearing button shorts and it's been killing me, I'm just not used to them. This morning I put my shorts on and they were a little loose. Not a lot, but enough to make them more comfortable. Yea!!!!!!!!!

Now my sleep issues. When I first started this during Christmas, I made it a point of going to bed early, 9 a.m., so that I could get up early. Since about last Friday, I've been sleeping like crap. I have a hard time falling to sleep, I wake up a couple of times during the night, and I'm awake - wide awake - before the alarm goes off at 4:30. I think I've figured it out. I'm still going to bed fairly early and I think I'm getting too much sleep. I'm the type that needs 7.5 - 8 hours a night or it gets real ugly. But I'm beginning to think with the working out and healthy eating I may not need a full 8 every night. Ugh, I don't know!!! But tonight I'm staying up a little later and seeing how that works.

Well, I really should get some work done, that is what they pay me for :)

07 January 2007

Ron & Bob's 5k

Whenever the alarm goes off on a race day, I always think to myself, why the hell am I doing this?? That didn't happen this morning. I was looking forward to this race like I haven't one in a long time. I had decided last night what my 2 goals were for this race and I was eager to see how close I could come to them. Goal #1: No walking. Goal #2: 35:00 minutes.

So the alarm goes off and I'm up and away. Yesterday at packet pickup I noticed that I was the last entrant, #94. There were of course late entries so there turned out to be quite a few more people.

I got to the start line, got my timing chip, and went to zen out until race time. This was only a 5k so it was basically 2 laps around Kapiolani Park which is the large park at the end of Waikiki. I sat in my car and did some deep breathing as well as some yoga to help loosen up.

At 10 minutes before the start I headed out to the start line. I had set up my iPod with 45 minutes of upbeat music to keep me going, so I was set.

The gun went off and we go. I started slow so as not to overdo it. I was cruising along nicely. Mile 1, 11:40, right on track. I noticed as I picked up my pace just a touch that my legs felt great by my breathing was hard. Hmmm..... All those squats and lunges seem to be paying off. Mile 2, 23:00, wooo hooo I'm right on pace. This is where things started to go wrong.

They had no ad stations since it was only a 5k and the park is loaded with drinking fountains. Around 2.5 miles my heartrate was climbing and I couldn't get it back down. I finally had to walk for a minute to bring it down some. When I stopped to walk and calmed down some I realized what the problem was, I had not drunk any water before the race. I was seriously thirsty. So I had to run into the park to a water fountain and get a good drink of water. After that I was fine.

I hit mile 3 at 35:30. I had only .1 miles to go, I could see the finish line so I turned on the afterburners. I finished in 36:37.

I did not meet my goals but I came very, very close and I'm very pleased with my effort. I liked the way I felt during and after the race and I liked the energy I had. So overall a very successful race.

I wasn't done though. I have a goal of 1 hour a day until April 15th. I had only done 36 minutes. Luckily, I planned for this. I had thrown my swimsuit and goggles in the car. I was going to go for an ocean swim. I changed and headed out to Ala Moana Park.

The water was freaking cold. I mean really freaking cold!!!! But I got in and got to swimming. I figured the quicker I swam the warmer I'd be and the quicker I'd be done. So off I go.

I figured out one of my problems in the water. It's that you go and go and go and it doesn't seem like you're making any progress. Then suddenly the marker is right there. It gets really frustrating when you feel like you're not moving forward. Anyway, I swam and swam and swam. I ended up doing 1000 m in 34 minutes. I won't be winning any swimming races but I have a base and I can swim 1000 m no problem, so that's good.

So that was my morning. I got all my exercise in and I'm very pleased with my effort today.

Now, next week is a biathlon, run-swim, and I'm debating about doing it. The run is 2.5 miles and the swim is 1000 m. I know I can do it but I know I'll be slow so I'm still on the fence. Okay, I just looked up last year's results for this race and no way am I doing it. The slowest run time was 9:52. The last place finisher came in 45:54. Ummm, yeah, NO!!!! Maybe next year :)

Conversation with Hubby

 So yesterday morning I presented my idea of working out at home to the Hubby. Once I presented it to him, he said he was in. I told him I h...