My Favorite Training Partners

Today I had a club swim in the morning which is a really fun, tough workout. Once I got home, we decided to take the boys for a "family swim". Hayden and I have been talking about doing some training in the pool together ;) and I've been asking Tabor if he could teach me how to do a flip turn. So, here's Tabor and I doing the breaststroke together.

This picture makes me smile for a few reasons.....the most obvious one is how cool it is that my son and I are swimming together. The funny part is that the first triathlon I did, I swam the breaststroke the whole time-didn't quite have the whole "freestyle" thing down yet. Tabor was a natural at the breast stroke from the get go, he's got a good whip-kick, it was fun to "draft" off of him doing the breast stroke in the pool today.

And he showed me his butterfly (he's way better at it than I am) and he helped me with my flip turns. The last flip turn I did he gave me a "thumbs up" and a smile of course. He actually had some great tips for me and was proud to teach Mom a few tricks. I absolutely loved the opportunity to swim with Tabor today.

Hayden got a bloody nose and I had to take him to the women's locker room (which he protested at first) to clean him up. Then, he decided he'd much rather swim around and play than work on his breathing. Oh well, maybe next time. Either way, I'd train with these boys any day......they're a lot of fun.

Friday Night Skiing

Since I had to get yesterday's ride in today, we couldn't ski during the day while the kids were in school. So, I roped Annie and Haley into joining me for a night ski. Annie is always game for a ski and Haley didn't need much coaxing even though she ski's and trains a ton.

Here's Annie applying her "warming pads" to her feet. There was actually a whole succession of Annie getting ready (about 10 pictures). I think Annie and I would be the only ones that appreciated the humor in the pictures so I left them out......but I'll tell ya, it's quite a system she's got.

Here's Coops and I. Haley is the one that got Annie and I skiing in the first place. She brought her camera along on the trail but I'm waiting on those photos from her.......I will add them once she sends them over.

We skied for about 2 hours and it was another beautiful moonlit night with a few hoots and hollers in there too. Who knew Winter could be this much fun?

My Own Private Ski Night

Since we "road tripped it" to Bellingham this weekend, I wasn't able to ski with Annie on Friday. We got home yesterday and the weather was just incredible so I was itchin' to do something outside. The boys were home from school today and Cody had to work so the only time I could go ski was later in the day. I sent an email out to some friends to see if anyone wanted to join me but no one's schedule mended with mine. I decided to go it alone. I am SO glad I did.

I took this picture with my cell phone while driving so I apologize if it makes you dizzy. This is right before the turn off at about 5:00. What a beautiful day. It was about 30 degrees.

Here's a shot of the sun disappearing behind the mountain. I could tell this was going to be one great experience. Usually I have to motivate to get out of the car. Today I couldn't get on the trails fast enough.

The moon looked SO much larger in real life. But there it is.....out there, ready to keep me company.

I brought my phone with me so I could use the camera but once I got going, I didn't want to stop to take pictures. But I had to stop and capture this. It's obviously poor quality but the moon was shining so bright I literally could have taken off my head lamp for most of the time and still been able to see.

Tonight was one of those experiences I didn't want to end. Everything was so perfect and beautiful I could have stayed out there all night. One of these days, I'll rope some more of you to join me. And I must say, night skiing is my favorite-especially on nights like these. I have to thank Coops for roping me into this in the first place and Annie for stickin' with me on Friday's. It almost makes me a little sad to know Spring is around the corner.

Bellingham

These don't look like training pictures, I know. Bare with me. We took the whole family over to Bellingham this weekend to visit my parents and hopefully experience some warmer weather. I had a 30 minute run test to do at the track so I roped my dad into coming with me and recording my splits.

My dad has always been a great athlete, very focused at anything he pursued with a nice helping of natural talent. He was a cyclist for most of my younger years, ran a little here and there too. Now he's into golf.....and does well at that too.

So, back to my run test. Dad stood out in the cold morning weather for almost an hour when it was all said and done. He called my splits to me as a I ran by and recorded all the information with efficiency. When we got home today from our trip, he had e-mailed me not only and excel spreadsheet with every piece of information I could ask for but also a graph! Thanks Dad!

Here's my Mom. She's always game for anything, like going to Sweden with me, not sleeping the whole time but laughing constantly. Another post, another time. She's my biggest cheerleader and always has been. Love you Mom!

Thanks to Dad for inspiring me as an athlete and thanks Mom for always believing in me! Love you both!

Friday Ski Day

Friday is "skate ski day"with Annie. We always talk about taking pictures but the idea of strapping on my Nikon d-70 while skate skiing just never sounds very appealing. So, we went for the parking lot photo op....and yes, we really did ski. It was cold & windy but we survived and had fun as always.

Here's Annie posing with her brand new skis.

Here's me. Not really sure where we were going with these poses......not exactly proper form but we were in the parking lot and didn't want to scratch our skis by putting them on there. At least we got a couple shots. So this is what we look like every Friday. Freezing our rears off, appreciating the snow until it melts.

Tuesday

So, the day started with a friend showing up with bike and trainer in tow at 8:30. She got riding right away while I patiently set up my course on the compu-trainer. I've never claimed to be a technical wizard or lover of manuals and this fantastic training tool requires both. In all seriousness, this is a bitchen (my new word) training tool that I'm very grateful to have in my possession......it's just a matter of taking the time to learn how great it is and what it does. More on that later.

I got riding (mind you, she's been on for an hour already) and I was happy to see I left my "pacer" in the dust......maybe that was because I set the pacer's avg power @100 watts. oh. I won't expand on that.

After the ride we headed out to do stairs in an office building. Don't ask me why but I LOVE stairs. Maybe it's because of the way I feel when I'm done. Anyway, after riding on the trainer I was so hungry because I didn't have much of a breakfast. So, I scarfed down some cold leftover steak and rice from dinner last night. what?

So, the steak probably wasn't a great idea. Each time we got to the top I would say out loud "I'm gonna barf". Midway through the workout I would say "I gotta skip the next one". But each time, by the time we made it down to the bottom again, my nausea was gone and I was raring to go! So, we both made it through the whole workout without barfing or skipping a set. But boy were my legs shaking when we were done. That feels good. Off to the pool next.

So, this isn't a normal day for me to train in all three disciplines but oh well, can't miss stairs with Annie. Headed straight over to the pool taking down another Powerbar gel in the car. Got in the tub-o-chlorine at the gym (the levels have been unusually high lately) for a moderate swim. Right after I started my warm up a nice man came in and asked if he could share the lane with me........I said sure but in my head I've got these visions of me doing butterfly and either taking out a lane line or him. If you haven't been graced with my beautiful butterfly, I'll tell ya-it's not beautiful and it doesn't look like a butterfly-more like a drowning caterpillar. Thankfully, it wasn't butterfly time yet so I thought I'd do my warm up and see if one of the other lanes opened up. Right before my IM set, another lane opened up. FOOF! He graciously switched lanes and I busted out the moves :). NICE. It wasn't pretty but I'll give myself an "A" for effort.

From there I got the kids at school and now it's time to be a mommy.

Over and out.

Starting the 2008 season with great anticipation.....

Well, the 2008 season is fast underway. My first triathlon of 2008 is the Oceanside 70.3 on March 29th. This is a great way to kick off the season because it's a highly competitive race which creates quite a buzz in the air. As I run through the snow with my many layers and yaktrax on while cars shower me with slushy snow as they drive by......I think to myself "this has got to make me tougher". Or maybe just colder and wetter. At the very least, I will welcome the hot days of Summer with open arms as I do every year.

I have to say though, the difference between this year and last years training at this time is huge. For starters, a friend roped me into skate skiing once a week which has been a great way to enjoy the snow and build strength-it's a blast! In addition to that, I got a compu-trainer for Christmas which I hope will help my cycling ability. My training is a lot more consistent this season and I've been doing more group training with our club and friends-which just adds more enjoyment to something I already love. I'm excited to see what the season holds. I'm hoping to see improvement from last year, especially at Oceanside and Honu since I did those races last year.

For now, I'm just going to focus on my training and getting my body conditioned for another exciting year in Triathlon. I think the season is going to come fast and I've got a lot of work to do.