Foiled again!

Early in the Covered Bridge Ride (I think)

True to form, I had intended to start a new Running Streak - which I did yesterday. Today I woke up with a cold and have decided to hold off again. Oh fine.

Nothing special here, except the reflective
laces I got in my Stridebox in December

This is not surprising. I think this happens when I'm getting ready to start a new plan of sorts, or I've gotten into a plan that seems to work and then BAM - sorry girlfriend...you're done...hee hee.

I'm gonna lay low for a couple of days and then hit my new training plan on Monday. Ooooh how I love me a training plan. Looking to PR the Shamrock 8k this year and it will be the last one for at least a year. Getting a little tired of trying to get people to commit to do this event and join the team - so I'm taking a break after this year's event.

After Shamrock is done I'll start training for Half Marathon #2 - the Vancouver USA Half. I'm looking forward to that and I am hoping that I'll do MUCH better than the Holiday Half, stupid spasms!

The start of the 2013 Every Girl's Event

Events that are already on my mental calendar - Shamrock, Vancouver USA Half, Independence Day Run, Every Girl's and maybe the Hot Buttered run. I am determined to get back out on the Time Trial course and if I'm feeling really good, I want to do the All Women's Duathlon at the end of July or early August. It's been a couple of years since I did a multisport event.

We'll see, it IS only January 2nd and we all know that ANYTHING can happen!

17 days....

YIKES!

I was feeling okay about Blue Lake not being so far away. I don't know why I'm starting to feel a little anxious over this now...it's a mystery.

This morning I was at Starbucks enjoying a Misto and my book when along came the associate principal at the Vancouver Arts & Academics school. I had forgotten that I challenged him months ago to train for a sprint tri way. I offered to keep him on task, but then fell off the face of the earth. Anyway, he reported to me that he had done his first tri last weekend and felt alright about it. He posted a decent time for a first tri and he mentioned that he was looking forward to Blue Lake in a couple of weeks.

Then it hit me...the Du is just over two weeks away...and I've been in training light mode this week. I doubt that we'll get to ride the TT tomorrow evening (stupid rain) so we'll have to make sure that we do a good Brick on Saturday. This week is the big one...a 15 min run, 45 min ride and then another 15 min run...YIKES! I don't know why I'm freaking out now...we are doing this for fun!

Yeah, that's it...FUN. I need to find the fun in this again... 

RUN-RIDE-RUN?

Moving on...

It's time to start incorporating a Duathlon specific training plan. My reasons for doing this - 

A. It will be good to do both running AND riding during the week which one workout a week will be BOTH in on day, one right after the other.

     and

2. I'm getting bored with following a running plan. I won't care about running an 8K distance past March 14, so I"m just going to move on. Actually I should care a little because participating in a Duathlon requires running TWO 5k runs...so I should at least get to a 10K distance just for the sake of endurance on my part.

Anyway, this plan should be good. While doing Blue Lake for the first time, the second run was quite shocking. My legs were like, "Uh, noooo....stop moving, stop moving, STOP MOVING!" I kid you not, my legs felt like LEAD! The actual lifting of my legs was very minimal, I doubt that I looked like I was moving! While training last year, it didn't occur to me that maybe I should train by riding then running more than I did which was only a couple of times. I have to say that enthusiasm really does wonders though - I was so excited about doing this event that the pain really didn't register too much. It was pretty awesome!

Man, I'm getting all psyched up again!

run-ride-run bay-bee!

Future Goals

The summer isn't over yet and I'm already looking forward to planning my activities for next year. I have already started with my 8K training, just adding a little distance instead of going all out for a 10K. An 8K seems doable with the time that I have available to run. So, I'm looking forward to reaching that goal.

There is a Spring Classic Duathlon in April and I'm looking to do that one...hopefully Mark & Robin will team up with us...Mark & Tom and Robin & I. Tom and I would be the runners and M & R the cyclists. It would be best that way since they don't run and I'm on my way to actually enjoying this running stuff. It's amazing what the right shoes will do! We'll probably do the Blue Lake Du as individuals, just so I can see if I can better my time and then the All Women's event in August. On top of the multisport events I'm hoping to do a couple of 5K races here and there for training and then there is always the cycling events.

Now that we are starting to become a little more selective about what rides we do I'm sure that we'll cut out all of the urban rides that are in Portland and stick to the longer distance rides. Those fit our riding style of go go go!

So while my training for the first Duathlon is long past...there will always be opportunities to get faster & stronger - well at least stronger...we'll see about faster.

Stay tuned for more adventures!