Winter Arrives. Blech

After an unseasonably warm and dry November, winter officially arrived in Minnesota last week.

Nat and I did a quick run on Tuesday when the temps were still "balmy" -- 40s during the day and 30's at night.

On Wednesday, the wind shifted and the temps dropped. We had our first dusting of snow early on Thursday morning.

Now, the furnace kicks on about twice an hour; the lakes are starting to freeze and I broke out the Cuddle Duds.

Training this week went well. Coach Dan had me in the water three times; on the bike four times and running three times. I made it all but one of the runs, which was scheduled for Thursday night, the first really cold night so far. I just couldn't muster the gumption to get out and get it done.

Instead, Hubby and I hit Golfsmith, where they were having a 25% off of most everything sale. We stocked up on some golf balls, tees and got a couple of used clubs.

Why?

We are going on a little golf vacation soon with some friends of ours. The weather should be warm and sunny, which will be a very nice break.

I'll also be able to get some training in while I'm on vacation. It will be nice to run without wearing mittens and long underwear.

One last SHOUT OUT to Sabrina, Hubby's daughter. She's been getting in to fitness recently and ran her first 5K on Thanksgiving (see last post). She ran her SECOND 5K on Saturday -- the Reindeer Run.

She is really getting in to it, which is really fabulous. I'm very proud of her and her accomplishments!

Turkey Day and Torture Device

Long time, no post.

No particular reason; not feeling particularly inspired (or uninspired). Just not posting. You know how that goes.

Thanksgiving has come and gone in a BLINK. Hubby and I hosted this year. Served turkey and stuffing to 17 friends and family in total.

Warren's son spend the holiday with his mom, but we had the great honor of having his daughter, her fiancee and one of their friends join us for dinner. That really was very nice.

Our good golf friends, Paul and Deb, also joined us for dinner. They don't have other family here in Minneapolis, so we invited them to join the madness at our house. It was great to have them with us.

The other really cool part of the day is that Daughter and Fiancee both ran their very first 5K Thanksgiving morning! They joined Hubby, my great running pals Mary, Marcia, Gary and Marty and their families, me and 12,000 other runners at the TurkeyDay 5K held in downtown Minneapolis.

It was a blast and everyone did well. I'm very proud of them all for getting out there and getting hooked by the running bug.

Hubby and I had the rest of the weekend off. Slept late; ate leftovers; visited friends; slept some more. It was perfect.

Today, back to work and back to base training in earnest.

I took my base test with Coach Dan at SCS Multisport. I have some minor corrections to work on with my swim; a ton of work to do to increase power and endurance on the bike; and a few things to work on with my run, not the least of which is SPEED.

I decided to have him start sending me workouts now (which is just a polite way of saying I'll pay him to torture me). I've been enjoying my workouts waaaay too much lately, which just means I have not been working out with any amount of real effort.

He started me out today with 2050 yards in the pool, working on some drills and some builds; then I spent 40 minutes on my torture device, er I mean bike trainer.

YEEEECCCCCH.

Now I know that I'll have to become friends with my bike trainer, as I'll be sitting in the saddle a lot over the winter.

It is amazing how much tougher it is to ride the trainer than it is to ride outside.

But ride I will, whenever Coach Dan tells me to.

Looks like the long journey to Ironman Wisconsin has officially begun!

Exciting times for blogger friends

Several of my blogging friends have completed some big events recently:

Dori ran NY Marathon. She has YET to post her race report, but we did talk to each other shortly after she finished the race. Dori and I have been friends for many years. She is the one who got me in to blogging in the first place. . I am anxiously awaiting her blog update.

Waddler, now known as IRON WADDLER, completed the Beach2Battleship iron distance event last weekend. She wrote a really great race report about her experience which was interesting, inspiring and encouraging. (I like reading reports where people talk about the good stuff and the hard stuff. This definitely helps my mental prep for what I may expect during IM WI 2010).

TriSharkie did B2B too and had a very interesting 'heartfelt' experience...

Nancy Toby did the 1/2 Iron at B2B. She also wrote a great race and travel report.

Slimdown 220 did Ironman Florida. Another great job.

Beth wrote about her experience as an Iron/Spectator now IronWife. Her husband also did Ironman Florida. I'm looking forward to reading her husband's guest blog entry soon.

Sunshine posted some great pics and stories about her experience at the OBX Marathon.

Nat went through her pre-training tests with the coach we'll both be using. I won't tell you what she said in emails to me...I'll wait for her to update everyone via her blog.

My non-blogging friend Mary took her son to New York City to help celebrate their birthdays. No official running events involved, but running that city with a teenage boy? She deserves a medal for sure!

Me? I traveled this week to San Francisco where I walked a lot (but did not run, swim or bike). I've been successful at avoiding chocolate covered peanuts for over a week now. Both of my updates are exciting, but not nearly as exciting as those of my rockin' blogger friends.

CONGRATS to ALL!

Monster Birthdays

Yesterday morning, birthday girls Nat and Mary, Marcia, Gary, me, Brenda, Heather and Jill all ran in one of the Monster events. Nat did the 1/2 marathon; the rest of us did the 10-miler.

The morning was plenty "crisp" (a Minnesota-way to say "cold") and windy, but the events were very fun.

Although none of us had the same sort of fantastic finish as our friend Steve, we were all happy to have finished and happier to go out to eat after the race.

I ran pretty well for where I am with my running. After struggling to "fall in love" with it again, I really am enjoying being out there and am feeling like I'm getting stronger.

I ran from mile 1.5 to 6 with Heather, Brenda and Jill, who were running each mile to the mile marker and then taking a 1 minute walk break. This pushed my pattern of LSD 6/1 a bit, which was good for me.

At mile 6 I dropped back a bit and took a couple extra walk breaks, but still finished in under 2 hours (barely), which was my goal.



After the race, we all went out for a quick breakfast. Hubby, Marcia's hubby Marty and Mary's love, Tom joined us.

I brought some cupcakes for dessert to help celebrate birthdays. (The real reason is that I love cake and will look for any and every excuse to eat it.... -- no really, it is because I love my friends and wanted them to feel special and so I could eat cake.... No, really....)






Re: Ironman stuff:

No swimming for the week. I was under the weather for a few days and didn't make it in to the pool. Nat and I will start going to a Masters swim group in a couple weeks, so that will help keep me get in to a pattern.

I finally set up my bike trainer and spent a whopping full HOUR on it last week. That was much tougher than I thought. Plan is to be on it three times in the coming week.

I am sure there will be a week/day/moment when these words will come back to haunt me, but I sort of wish I was really in training already. I'm getting antzy and lazy. (Anxious to start and feeling like taking a nap, all at the same time.)

That every happen to you?

Nice week...

I spent most of the week in Charlotte, delivering a bunch of training to Team Members there. The weather was lovely -- sunny and warm during the day, cool and comfortable during the evenings.

I looked online to see if I could find a running group to run during my stay, but the group that I found meets in the suburbs and I was staying "Uptown". The group does do a 3-mile loop in the Uptown area on Monday evenings, but I looked this up on TUESDAY, so it was a no-go for the group.

However, I mapped out their route on the map provided to me by Conrad Hilton and ran the course on my own twice. Once looping the route twice, for a little over 6 miles; the second time looping once, for a touch over 3.

The course was nice and pretty quiet, looping from Uptown to South End, over to the BofA stadium, then up some long hill and back in to the Uptown area.


I also had the chance to swim once at the Y. Covered about 1400 yards, including a ladder set of 50-100-200-100-50 with 15 seconds in-between each ladder.


I got home yesterday to much colder weather, but the leaves are still on the trees and are now displaying peak colors.


I ran this morning with Nat -- we did a 5 mile run with some pickups. I love running with her because she really helps me challenge my pace and my limits. We are both very excited about all aspects Ironman right now: the training; the event; the process.


Thanks to BETH for posting the really cool link to wordie.net on her website. You can go there, plug in the name of your blog and the system will generate a word count "map" of your common themes and words that appear on your blog. WAAAY cool!

Off to get my hair cut and colored.....also WAAY cool...

Economic Stimulus

I am personally trying to help the economy as much as I possibly can by buying "stuff" to help me train for Ironman Wisconsin.

Only sort of kidding.

Over the course of the last couple of weeks:

I've upgraded my watch, moving from a Polar Heart Rate Monitor to a Garmin FR60 because the Garmin has a running pace feature. (The coaching group that Nat and I are using want us to train by pace, not just HRM).

Ca-ching!

Today, I bought a bike trainer so I can wile away the winter hours riding my bike in my house while watching TV. All in all, a much better proposition than wiling away the hours riding my bike OUTSIDE during the winter.

Ca-ching!

I'm not complaining because these tools are going to be very useful -- and I already really like the Garmin. It's taken me a little time to get used to the features, but I like the pace feature and find that little Virtual Partner of mine annoying (in a good way).

I am also not complaining because I'm fortunate to have a steady job in this economy, which means I can help spend money at some of our local business places (as opposed to mega stores).

I may be done with some of the economic outflow for a bit. (I'll buy Nat's old aerobars soon, but that really might be it until 2010).

Other news for the week: we had more snow and rain and cold temps over the last week, but the sun made a very welcome appearance yesterday and today, heralding in this year's version of Indian Summer.

I ran yesterday morning with Gary and Mary. It was a great run on a beautiful crisp morning. The air was brisk; the leaves on the trees brilliant and spending time with them was wonderful.

Later in the afternoon, Hubby and I went golfing with our golfing friends. The boys played together and the girls played together. The two other women are very fun and we all have a blast. The six of us went out to dinner at Kona Grill, a new restaurant here in the cities.

Today, the weather was even nicer. After buying the bike trainer, I met Mary and her sister for coffee and then took one last spin OUTSIDE on my bike. It was GREAT!

Coming up:

I travel to Charlotte tomorrow and will be there for the week. I'll train at the local Y and outdoors and will hopefully be able to enjoy a little warmer weather.

Moving from hot to cold

I spent the majority of last week in Tempe delivering 10 training sessions to people that work in our business line.

I facilitated 3 classes on Tuesday; 4 on Wednesday, 2 on Thursday and one on Friday. Phew.

I also had a chance to enjoy some nice, warm weather. The temps were "cool" for Tempe -- 50s and 60s in the morning, rising up to the mid 80s during the day.

The weather people were warning people to wear a jacket or grab an extra blanket.

I slept with my hotel windows wide open and said "boo hoo" to all the Tempe weather wimps.

I also got one run in (wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt) and two swims. One indoor and one OUTDOOR!

The outdoor swim was wonderful! Sure wish we had an outdoor lap pool here that wasn't overrun by kids. We do have the Richfield long course (50 meters), which we can use in July at night, but I'm not familar with an outdoor pool option that can be used for lapswims during the day.

I really loved feeling the warm sun on my back and the cool water flowing around me. Plus it was cool to see my shadow on the bottom of the pool.

I came home Friday and you know what? You want COLD?

Try SNOW on October 10th. OUR weather people tell US that it was the earliest snow in Minnesota in over 24 years.

Fortunately, it melted pretty quick. Unfortunately, it is cold. Normal highs are in the 60s. Today, it was barely freezing when I woke up. So, I elected to turn over, get some more zzzz's and get my run in later in the day.

By the time I went out (dressed in long running tights, warm socks, long sleeved shirt, jacket, mittens and headband), the sun had peaked out from the clouds making the view pretty, but the temps were still cold.

People were hauling the last of the sailboats out of Lake Calhoun; there were significantly less people walking or running the lake, but the leaves on the trees were pretty and the water was still open.

It was a nice run.

After my run, I visited a local running store and bought a new HRM/pace watch. My coach for IM WI wants me to train using pace, not heart rate. It will be pretty depressing to actually see my pace, but hopefully it will help me in the long run. (ha ha).

We'll just see how that goes.