Muscle pain

I pulled my left hamstring muscle in running sprints with my running group Tuesday night. It has been painful to walk ever since then and to top if off, the elevator at work was out of commission.

I hope to be back running soon. Just been swimming and will swim tonight again. Maybe I'll be able to run tomorrow. I almost wonder if it is worth doing that hard core of a workout if it means I can't move for days after. Wouldn't I actually be regressing than progressing with fitness?

I am still watching Casino Royale every night. I fast forward to my favorite parts. I have become a little obsessed with that movie. Perhaps it is just a good looking man with an accent in good shape. Heaven knows I'm a sucker for accents. Perhaps I am just bored and this provides a fantasy life.

Health Assessment...say what?



So at work we had a health assessment--how many push ups can you do in 60 seconds, how many crunches can you do, how long can you hold a wall squat, and a 5 minute step test to measure heart rate. I scored in the superior range in all areas, except for one area--heart rate. After the step test, I knew they would be measuring heart rate so I tried to get myself to relax and couldn't. I kept getting more and more nervous trying to get myself to relax. You know how when you try to relax and it just makes you more stressed out? That is what was happening. So after 5 minutes of cardio my heart rate went up to 83 and only dropped a little bit.

So then after all this, I had to meet with a health coach who looked at my heart rate and saw it didn't fall very quickly. So she said to me, "clearly you aren't doing any cardio." Say what? Come again? I said actually I am doing cardio and so she said "well, then you aren't doing it right."

I know my body and know my trying to tell myself to relax wasn't working and so I was keeping my heart rate spiked by worrying about it.

I just completed a triathlon and marathon within the last two weeks, so clearly I am doing some sort of cardio. Don't you think or does that not count?

The weekend

This weekend I participated in two races: Tribal Sprint Triathlon and Run for Vania.

The Tribal Sprint Triathlon started at 6:15am about 1.5 hours from my house, which meant a very early rise for me. Usually I wake up and am ready to go on race day, but the entire drive there I kept contemplating turning around and going back to bed. I could faintly hear my bed calling "come back, come back" all the way to Lake Pleasant. But I made it to the lake around 5am, which did mean getting up at 3:30am--the earliest I've ever risen for a race. At that hour, the sun was rising and casting a beautiful hue of colors across the sky and turned the lake pink. It was a breathtaking sight as I walked my bike into transition. However, I think the back of my eyelids are also a beautiful sight at 5am. I can't decide what I would like more: a beautiful sunrise or extra sleep.

The swim started out badly. I got knocked in the face twice and so my goggles kept coming off and I had to tread water for a while fixing my goggles. I kept getting water into my right eye and it made it turn red and my contact tore. So my swim took about 5 minutes longer than it should. The bike course was fun...straight up and straight down hill. But then we did something different than I've ever done in a triathlon. Transition 2 was in a completely different place. We biked to some unknown street in the desert, hopped off our bikes, gave them to a volunteer that took them and called out our name for a garbage containing our run gear. Another volunteer handed us the garbage bag and we took off our biking gear and put that into the bag and put on our running shoes to head back to where we started. Very different experience. You missed people cheering for you back into transition.

The run portion was a lot of fun. It was a trail run over rocks and cliffs through cactus and dirt. The terrain of rocks everywhere brought back memories of Antarctica, only much hotter this time.

The run I felt went okay for me and I thought I did good, but then I saw my results and was rather disappointed. I really enjoyed the race and felt like I was in better shape, but the extra 5 minutes on the swim really hurt me. Better luck next time.

On Sunday I woke up at 5:45am for a race that started at 6:30am. It was just a 5K charity race to raise money for a girl named Vania who was in a bad bike accident. Having been injured myself in a bike accident, I know it is hard to come back and her injuries were significant. Her training group, First Wave Tri, was there volunteering all throughout the course. Way to show support for one of your own! It was really nice to see.

I also did an hour long swim of a pre-set schedule and an hour bike ride on top of the races. I was certain I did so much better than my results showed in my triathlon. I am quite concerned now that I am not getting better. I feel like a stagnant triathlete most days and this race confirmed it. My time doesn't show my transition times, so it looks like I took longer to swim, bike and run when I really swam faster, biked and ran faster, but still not fast enough.

While trying to stay awake throughout the day, I watched Casino Royale on my DVR. I just forwarded to my favorite parts. Daniel Craig is such a stud. I would very much like to be Mrs. Jenny Craig.

Human Vacuum



I feel like I eat all the time or maybe it is just that I am always hungry. I have an interesting relationship with food. I love it, but it's not so sure about me. If I don't get enough iron, I get tired. If I don't eat every two hours, I get aggravated. I mainly eat healthy and love fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins, but I also have an unfortunate sweet tooth.

I think about food far too often than not. So in my hungry state, which is mainly the state I am always in, I have devised the meal I would want to be my last:

1. Australian red licorice. This is my most favorite food in the world. It is chewy, fresh, and more flavorful than any red vines you will find sitting on the shelves of the drug store.
2. French fries. I like fries in every way. Curly, seasoned, steak, from a fast food joint. I will order something on the menu just because it comes with fries.
3. Any other chewy candy. Skittles, Dots, Brach's barrel candy, you name it, I'll eat it.
4. Lemon poppy seed muffins. Because they are good and if it is my last meal, who cares about carbs?
5. White Magnum ice cream bars. See every entry I made about Europe.
6. And limeade to wash it all down with. It's not lemonade, so it tricks your taste buds and that's awesome.

I really do eat healthy, but I love sweets. I can't help it. Good thing I workout.

Last evening I did an awful 65 minute bike ride on a trainer and didn't feel like I worked hard enough. Tonight I have to do two, yes two, long swims. I will break them up into two segments...do one, take a break, come back for more. But maybe this will enable me to burn some calories for my sweets :)

Breathtaking Sunsets, Literally and Figuratively



Yesterday I attempted a long workout in the heat, as I changed around my workout to do a longer bike ride on a weekday instead of a weekend. Not recommended.

I started out with a 45 minute run that only covered just over 4 miles. I had to walk part of it, as my run started after 5pm in 100+ temperatures and my stomach was in considerate pain for some reason. I don't think I ate properly during the day for running in the heat. I did the best I could.

Next, I hopped onto my bike for a 2 hour ride that lasted through a beautiful sunset with a kaleidoscope of colors in tropical pink, red and orange. I was doing a loop and raced through the parts heading east to enjoy the parts heading west. Although out of breath and hungry at this point, it was a pleasant view during a hot ride.

I am Dirty Purdie

I started to feel better the next day from my little, itty, bitty cold, but all was brought back during a 10 mile run today. Everything came straight to the chest and head with the jogging I was doing. So perhaps I am not cured yet.

I did go out and do 10 miles in 99 degrees followed by a 60 minute bike ride in which my chain came off 3 times and my brake pad rode up against my tire, so those 60 minutes turned into a little bit longer dealing with the bike pains. I now have greased finger prints down my legs. I look as though I should be entering into war camp or going paint balling. I got grease down my legs and underneath my fingernails...sexy!

I did get my hair colored a wicked shade of California blonde and with all this outdoor training, I'm afraid I will eventually start looking like one of Hef's wannabes. But I won't let that happen. I think the grease will counteract the sun bleached blonde.

Getting sick

With my cold race, I think I may be coming down with something. I woke up this morning with a head cold. I haven't been sick for over a year, so this feels strange. I'm hoping a high dose of vitamin C over the next few days will kill it.

Last night I was feeling a little tired, so I went to take a nap at 7:30pm and woke up at 3:30 still in my clothes and contacts. Guess I'm not quite back to PST time.

Here are photos from the Copenhagen marathon.