It’s just as important as brushing your teeth every day

Hi Everyone! 

I thought today I would speak to you about a topic I hold near and dear to my heart:  the need to stretch.  Stretching (and foam rolling) has become a major element of my triathlon training right now.  As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I am plagued with ITBS or (Iliotibial band syndrome).  I have found regular stretching and foam rolling to be critical for keeping my ITBS in check. 

In simplest terms, it hurts like hell when it flares up and more importantly, sidelines you from as little as 1 week to several months depending on how bad it is.    In my situation, I got it bad 2 years ago and could not run for over a year.  It wasn’t until I went to a new doctor and subsequent physical therapy, that I took control over my ITBS issue. 

So why do I bring this up now?  Well, several of my coworkers ran a ½ marathon over the weekend and at least 2 now have displayed symptoms of ITBS. 

Here’s my home remedy for ITBS:

1. get checked by a real doctor to verify it is ITBS and nothing more serious,
2. buy a foam roller
3. make stretching a regular activity and don’t skimp on it either.

Five nights a week, I spend 20 GOOD minutes on the floor (after walking for a few minutes to get loose), stretching my legs in every sort of way.  I make sure I hit every major muscle group in my legs – obviously hitting the hips, glutes and thighs for the IT Band.  Then it’s onto my foam roller and my grid for my deep tissue massage.   It’s now become part of my pre-bedtime ritual:  wash my face, brush my teeth, stretch, foam roll.

Do I always feel like doing it?  No!  But it only takes the memory of not being able to run (let alone anything else) for several days (weeks, months), to get my butt on the floor and stretch.   Come on, it’s easy and you can do it while watching TV.  I get the added bonus some nights of getting kisses from my pugs while I’m stretching.   If I could only teach them to put their front paws on my back and press down with gentle pressure – yeah right!

How about everyone out there?  Any big stretchers?  Any great stretches to share?

OOH…OOOH, I’VE GOT A CRUSH ON YOU!

Asics Gel Noosa Tri 7

Hello Pretty Girl.  I have such a crush on you.  Just look at you, all pink, blue and green.  The fact that you have been designed specifically for Triathletes is just icing on the cake.  Fate says we should be together.  Unfortunately, logic has other plans.  But just look at you; I have so many cute tops that would match you, including all my obnoxious bright ones!  Oh, what’s that?  Parts of you are meant for night running?  Stop it!  You are making me want you even more!  Oh the hardship!  Life is not fair! 

Logic says, that I’m not ready for you, that I don’t have enough miles logged yet and enough pounds lost to wear you.  Other voices (Those coming from Northern NJ) will tell me to stop spending money, but I’m approaching the end of life of my current shoes.   I’m hoping for a summer romance with you, by the time I start half ironman training.  Until then, I’m going to have to settle for your cousin – she’s cute, but she’s no you... 

I promise I’ll visit you online at least once a week…until summer...sigh...

These are a few of my favorite things...

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens…

Oh, don’t get me started on Sound of Music – I can go all day!  Today I’m going to share with you my favorite things.  Oh, they are no where near as cool as Oprah’s favorite things and sorry, hate to break it to you, I won’t be yelling, “AND ALL OF YOU HAVE ONE UNDER YOUR SEAT!”, like she does.  LOL.  These items I used pretty regularly and I have found them all invaluable in my training. 

Garmin Watch

I have the 305 model, but I’m pretty convinced any and all of the watches out there are awesome.  I can program all my workouts in there and it helps keep me on track during my workouts.  Then I can use the data the watch captures during my workout to analyze and adapt next workouts (and celebrate good efforts!).    There are days when I yell at it, but they are easily forgotten.  I would now be lost without my watch.  It is definitely worth the cost. 

Rubber Bands

I try to use my rubber bands 2 times a week to work on strengthening my hips.  While I have a gym membership, I don’t have time in the mornings to do a strength training routine and the thought of going back to the gym at night is hardly entertaining.  The nice thing with my bands is the exercises I need to do take only about 15 minutes and I can do them at home while we all hang out.

Road ID

For $20, this little wristband literally could be a lifesaver.  I wear it for all my workouts.  While I hope it never happens, should I fall and be found unconscious, this wristband tells people who I am and who to contact. 

Emergen-C

OMG...this is the BOMB!  We all run ourselves down trying to get that one last workout in, these are critical on those days when you think you might be too run down and at risk of the dreaded cold!

Rollers: Foam and The Grid         

I SUFFER with ITBS (google it).  One of the best ways to treat it is to get a myofascial massage.  I’m not a “Real Housewife of Miami” and therefore cannot afford daily massage.  What I can afford are my Grid and Foam Roller.  For a couple of bucks, these two torturous devices are keys to keeping my ITBS in check (+ my rubber bands).   I just got “The Grid” and whoever invented must have transported in time from the days they used to torture people cause it’s painful – in a good way.  It REALLY digs into the muscles.  I easily ‘roll’ 5 days a week.

How about you bloggers?  Care to share some of your favorite things?

Night Moves

This post was inspired by my bike ride today.  Like most triathletes, I train in the morning; when all of you normal people are sleeping.  I’m talking early – 4:30 am.  So obviously it’s dark out.  Depending on the day of the week, or the workout, I have various routes – safety being my #1 criteria of my route selection. 

When I used to be a gym rat, I found myself always wearing cute tops, pretty colors and sometimes all black.  That wardrobe changes the minute you start training outdoors in the dark.   Now my tops are all either white or the brightest (obnoxious) yellow I can find.   See below for a sample of my shirts.

The other thing that is a must are lights.  I’ve been told that I look like a Christmas tree when I bike in the morning.  I have 6 lights on me, 2 in the front (so I can see where I’m going) and 4 red blinking ones on my back and saddle so people can see me (this on top of the obnoxiously yellow reflective shirt).  My husband says I look ridiculous, but I will gladly thank a stranger if they tell me I look ridiculous cause that means they saw me and that’s my #1 priority – BE SEEN – NOT HIT.

Which brings me to the motivation for today’s post.  My ‘weekday’ bike route is in a residential area, with  1 steady  no stop sign loop.  On a typical 90 minute ride, maybe 6 cars pass me.  Great for biking.  There is a stretch of it with no overhead lights, where I become highly dependent on my front lights, the stars and peoples porch lights. 

It’s on this stretch where I run into the idiots of the morning – the Amateurs I call them.   They insist on wearing dark clothing, no lights and walk ‘4-wide’ on the wrong side of traffic.  Countless times I see them just at the last minute: like this morning.  Which prompts me now to the following statement:

WILL YOU PEOPLE GET A CLUE FROM THE CRAZY LADY YELLING AT YOU ON THE BIKE AND WEAR SOMETHING REFLECTIVE?  FOR PETE’S SAKE A BLINKY LITE IS $10!!!!!

If I can’t see you, cars can’t see you!  If you want to exercise outdoors in the morning like the ‘big boys’, start acting like them and dress appropriately!

How about you bloggers – any idiots on your routes?  Please share with us!

GAME ON

So did we all survive the first week of 2012?  It was rough going back to work again, even if it was for only 4 days.   Bloggers, we had a good week this week; I got back in the pool, had some really good runs and survived a “Florida Freeze”.  The big news?  The first Triathlon is scheduled!  On March 18^th, I will be participating in a sprint triathlon.  Yay!  I’m not sure yet, if I’m going to race it-race it or use it as a training race, however there is one reason I might race it – race it and that reason is “Aksoy”.

Aksoy is not a thing, but a person, in fact he’s the husband of my training partner, who recently got bitten by the triathlon bug.  When he raced his first one, it was a similar distance to my first one and I told him he had to beat my time of 1:43, and wouldn’t you know it, the bugger finished in 1:42:59 – hand to God.

It’s officially 10 weeks to race day and so for the next 10 weeks I have a new mission statement.  It’s quite simple:

Every workout, every stretch, every roll on the foam roller, I will be single focused on this mission.

Can I beat him?  Realistically, I don’t think so.  I’m confident I’ll CRUSH him on the swim portion (Oh yes I just told the internet I’ll crush you!), but he’ll pay it back on the bike leg as he is way stronger than me on the bike, so then it would come down to the run.  We’ll see, but both of us seem to be enjoying the competition to help motivate our training.

GAME ON MY FRIEND, GAME ON...

To move forward you need to look back...

Happy New Year Everyone!

Over the next several posts, I will begin to describe my strategy for the next 10 weeks or so.   As of right now I'm going solo - no coach. 

When I’m not doing my triathlon stuff, my day job is in the world of process improvement and metric reporting.  One of the first things I do before I begin an improvement effort is to take a snapshot of where we are today: a baseline.  The same holds true for my training.

So let's look at our starting points:

• Best recorded 5k time:  32:33 (hey, I never said I was a FAST triathlete!),
• Longest pain-free run: 6.5 Miles (I have run a ½ marathon, 3 years ago, but soon after plagued with ITBS so we are not counting those miles),
• Longest Bike Ride: 35 Miles
• Longest continuous swim: ½ mile; longest swim workout (with breaks): 1 mile
• Current Weight: ??? Sorry World, that’s one baseline I won’t be sharing, other to tell you that since my “Goddess of War” posting, I am no longer in the Athena division!
• Limit my Ben and Jerry's consumption to 2x a month and only the dixie cup size

As you can see, we have a long way to go to get me to Ironman.

Now that we know where I am, here are my goals for the 1^st 6 months of the year:

• Break 30 minutes in my 5K time
• Run 13 PAIN FREE miles (discomfort is okay – pain not OK)
• Increase my long ride distance to 50 miles
• Get my ‘long swim’ up to ¾ mile with good form and technique, maintaining a 1:50/100 yard average.
• Lose a few more pounds – let’s say 5.

What do you think everyone?  Reasonable?  Attainable?  What are some of your goals for this year?

Breaking up is hard to do

Besides my husband, I have (or had) several other important relationships in my life: my dogs, my training partners, my bosses and my coach.  Shortly before Christmas, I parted ways with my coach and now I find myself without a tour guide on this journey to Ironman.

I have to say, when it happened, it felt similar to a break-up.  First came the tears (Why!  What did I do wrong?!?), then came the panic (What do I do tomorrow?  Next Week?  How am I going to get to Ironman?), then anger.  See, just like a break-up and yes, there might have been some Ben & Jerry's mixed in to aid in this break-up (hello Athena division).

It's been almost 2 weeks now; the hurt is fading and the tears are finished.  The panic is turning into renewed focus and motivation to make it to Ironman - as now I REALLY have something to prove.  Can't say the same for the anger - LOL. 

I'm now debating whether to hire a new coach or not.  Of course my husband volunteered to coach me (he has absolutely no qualifications to do so, but he scores points for volunteering).  Right now my gut is saying hold off.  A good friend of mine recommened a book, "IronFit" (thank you DC!) and I'm finding great nuggets of information in there to help build a plan for the upcoming weeks. 

I had a good week of coach-less training this week; continuing to work on my base and improve my running.  I deliberately did not swim this week, but will return to the pool on Tuesday.  I'm working on building my goals for 2012 and more importantly, my plan for the next 6 - 10 weeks as I know I have a 5k in February and a possible sprint triathlon in mid March.  Once I devise the plan, I'll share with you all.

How about you guys?  Who uses a coach and if you don't, how do you plan your training?