“Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where…” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

              From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carrol

 

This week, I’ve been feeling a bit like Alice. I feel like I’m trying very hard to get somewhere….but I’ve totally lost sight of where that somewhere is.

Does that make any sense at all?

Training wise, I’m having a really brutal week. I did a big 16km training run last Friday morning (which I was beyond proud of by the way) and then had a huge weekend where I did 4 classes in 2 days immediately after the run and haven’t had a day off since then. Suffice to say I’m paying the price for it big time. My knees are absolutely on fire, I’m getting sharp pains in both ankles, and even my upper body is absolutely aching (a product of ambitiously increasing my chest weight in Monday’s BodyPump class).

Training aside though, lately I’ve been struggling quite a bit with my overall career direction, and what it is that I really want to accomplish with my life.

(I know, I know, quarter life crisis right? So predictable…I can’t help myself :P)

I have always been a person that is happiest when I have a tangible project to tackle, something to roll up my sleeves and get to work on. I’m missing that right now.Between you, me and the wall, I think I know what it is that I want to do and what direction that I want to go. I think I’ve known for a while. I have lots of thinking to do over the coming months.

For now, it’s just about time for a brand new month and boy do I feel like I need a fresh start. There were lots of good things about June (like the Milton Triathlon, some track workouts, a long run, buying a wetsuit, getting to lots of spin classes), but lots of things need to happen in the month of July to put me in a good position for the Kingston Triathlon in August.

I’ve set out some specific training goals for this month, and also some “life” goals as well. Because you know, balance is good, or so they say 😉

Training Goals for July

1. Get Organized (for crying out loud)

I’ve set up a calendar to keep me on track with training this month. My goal is to follow it like it’s the Bible. Check it out below. I know there isn’t a lot of rest scheduled on there, but I’ve done my best to avoid doubling up on “high impact” days. I’ve learned from this past week of total burnout that no real athletic gains are made when your body is totally exhausted. I promise I’ll at least try to respect that. But seriously, why didn’t I think of the calendar thing earlier…….????????

2. Swim at least once a week, and increase my distance to 2km.

3. Complete the Toronto Olympic Distance Triathlon with a smile on my face.

4. Complete a 20km training run (no smile required, that one’s gonna suck)

Life Goals

1. Put pen to paper and crunch some numbers on some career alternatives. Get really crunchy on what is and is not possible financially, and figure out what it would take to change the path that I’m currently on.

2. Do a coconut oil treatment on my hair twice a week.

(Don’t ask, my hair got in a terrible quarrel with my straightening iron. You don’t have to ask who the victor was).

3. Make the time to get up to Sault Ste. Marie for my Grandpa’s 85th birthday party

4. Read “Inferno” by Dan Brown.

I bought it at Costco 2 weeks ago and have been carrying it around with me everywhere, yearning for 10 minutes to sit uninterrupted and read the dang thing! I vow right now to make it happen this month. Maybe I shoudl schedule some time on my trusty calendar???

5. Do some (more) serious work on my blog appearance and layout! I’m starting to get the “blog improvement” fever….;)

Anyways. I think we all have a lot to learn from our friend the Cheshire Cat. If you don’t much care where you’re going, then it doesn’t much matter which way you go. So before you head off to enjoy your long weekend, tell me….

1. Have you ever lost your direction like Alice? How did you get back on course? Which direction are you headed in right now, and what fabulous things are you working towards?
2. What do you think of the new layout for Going the Distance?! I really value your feedback, please let me know what you think!

HAPPY CANADA DAY ALL!!!

Hi Everyone!

Hope you are having a great week. Although it was like squeezing blood out of a rock, I did drag myself out of bed this morning and got to spin class for 6am (my first one since the Milton Tri). I was telling Matt’s mom this weekend while she was here that I seem to have formed this really bad habit of taking two weeks to push off training after I do a race. I did it after Around the Bay (except for an entire month!) and now again after Milton. I really think it’s more mental than physical because my body felt terrific after Milton, it was more my brain that went into vacation mode.

PIña colada anyone?

 

There have been lots of little adventures over the past couple of weeks that I’ll bring you up to speed on quickly before I launch into the kick-off of a series that I am just so excited about.

#1 – I bought a wet suit. A “real deal”, professional wet suit. And it has sleeves.

I know right, are you wondering who am I and what I did with Sara? You may remember from my last experience wet suit shopping that I was totally freaked out by how tight the suits fit around the neck and the restrictive shoulders on the wet suits with sleeves. I left the store very frustrated and ended up swimming the Milton Tri in a water skiing wet suit from Costco that weighed about 1,000,000 pounds.

That Costco wet suit ended up totally saving the day though because it taught me that what everyone says IS true (sorry to everyone who I totally ignored), and wet suits DO feel 100% different when you are horizontal and in the water then they do when you are dry and vertical. I went back to the store much more confident, knew what size I needed to get, and just like that I walked out with a full sleeve wet suit that I love and can’t wait to swim in.

Can I just tell you how close I was to getting a black and pink wet suit? They didn’t have my size in the model that was in budget; they only had my size in the model that was $200 over budget. Oh and when I was trying on said expensive, black and pink wet suit, I accidentally put a small rip in the neoprene shell when I was trying to pull it up. Thank God the sales man understood, but I definitely had to walk out of there buying a wet suit that day!!

#2 – I’ve started running on the track.

I’ve been kind of curious about these “track workouts” that Matt talks about in his running, and fed up with feeling like a slow hippopotamus and getting passed by everyone and their grandmother on the bike and run, I thought that it would be a nice change to try out these track workouts.

I’ve only done two, but suffice to say that they are NOT for the faint of heart. You basically sprint “balls to the wall” for one lap of the track, then jog the next half lap easy (or in my case, double over, breathing like you’re in labour and then eventually carry on) before repeating again. And again. And again.

It sucks. But in a kind of awesome way.

Okay, now that the chatter is out of the way, let’s get down to business! I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to take three days away from work and attend a “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” classroom course, delivered by the Franklin Covey facilitators themselves.

To say the course was phenomenal wouldn’t do it justice. It was seriously three of the most amazing and revealing days I’ve ever spent. If you ever, EVER have the chance to attend the in-class training for 7 Habits, don’t hesitate, don’t ask questions, cancel whatever plans you have those days and DO IT. I promise you, you won’t regret it.

I’m not going to rush through any of this because it’s all so important, but over the next several months, my plan is to do a post for each of the habits (maybe piggy backing onto some training talk similar to the structure of today’s post). I hope that you enjoy the journey, and that I can do it some justice in my delivery.

Before I begin – a small disclaimer that the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is (obviously) a licensed trademark of the Franklin Covey Institute. Obviously I’m not the one that came up with all of this amazing work, Dr. Stephen Covey did, and he gets 150% of the credit. Cool? 🙂

On the first day of training, we spent about three quarters of the day talking about the “foundation” for the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I was so eager to launch right into Habit #1 that I didn’t really see the need for all this foundation talk at first, but without it, the rest of the work that we did wouldn’t have held near the same value.

Think for a moment about the Giant Redwood trees in California. Nearly 400 feet tall, it takes approximately 15 people holding hands to circle the base of the tree trunk. The redwoods have stood for hundreds of years. They have withstood fire, drought, storm and siege from their human counterparts, and still they stand while other trees around them crumble.

Why? What is it about the giant redwoods that helps them stand so majestically?

What we don’t see when we look at the redwoods are the deep, penetrating, thick roots that lay under the ground. The redwoods roots run deep into the ground, strong and secure. They entwine with the roots of other redwoods in the forest so that not only do they stand tall and strong for hundreds of years, but they help their neighbours stand tall and strong for hundreds of years as well.

When we look at the redwood, we are awe struck by the absolute splendor of the tree itself. The incredible height and diameter, the colour of the bark, the leafy green tree tops way up in the sky. The foundation on which the entire tree stands is invisible to us from the outside, but without it, the tree would have crumbled long ago, and wouldn’t have reached the magnificent height and beauty that it stands at now.

Sorry – did I lose you??? 😉 I get pretty caught up in talking about the redwoods. After this course, I’ve added a “bucket list” item to go to California and walk through the redwood forest.

 

The link back to the 7 Habits is simply that people, like trees; need to have strong roots in order to stand to their full potential and weather any storm that may come their way. Franklin Covey calls these “roots” a person’s character.

Although the roots are the foundation that everything is built off of, the observation is that so many people spend so much of their time doing work on the top of the tree (the green leafy part that everyone marvels at and takes pictures of), that we neglect our roots. Franklin Covey calls the “top of the tree” a person’s personality.

A person with a strong personality can stand tall and beautiful for a while. Maybe even a long, long while. But in times of real turmoil, confusion, upset and stress, the person that has only worked on their personality while neglecting their character falters.  

Can you think of anyone in your life, or maybe a celebrity figure, that has spent so much time working on the top of their tree, that their roots have rotted and decayed away to nothing? Anyone that was so focused on “looking good” on the outside, that they lost their character and morality?

How about Lance Armstrong? Tiger Woods?

(Someone in our course suggested “every politician that ever walked the earth”, but I won’t go there ;))

Anyways – I’ll leave you with this thought for today. The first three habits are meant to nurture and strengthen the roots of a person’s character. The idea is that before we can begin to work on our “effectiveness” and improving our personality and our actions, we need to turn the lens inside and make sure that we are building our tree top on a strong and sturdy set of roots.

For more information about any of the 7 Habits, please check out the Franklin Covey website here: https://www.stephencovey.com/7habits/7habits.php, and before you go I would love to hear your thoughts on any of this!

Who’s in for a trip to California to walk with the giants?!

It’s FRIIIIDAYYYY!!! HURRAY!!!!

I won’t even get into what kind of a week it’s been (trust me – you don’t wanna know), but suffice to say that I wouldn’t have delayed the second part of this race recap if not absolutely necessary!! Let’s pick up right where we left off shall we – at the end of the swim course….

As irony would have it, pretty much as soon as we started our swim, the sun had come out and whenever I turned my head to breathe I could feel the sunshine on my face. It was really beautiful, and I breathed a sigh (bubbles???) of relief that we wouldn’t have to do the bike portion of the race in the rain.

Ha. Ha.

I came out of the water, heard my mom and Matt screaming like lunatics for me, and feeling a bit disoriented. I somehow made my way over to my bike and started peeling off the wet suit and drying off to get ready for the bike. My head was still really foggy and I could hardly focus on what I was doing at all. I think I may have been a bit dehydrated at that point, so taking a huge gulp of water from my water bottle helped a bit.

I had racked my bike right near the fence where the spectators were, and so Matt, Jess and my mom were all literally about an arms distance away from me in the transition. I took this as an excellent opportunity to turn and chat with them about how I got lost on the swim. Guess I missed the point about efficient transitions! I later learned that my mom was commenting to Matt under her breath that she thought I was too slow moving through the transition zones and that I had better pick up the pace. Thanks mom 😉

I was really relieved to finally get my shoes on and get the heck out of the transition zone. I felt like I was one of the last people out of the water, and I really wanted to get moving. Thankfully I didn’t break any rules on my way out of the transition (i.e. you have to have your helmet on and done up before you even unrack your bike?! Who knew!?) and I was thrilled to get on my bike and take off out of Kelso and onto the road. I remember those first couple of pedals as I got going felt fantastic, the air whipping by was glorious and it felt good to actually get moving at a decent clip! Swimming feels so slow!

 

 

I knew pretty much exactly what lay ahead because we had driven the bike course the day before, and I knew that the first 15km was much harder than the second 15km. I was really surprised early on in the bike how tired my legs felt, I had totally underestimated the work that swimming is for your legs.

We cruised through the first 3 or 4 kilometres, and in my head all I could think about was that big mother of a hill that was coming up. I think this hill borders on something between a hill and a mountain (a “hountain” perhaps??? Or maybe a “mill”?). Whatever you call it, it was freakin’ huge, and I had a sneaking suspicion that it was going to totally destroy me.

We came up on the hill pretty quickly, it was before the 5km mark when we turned the corner and started our ascent. I noted before making the right turn to start up the hill that they had paramedics and an ambulance standing at the ready at the bottom of the hill just in case anyone a) died trying to go up the hill or more likely b) wiped out coming back DOWN the hill. I pushed off the thoughts of coming back down the hill for future Sara to worry about, and instead tackled the immediate issue of getting myself and Jilly up the “hountain”.

Not more than 100 metres into the climb, a very fit looking woman next to me started to swear at her bike. Her bike was making this awful grinding noise, and she was grunting at it “Shift, damn you, shift!!!” It seemed like maybe her gears were stuck, and she wasn’t able to down shift (a total death sentence for the hill we were about to climb up by the way – even with my striking resemblance to Jan Ullrich, I had to down shift all the way and I still got my ass handed to me). She confirmed what I suspected when she turned to me and said “My gears are stuck, it won’t down shift!!”

Not quite sure what to do (and starting to seriously suck wind myself by that point), I made a sympathetic face and said, “I’m so sorry!!” I left her behind me as I continued to chug up the hill, and I heard her yell out “THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING!!!!” behind me. It was then that I fully acknowledged that out on the bike, there are really and truly some factors that are out of your control as an athlete. Your success could very well be dictated not just by how hard you work, or how hard you’ve trained, but by something else like a simple chain link that won’t shift the way it’s supposed to.

I continued on up the hill, and started to seriously, seriously die. An older man came up behind me and seemed pretty pumped up; he started bellowing “HERE WE GO PEOPLE, HERE WE GO”. My breathing got totally ragged and pretty out of control, and my average speed was dropping like a stone. I got maybe ¾ of the way up the hill, before my speed dropped down to 3km/hour and Jilly came to a stop on me. Poor Jilly. I had to walk her the rest of the way up the hill and then took a deep breath and got back on. Relieved that the “hountain” was behind me, Jilly and I continued on.

About 10 minutes after the hill, I felt the splatter of a rain drop hit my helmet. I was so totally freaked out about the rain and my tires sliding out on me that right away I started totally (internally) freaking out. I didn’t have long to really worry about it “starting to rain”, because about 30 seconds later, the heavens absolutely opened up into the heaviest, thickest torrential downpour I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

Did you know that when you’re biking 26km/hour, raindrops actually HURT when they hit you!?!? It felt like we were biking through a hail storm!! I remember turning to a woman beside me and just saying “OH MY GOD!”, but for some reason I seemed to be the only person that was totally freaking out about the situation, everyone else just kind of kept on trucking.

We biked in the torrential downpour for a while before it let up at all. I’ll admit that towards the end of the rain, I started to get totally fried out mentally. I was cold, the raindrops didn’t really hurt anymore but had become more of a nuisance, I was sluggish and pretty tired and I felt like I was getting passed by everybody including a woman who I noticed had the age “74” written on the back of her leg. A 74 freaking year old woman passed me. What the hell.

I must have heard the words “ON YOUR LEFT” (cycling etiquette when passing another rider) about 187,383 times, and every time I hear the words, they may as well have been someone shouting out “YOU’RE A FAT LOSER!” over and over and over again. My mind once again started to wander off to the place of, “What the hell are you thinking? You have no business being in this sport, and you’re delusional if you think you’re ever going to complete a Half Ironman in your entire life, let alone this September”. I also had in the back of my mind that I still had to get myself back DOWN that massive hill, and now the roads were slick with 2 inches of water. To say I was afraid just wouldn’t be enough. That hill hung over my head like a shadow of terror for the entire bike.

Somehow, someway, I got myself back to the hill, and as I rounded the corner and started the descent, I kind of chanted over and over to myself (inside my head – don’t worry) the word “fearless”. After all, that is what this whole year is about isn’t it? Being scared as hell but doing it anyways? Taking a risk? Going after what you want?

I was on both my front and my back brakes the entire way down the hill, and I still hit a top speed of 41km/hour if that gives you any indication of how steep the hill was. My stomach got that feeling that you get on a roller coaster on the way down, it was intense. As I made it to the bottom, I took a look at the paramedics and the ambulance, said a mental thank you to some higher power that I wouldn’t be needing their help today, and carried on to finish the bike strong.

I was kind of embarrassed to see Matt, my mom and Jess at the transition. Although I was happy that I had made it through, I still felt like a supreme loser, and was pretty sure that I was one of maybe 10 athletes that still had to finish the bike. As quickly as I could, I put Jilly back on the rack (and accidentally scratched her in my haste to get her back on the rack :’(), took a huge gulp of water and set off in my soaking wet running shoes to run the slowest 7.5km of my entire life.

 

My legs although not totally exhausted, felt strangely like they weren’t even connected to my body. I’ve heard triathletes talk a lot about the transition from the bike to the run, but didn’t really fully appreciate what they were talking about until I did it for myself. It took about 2.5km for my legs to relax a bit and for me to find my groove. Once I found it, I felt at home again, and it was just another race, just another run.

I knew I was at the back, but I got a bit of that “Sidders” determination in me on the run that I wasn’t going to get passed by any more people. No more “on your left”. I think I maybe got passed by one or two people (and one was a woman on a relay team that had just started her day with the run – I totally resented that lady) but I held my ground pretty solid. I saw Neil on his way back on the run, and he looked fantastic! I was happy with the second half of my run, not so much the first. I once again was reminded how much work I have to do before September. It’s kind of overwhelming actually.

I finished the Milton Triathlon in an all-out sprint and with a smile on my face, just as I had hoped to. I may have gotten lost on the swim and looked like a total idiot; maybe I wasn’t wearing the right cycling clothes or shoes and got passed by pretty much everyone on the bike, and maybe I ran the slowest 7.5km of my life, but I sure as hell didn’t give up.

I was at first a bit disappointed that they didn’t give out any medals at the race, but disappointment quickly turned into sheer ecstasy when I realized what they WERE giving out at the finish of the race: cold cut subs donated by Subway.

My heart swells just thinking about that sub. I think it goes up on the list of the top 5 best things I’ve ever eaten in my entire life. Dang it was good.  

As I write this post, I am realizing that Neil and I never took ANY pictures together at the finish of the race?!? How could we have missed the pictures?!? Neil had a terrific race, a great day for him! We all got back in our cars (but not before my poor, poor mom sprained her ankle stepping in a pot hole on her way back to the car?! I still feel awful about that – she is still nursing that ankle 2 weeks later!! :(), headed back to our house and ordered pizza and chicken bites to celebrate.

 

 

One of the things that I LOVE about triathlons is that they don’t hurt your body as much as running does!! Usually after a half marathon, I’m sore for about 4 days. I wasn’t sore at all after the triathlon, taught my BodyPump class the next evening with my regular weights, no problem!

Matt may tell you that’s because I wasn’t working hard enough in the triathlon, but ignore him. 😉

Overall, the Milton Triathlon taught me a very important lesson in respect for triathletes and their sport. I’m a total moron if I ever thought for even a moment that I was going to “wing” a Half Ironman. A total moron. It’s going to take a lot of really hard work and focused, dedicated training to get me there. I have a decent start, but it’s got to really ramp up over the coming months if I want to even give myself a chance.

Triathlons are no joke; these people are tough as nails, multi-talented, dedicated and SMART athletes. I was so grateful to be a part of the sport for that day, and I hope that maybe one day I will feel like one of them!

Have a terrific weekend everyone – thanks for your patience on the race recap!! 🙂 🙂

Holy Hannah!

*looks sheepish*

Sorry for the long delay in getting this triathlon race recap out!! I’ve had one of the most amazing weeks that I’ve had in a long, long time. Last year I was lucky enough to be approved for a 3 day off-site training program called The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People™ based on the international best-selling book by Dr. Stephen Covey.

Even if you think you’ve never heard of it, I’m willing to bet that at some point in your life one of your parents, grandparents or some other wise adult in your life gave you a copy of it when you were somewhere between the ages of 15 and 21, and that it then proceeded to collect dust on a bookshelf in your parents library where it likely still resides.

Does this ring any bells?

Anyways, the training was this week from Tuesday – Thursday, so I’ve been off my routine a little bit. I am walking away from the course feeling like an entirely different person. I can’t remember ever feeling such a sense of clarity and peace in my entire life. This course was such a huge deal for me that I’m actually planning to launch a “not so mini” series going through each of the seven habits and what they are all about.

But for now – we’ve got a race to recap, and I won’t leave you in suspense for a moment longer 😉

So last Sunday was the first triathlon of the year for the 2013 Subaru Race Series out in Milton, and also my first crack at this thing they call a triathlon. The Sprint race was a 750 metre swim, a 30km bike and a 7.5km run. Neil decided that he was in to do the race as well, and so he and Jess came out Saturday morning to stay with us and spend the day scouting the course!

The first thing I’ll address is the whole wetsuit conundrum. I left you in my last post on a bit of a cliff hanger and wondering if I would survive my test swim or if I was doomed to a life cohabitating with Sponge Bob at the bottom of Lake Kelso. (Sorry about that by the way).

Matt and I went out to Kelso on Friday night to test my Costco wet suit in the water and see how I felt. Just to put things in perspective, on the drive up to Kelso, the wind was so strong and the weather so vile that we passed by an arm of a tree that had crashed down onto the electrical lines and was on fire as we drove past. And then came the rain. Oh the rain. By the time we got to Kelso, it was torrential downpour, thunder and lightning. We pulled up to the front gate of Kelso, rolled down our window and asked the attendant the only natural question:

“Can we still go for a swim in the lake?”

The “attendant” was really an 18 year old kid, who laughed, shrugged and said “Sure, why not?!” I could think of more than a couple good reasons why not at that point, but with the thunder and lightning calmed down quite a bit by that point, we decided to go for it.

I was freaked out a bit when I first got in the water by the strong current, and the frigid temperature that really seemed to take my breath away when I put my face under. A few minutes paddling around loosened me up and reassured me that although the Costco wet suit definitely wasn’t ideal, it would be fine for this triathlon and would see me through until I could work myself up to a “real” one.

We did a quick scout of the bike course on Saturday and got a look at the total @*|&%# of a hill that we had to climb. The course description told us that it was 1.4km of straight ascent, but I swear it was longer than that. Suffice to say that my car had a hard time getting up the hill; forget my poor, poor brutalized legs.

Deciding that the hill was future Sara and Neil’s problem, we had a yummy pasta dinner and hit the hay fairly early to get ready for race morning. I went to sleep feeling very similar to the way I did before my very first half marathon in September 2010 in Ottawa. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that nervous before any event, my stomach was a mess, and I couldn’t really sleep, was tossing and turning….I really, truly had no idea what was going to happen the next day.

We got to Kelso well before the 8:30am cut off for entrance to the park and right away I was totally overwhelmed and confused! There’s a lot of logistics when it comes to triathlons! First of all, nobody ever explained to me exactly how you “rack” a bike. I nonchalantly kind of looked around at what everyone else had done, and kind of slid Jilly up onto the rack somehow and by some grace of God she actually stayed put, but I counted myself lucky on that one! We got permanently tattooed – I mean , body marked with our numbers and our ages and by the time all of that stuff was taken care of, the Try a Tri race was beginning and we watched the swim set off.

Before long, it was our turn, and Neil and I said our (final) goodbyes to everyone and headed over to the water. We were wearing baby blue bathing caps to represent the first wave of swimmers because they had staggered the start by age. I’m not sure I agree with this approach, but we’ll get to that in just a second.

The horn went and we were off. I hung back quite a bit from the rest of the blue caps so that I wouldn’t get caught up in the fray (I know, I know, I said in my last post that I didn’t give a crap about all of the swimmers around me, but it turns out that I’m an idiot, and I actually do okay?!) and when I started swimming, I was back with the last 4 or 5 blue caps, and feeling quite comfortable. The sun had come out on previously pretty gray, dreary morning, and I was feeling really good. We passed the first buoy (or “Dorito” as Matt and Neil call them because they are big orange trapezoids that look just like Doritos chips floating in the water hehehe) and then rounded the first corner, and everything was feeling really good. I started to feel a bit more at ease. Maybe this wasn’t so bad after all.

And then, they caught me.

Like a pack of neoprene clad dolphins, the red caps descended on me like vultures, and I got totally beat up in this fray of splashing, kicking, arms and bug-eyed goggles that seriously nearly caused me to panic for about a half second before I pulled myself together and reminded myself that I was fine. I managed to pull myself together and keep swimming, but I no longer had the luxury of swimming on my own, now I was caught up in the pack of red caps (the 30-39 age category) and had to really keep my wits about me.

My head started to play tricks on me as we rounded the second corner at the top of the pentagon of Doritos. I pretty much had the reel “You’re a loser, you’re a loser, you’re a loser” playing on repeat in my head like a ticker tape parade. I was starting to see green caps (the 40-49 age category) and even one pink cap (the LAST age category!). I thought to myself how slow and out of place I must look, and kind of just kicked myself for not paying more attention to the swim. While all of this was going on and my mind was occupied with all of these wonderful thoughts, I forgot one very important thing.

To lift my head up and look where I was going.

Things got very quiet about 2 minutes after we rounded the second corner, and I figured that I must have been the last place swimmer. I focused all of my energy on staying positive. Big deal, you’re the last place swimmer. You can still finish strong, don’t give up, just keep on swimming…you know…like Nemo.

As my head slowly started working again, I started to wonder about a couple of things. Like, where were the paddle boards that had been following the last place swimmer in the Try a Tri race? I did lift my head right out of the water, looked ahead and saw that I was still headed straight for the beach. No problem, head back in the water and keep on swimming. At that point, I realized that I was no longer alone, and a man in a green cap was beside me. I was pleased that I wasn’t alone at the back of the pack, but something was still sitting uneasy with me. Where were those paddle boards???

I lifted my head again and once again saw the beach straight ahead, but I wasn’t satisfied with it the second time. I stopped swimming altogether, and started to tread water to get a better picture of what in tarnation was going on. The beach was indeed straight ahead of me. But it was when I turned my head to the left that I got the shock of my life.

The swim course was a pentagon shape. I’ve outlined the swim we were SUPPOSED to do in green on the map below. The swim that I ACTUALLY did is in pink.

What a dummy. I swam RIGHT into the centre of the pentagon, and worst of all, I took poor Mr. Green Cap with me!!!! When I turned my head to the left, I was absolutely shocked to see that not only was I not the last place swimmer, but all of my blue capped friends were still there as well! I was right in the middle of the pack! I called out to Mr. Green Cap, but he didn’t hear me, and so I sheepishly started back off in the direction of the far corner Dorito to course correct.

Mr. Green Cap – if there’s any chance you’re reading this….I am truly sorry.

I finished the swim shaking my head at my obvious lack of direction, but came out of the water to Matt, my mom and Jess cheering me on. I later learned that they had watched the lone swimmer trail off into the middle of the pentagon, and said to each other “I hope that’s not Sara….” 🙂

I was pretty beat after the swim, but knew that there was a long way to go.

I’ll pick up here with the bike and run legs of the race a little later this weekend!!

Good night all!

It was my fondest wish as a child to be a dolphin trainer at Marine Land.

My family used to go maybe once a year and although I did love the dolphins and whales, I was even more fascinated by the spandex, neoprene clad girls with that little whistle around their neck and their wet ponytails. It was totally “what I wanted to be when I grew up” until my dreams were crushed by economics and my affinity for designer handbags.

Sigh. Economics ruins everything doesn’t it?

Anyways, I got to live out part of my childhood dream last weekend when Matt and I took a little road trip out to this Triathlon outlet store in Markham to look for a wet suit for my first triathlon (which is coming up in only 5 days by the way!).

To give you a bit of background, I was absolutely starving after my BodyAttack class, hadn’t had a chance to eat anything before we hit the road (bad, bad idea), and then we got totally bogged down in traffic on the way out there. Needless to say by the time we got to this little warehouse, I think Matt was considering looking for a wet suit made out of solid iron for me, but that’s neither here nor there 😉

The store (although in a very sketchy neighbourhood) was actually really great. There was this totally knowledgeable sales guy that seemed to know everything there was to know about buying a wet suit and after asking us a couple of questions about budget and experience, he sent me into the changeroom with two suits to try on: one sleeveless and one with full sleeves.

Before even getting to the store I had decided that I wanted a wetsuit that was sleeveless because the thought of swimming in open water with skin tight rubber restricting my shoulders didn’t sit well at all. Although in a lot of the “beginner triathlete” forums online, most people seem to be really anxious about the swim, I’m actually not at all afraid of the swim part of the triathlon. I’m totally comfortable in open water, don’t really care if a bunch of people are swimming around me and I’m confident in my swimming ability enough that although I may not come out of the water in first place, I know for sure that I won’t drown.

But take away my shoulder mobility, and suddenly I’m not so sure that I won’t drown!!

So into the changeroom I went, apprehensively, to try on my first triathlon wetsuit with full sleeves. All I can say is that they should seriously have a camera in those changerooms because I’m sure it’s about the funniest thing in the entire world to watch someone try to struggle into a wet suit for the first time. I managed to get into the suit through some combination of the Macarena and the Electric Slide and had Matt do up the back zipper.

Right away, there was an immediate concern and it had nothing to do with my shoulders. The wet suit was completely choking me at my neck. We asked the sales guys opinion and he said that this is how wet suits are actually supposed to fit (close to the neck) so that they don’t allow any water to get into the suit, creating drag and extra weight. This seriously freaked me out, because I couldn’t even stand still in the store for 5 minutes with the neck as tight as it was, let alone complete at 2km swim. I anxiously went back into the changeroom to try on the sleeveless suit, hopeful for a better outcome.

(I should have mentioned that when I first came out of the changeroom in the wet suit, Matt made all of my childhood dreams come true when he said “You look like a dolphin trainer” :))

The sales guy had told us that the sleeveless wet suits were getting to be more and more rare since most people these days prefer the extra warmth and buoyancy of the full sleeve suits. He said that the sleeveless wet suits are actually now being targeted more specifically to those triathletes with a really strong, competitive swimming background because they just couldn’t accept having their shoulders restricted at all on the swim. Because the sleeveless suits are now being targeted to this kind of elite group, the material is a higher quality then the full sleeve ones, and therefore much easier to put on.

No Macarena, hurray!

As soon as I got into the sleeveless wet suit and had Matt do up the back, I was totally stressed out to find that the neck was once again too tight on me, although it was admittedly a little bit better than the full sleeve one had been. My shoulders were totally unaffected by the suit which I was thrilled with, and I really liked the stretchier material but the neck issue was really bothering me, and I could hardly stand there talking without having my two fingers inside the neckline pulling it away from me. It just didn’t seem that this could possibly be the way that they should fit.

The sales guy took a look at the fit and reassured me that this is how the suits are supposed to fit. Looking back, I really REALLY should have insisted that I try on a bigger size wet suit; I wonder if that may have made a difference in how the neck fit. In any case, I didn’t, and we ended up leaving the store without buying a wet suit. I was really disappointed and incredibly stressed out, with the triathlon only a week away.

I’m still not really sure what I’m going to wear for the triathlon next Sunday, but I definitely need something, its freakin’ cold in the GTA!! My mom had picked me up a “short” wet suit at Costco (possibly the only place in the world that you can go grocery shopping and end up casually picking up a wet suit in a package of 2). For a while I was thinking that I would just wear this one until I could get a “real” one, but the reviews online strongly advise against wearing a “water sports” wet suit that was really meant for water skiing and other water sports for a triathlon. The reason is that the material of these much cheaper wet suits is a more absorbent one that will tend to soak up the water like a sponge and really weigh you down while you swim, unlike the professional grade wet suits which are made of neoprene and cut through the water without soaking it up.

GARRRRRRRRRRR. Now what?!

So our game plan as of now is to go out to Kelso on Friday evening and take a swim in the lake with the Costco wet suit to see how it handles in the water. If I’m comfortable with it, then I guess that will be the plan for Sunday morning. If not….then we need to look at either renting one or buying one on Saturday morning, and that will NOT be a pretty scene. I am so totally freaking out about this.

Go figure, the one leg of the triathlon that I had totally discounted is now the one giving me the most trouble!!

I’ll do my best to report back on Friday night with the outcome of the test swim. If you don’t hear from me, I’m at the bottom of the Kelso Lake in my toasty warm, but absorbent wet suit.

 

Hi Everyone,

Hope your week is off to a great start. Although I was weeping inside this morning while getting ready for work, at least the sun is out, which does make it somewhat easier to accept the end of another weekend.

Sorry to leave you right in the middle of the Muskoka training weekend recap! We’ll be picking that up today, and I’ve also got a totally awesome contest from Under Armour to tell you all about, but you’ll have to stick around to the end to find out more about that 😉

Now where were we….ah yes, the run!

Saturday night we hit the hay pretty early after our big day on the bikes in preparation for our run on the hilly Muskoka course. Neil figured he would like to do at least half of the course (about 11km), I was shooting for somewhere around that, and Matt wanted to run the entire half marathon course. Because he’s crazy like that.

 It’s really funny to me how in the sport of triathlon, the imminent threat always seems to be the most significant. On the Saturday morning, I would have given my right arm to be going out for a run instead of for a bike. Sunday morning, I was thinking that the bike didn’t sound half bad compared to the pounding of a run!

We drove back to Deerhurst Resort (the host resort for the race) and then started back out in the car to map out the route that would take us the distance we wanted to go. The bike course had been fairly rectangular, long stretches of straight road, not very many twists or turns. The run course not so much. I very quickly got stressed out that I was going to get lost in the woods, picked up and murdered by a serial killer (I watch too much TV) and started to take notes on all of the twists and turns on the notepad function on my iPod.

There were lots of little dips and detours along the course, one pain in the ass detour in particular basically took us off of a straight stretch of road, around an oval detour and up a steep hill, and then delivered us right back onto the main road that we were on in the first place.

Why, I ask, why?

We plotted out two spots for Jess to wait with the car to meet up with all of us, and then made our way back to Deerhurst to start out on the run. Neil and Matt started off together, and I brought up the rear. Once again, here goes nothing.

My conservative goal was to run 10km on Sunday. I was feeling really good after the bike day, and just wanted to finish the weekend on a good note. The run course was quite hilly, just like the bike course, but I had one of the best runs I’ve ever had that morning. I managed to hold my pace fairly constant the entire time I was out, I ran up every single last hill and never stopped to walk once.

The scenery was really something else, it’s somehow so much easier to keep on running when you’re out in the country then it is in the city! A big stretch of the run was along the Highway 60, but there was also lots of “off-roading” where the course took us off of the main road and into some more woodsy areas. Those were my favourite parts to run (although admittedly, they were also the hilliest sections) because there was so much to look at and take in as you ran.

I did notice in the second half of my run that my right knee was starting to ache a bit, but ignored it, and it kind of settled down as I continued on. Pesky knees. My knees really need to smarten up and get over themselves. Sheesh.

As I got closer and closer to the end of the 10km loop, I saw first Matt come sprinting like an antelope back the other way along the course towards Deerhurst followed closely by Neil who was feeling good and had decided to tack on an extra 5km to his run for the day and head back to the 15km mark. Although I wasn’t completely spent, I decided to call it a day as I had planned to at 10km and be happy with that. My body really thanked me for not pushing it another 5km, I made it out of the weekend 100% injury free, and that very well might not have been the case if not for that decision.

I met up with Jess at “the white bell” which was this big memorial bell behind this big massive high school in Huntsville, and also our pre-determined turn around spot for the 10km loop. After sucking back two Kool-Aid Jammers (Blue Raspberry flavor), we set out to pick up Neil and Matt.

I must admit I had my doubts with the whole crazy course layout and different running speeds, but the plan actually did work out exactly according to plan. By the time we got to the 15km mark, we only had to wait about 2 minutes for Neil to show up, and by the time we got back to Deerhurst, Matt was casually sprinting in within 5 minutes of us pulling in.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around downtown Huntsville. Matt and I bought a set of stone coasters for our coffee table (they had moose on them which Matt quite liked) and we looked around a local bike shop as well to get a feel for the new bike that Neil is looking at buying for the race. I played with the idea of buying a Camelback (aka a small backpack full of water that you can drink out of during endurance events) since I’m struggling to take my hands off of the handlebars at all when I’m on the bike (without swerving like a crazy person anyways). I’m hoping to not really stop at all while biking during races, and I know how important it is to stay hydrated during something like this, so I need to start either learning how to reach down for my water bottle on the bike, or figure out another option.

All in all – the training weekend was a huge success, and just the kick in the butt that I was hoping it would be for training. I think the biggest thing that the weekend accomplished was showing me what it will take to actually finish the race. If I walked away with three “action items” from the weekend they would be:

1) I need to train on hills. Running and biking on flat terrain simply won’t cut it.

2) I need to run for longer. My long distance run needs work. 10km is good, but considering that I was starting basically fresh and was still pretty tired at the end, I need to really work on increasing my mileage on the run so that 20km is “no big deal” as Matt says.

3) I need to work harder in spin class. Now that I know what climbing a “real” hill feels like, I can attest that I definitely have NOT been using the right amount of resistance on the spin bike in spin class.

Matt, Neil, Jess and I have already been talking about going back up to Muskoka at some point in July to get another training weekend in on the course before September. I think both Neil and I (and even Matt) felt like we got a lot out of the weekend, and another one should only help our chances!

Phew! Well that about wraps up the Muskoka Training Weekend recap!

I’ll leave you today with an initiative that I learned about from a friend of mine named Angela who blogs over at www.eat-spin-run-repeat.com.  

About 3 weeks ago, Under Armour launched a campaign named “What’s Beautiful”. The aim of the campaign is to show the world what it means to be a female athlete. To join the movement, you set a huge goal, shout it from the mountaintops and then document your progress through pictures and videos along your journey to achieving it. Each week, Under Armour issues new “challenges” as well (for example one of the most recent challenges asks us to document ourselves climbing a hill – either a physical or a metaphorical one). It’s a campaign about getting stuff done, about making things happen and about being totally and completely fearless. I love the concept, and although I’m already kind of on a journey to a huge goal, I decided to create a profile and join the “What’s Beautiful” movement on Under Armour as well.

If you are interested in joining me, setting your own massive goal (think BHAG) and breaking down some walls, then I encourage you to pop on over and sign up for a profile yourself!!

Fittingly enough, my goal is to train hard to cross the finish line of the Muskoka Half IronMan with a smile on my face. I’ve also added two more considerations to my goal: the first to get a handle on cooking healthy meals and the second to manage my stress better. I’m not great with a camera, but hopefully I can find some creative ways to document my progress over the summer 🙂

Have a great week – and in the true spirit of What’s Beautiful – let’s crush some goals and make stuff happen!!!

Man, why is it that short weeks always feel the longest? I can’t believe it’s only Wednesday. I hope that your week is moving along a little quicker than mine is!

So, this morning I owe you one BIG training weekend recap (sorry it’s coming to you a day late)! I’ll start off by saying that the weekend was an enormous success; I am so thrilled that we went up and did it. I’m feeling so much more confident about the race now then I was 5 days ago.

Matt and I hit the road for Muskoka on Friday afternoon around 4:30pm (I know, are we crazy trying to get out of the city at 4:30pm on the Friday of a long weekend? The traffic wasn’t as heinous as I thought it would be thank god). It was a 2.5 hour drive, and we made it to our hotel in pretty decent time. We were both a little surprised at how empty the hotel was, there were literally three other cars in the hotel parking lot when we pulled in. What we failed to notice was the absolutely massive tour bus that was parked around the back of the hotel, which had evidently brought about 75 Asian tourists to the hotel for the night. We strolled into the lobby of the hotel literally mid-sentence commenting on how dead the hotel was, and walked into the total and complete pandemonium of 75 non-English speaking Asian people trying to check into the hotel!

Oh irony, you never fail to amuse me.

Neil and Jess made it to Muskoka a little later in the evening; they were trekking in from Kingston so it was a much longer drive for them. We were all pretty exhausted so we hit the hay pretty early on Friday night. It was going to be a big day of biking the next day.

On Saturday morning I woke up totally stressed and freaked out, and thinking furiously of some way to get out of this whole biking thing. One thing after the other contributed to my escalating stress level. It was everything from me absolutely hating how my legs look in my new Lululemon bike shorts (I think they look like Bratwurst sausages) to the horrific realization that there really wasn’t going to be a “bike lane” on the roads that we needed to bike on and that we would be biking alongside cars on the road. By the time we got to the boat launch that we had decided would be our starting point, I was about one piece of stressful news away from a heart attack.

 

We got out of the car and instantly got swarmed by FLOCKS of black flies (I’m serious, flocks), so Jess and I hid out in my car while Matt and Neil put Jilly and Neil’s bike together outside. The plan was for Neil and I to start out together, and see how we were feeling. Although we had set the goal of  biking 50 or 60 kilometres that day, we knew that there was no shoulder on a lot of the highway that we needed to bike on, so we decided to play it by ear and make a judgment call when we got to those points in the course. We hopped on our bikes and started away down the course. Here goes nothing.

I was so beyond freaked out for that first 10km stretch. We were on a relatively quiet road, but every car that passed us scared the bajesus out of me. Our average speed was about 15km/hour for that first stretch, and we only came across about 2 hills that were serious enough for me to remember them now. I got my first taste of climbing a “real” hill on a bike (not the imaginary hills that the spin class instructors put in front of you when they tell you to CRANK THAT DIAL).

It was somewhat different then spin class, that’s all I’ll say.

That being said, although hills suck considerably more on the road then they do in spin class, you really do miss out on the absolute best part of road biking when you’re stuck on a stationary bike, and that is the downhills. In that first 10km stretch, we went down several downhills, and I have to admit, it was pretty phenomenal. I had a death grip on my brakes the whole way down the hill, but still got moving at a decent clip. By the time we met up with Matt and Jess at the end of that first stretch, I was feeling much more comfortable on the bike, a little less afraid of cars and starting to find my groove.

Something clicked in me at the junction where we first met up with Matt and Jess. We were coming off of the quiet road that we had been on, and had to turn onto the Highway 60, which is the main highway around Muskoka. The 60 is four lanes of fast moving traffic, no shoulder on the side of the road, and nothing but rock cut and steep ditch on either side. There really isn’t much margin for error. I had originally remained steadfast and stubborn that there was no way in hell I was going to ride my bike on that road with all of those cars and hazards, but for some reason when we got to that junction, something inside of me just switched off. Or maybe a more accurate depiction is that something inside of me switched on.

Yea, you might die on the side of the road getting hit by a car or a truck. You might crash your bike into a rock cut and maim or disfigure yourself. You might get a flat tire or lock up your wheels and wipe out going 40km/hour down a hill and have road rash and broken bones for years to come.

Or you could be sitting at home in bubble wrap, safe and warm with your feet up as secure as you can possibly be, and have a doctor call you up and tell you that you have cancer.

What’s the point of living in fear? If we don’t live while we’re alive then what the hell is the point? So you make it to your grave at the age of 98 without a scratch, scrape or crooked bone on you, having never really lived? Is it worth it?

Matt and Neil were discussing the road conditions, Neil said that he was game to give it a try and see how he made out, and the words came spilling out of my mouth before I could think to reel them back that I was in, let’s do this.

From that point onwards, everything changed. Our average speed picked up from 15 km/hour to hovering between 23 and 28km/hour. I stopped braking on the downhills and hit a top speed of 48.8km/hour coming down one of the steeper hills. Neil and I started chatting on the flat stretches and marveling at the absolutely stunning surroundings (okay that was more me then Neil, but he gamely listened and agreed with me when I squealed about rock cuts and glittering lakes). We both agreed that biking is WAY kinder to your body then running and spent about 10km discussing the reasons why (sorry Matt ;)), and by the time we reached our second water/snack station (set up by Matt and Jess who were the best road crew we could have ever asked for), we had crushed through 52km.

 

We both felt absolutely terrific, we were joking around and laughing, taking pictures with Matt and Jess…at this point I was wondering what all the fuss with this biking thing was about. It was fun! The decision to finish off the extra 8km to make our 60km stretch goal was a no-brainer, Matt and Jess took off to wait for us 8km ahead, and we set off to finish the bike for the day.

What could possibly go wrong in 8km….right?

Wrong.

Immediately after setting off, Neil turned to me and said “I don’t think we should have stopped”. I was feeling the same thing. Although my legs weren’t in pain, they felt sluggish and heavy. The road was a rougher pavement then the one we had been riding on all day, and it was starting to bite back against the tires. And then we hit the hills.

Oh the hills.

We had been up and down hills all day long, but these last three really took the cake. When we came across the first one, I think we both swore a bit inside, but somehow we made it up together. The trouble arose when there was no downhill section between that hill and the next beast of a hill. There was a couple hundred metres of flat road, and then it was right back up again. This was where things got interesting.

Both Neil and I were TOTALLY dying. And I mean totally dying. It’s a bizarre feeling to be dying on a bike, because when you’re running and you’re dying, you just stop running. But on the bike, as we learned, sometimes you don’t get to make that decision for yourself. Sometimes, your legs decide when they can’t go anymore, and that’s the end of the discussion.

I should mention that Neil and I have completely different styles of climbing hills on a bike. Neil, in his yellow leader jersey no less, climbs hills like cycling legend Lance Armstrong. He likes the low gears, gets out of his saddle and climbs from a standing position with a bit of sway side to side.

I, in my pink long sleeve shirt, climb hills like the somewhat overweight German cyclist Jan Ullrich. Ullrich was famous for showing up at the Tour de France slightly overweight (don’t believe me? Type “Jan Ullrich” into Google and “Jan Ulrich fat” is the third most popular search term that appears. No joke). He was a powerhouse rider that climbed mountains from a seated position in a high gear. He rarely ever stood to climb.

So Neil hops out of his saddle to climb this second hill, and I’m chugging away in my saddle like a big German diesel engine. We are both totally dying, and then Neil’s legs made the decision that they had had enough and were going to stop on him. I was in my own world of misery and had no idea. He told me to keep going and I chugged slowly past him and up the rest of the hill, to thankfully, a nice downhill on the other side.

While I was gasping for air like never before cruising down the hill, I turned my head at the bottom, and was relieved to see Neil coming speeding down the downhill after me. He caught up to me at the bottom of the hill and neither of us really spoke. We had both seen what was coming next, and knew that it wasn’t going to be pretty.

Another hill. Maybe two grades steeper than the last two.

We came up on that third hill, and the wheels just came off for both of us. Poor Neil’s legs (and bike by the sounds of it!!) quit on him and I chugged past him towards the top again, but then my own legs gave out on me as well, and I ended up swerving off the road and burying Jilly’s front wheel in the sandy shoulder. I had to get off and walk her the last third of the hill. When I got back on, I assumed that Neil was right behind me. Thank GOD the rest of the 8km was downhill, and I’ve never been so happy to see Matt in my entire life.

When I did pull in to where Matt was standing, he joked “Oh I see you’ve made your move!” to which I tersely replied “We got our asses kicked”. I assumed that Neil would have been right behind me, but minutes went by, and no Neil to be seen. I was freaking out that I had abandoned my training partner back on the hill, and after he had stayed with me all day!

When he did pull up shortly after, he was covered in sand on one side of his body, and I was totally horrified thinking that he had wiped out. Turned out that his legs had quit on him just like mine did back on the third hill, but he wasn’t able to unclip his clip-in pedals in time to get his foot down on the ground, and so he kind of toppled right over with his bike into the sandy shoulder – thank God not onto pavement.

(It’s okay to laugh – we all sure did ;))

 

And so concludes our day of bike training. We had a good laugh about that last 8km (I’m still laughing actually, what a total disaster that was), cleaned ourselves up, Matt went for a run around Muskoka, and we all sat in the hot tub before heading out for dinner. The next day we had plans to run between 10 and 15km, the weekend was far from over yet.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the run day recap – and sorry for the marathon post!! 🙂

Before you head out, tell me, what did you get up to on your long weekend?!

Is it the long weekend yet? We’ve got to be getting close now.

Today is actually my last day of work before the long weekend, I took tomorrow off to do some errands and get my tattered, raggedy looking hair done for the first time in 7 months, hurray!

I’m sorry for the long stretch without an update; it’s been a very busy couple of weeks. In case you were wondering, my brother is out of the hospital and is now receiving his chemo treatments as an out-patient. It’s really nice to have him back at my parent’s house, and I think everyone’s morale is up a little bit now. That being said, he does need to be careful to protect himself from infection and catching any type of sickness. There have been major ups and major downs to get us to this point. Cancer (not unlike the Muskoka IronMan) is a very hilly course to travel.

Good thing for strong quads 😉

 

Training has been going well. I’ve been getting out to RPM classes, and have even done a couple of bikes outside on Jilly. I also bit the bullet and ordered myself a pair of Lululemon padded bike shorts. I always swore I would never buckle and wear those “diaper looking” shorts, but when my bum hurt after a leisurely half hour ride, I figured it would be best to take some precautions before I sit on her for 4 hours straight. I even bought a memory foam seat cover. I’m not messing around okay.

I haven’t been running or swimming at all. I’m really struggling to get motivated to run. I need an impending race to scare the daylights out of me and get me to do some long runs. That being said, Matt, Neil, Jess and I are all going up to Muskoka this weekend to do some biking and running on the actual race course! It’s all a bit surreal that it’s this time already. I can remember back in December thinking to myself that it would be a good idea to go up and do some training on the course. It seemed like a lifetime away at the time.

Anyways – I’ll be back on Monday with a recap of the training weekend, hopefully we’ll all make some big strides and get “kick-started” into the next few months of preparation. The real purpose of today’s post though is to tell you about a little something called….

BODYSHRED

I know right, sounds so aggressive!

Late in the week last week, I saw a status on Facebook that got my attention. It was posted by the general manager of one of the Goodlife clubs in Hamilton, and it advertised: “JILLIAN MICHAELS IS COMING TO TEACH BODYSHRED AT OUR CLUB!! Call the club to register your spot!!”

In case you live under a rock (or just don’t waste your life watching reality TV like I do), Jillian Michaels is the celebrity trainer from that NBC show “The Biggest Loser”. She is about 5 foot nothing, 100 pounds soaking wet, and has a voice on her like she borrowed it from an NFL linebacker. The woman is terrifying. She’s tough as nails, doesn’t take any BS, has no time for excuses, and really, genuinely doesn’t seem to give a shit if her workouts make you puke, faint or cry.

I totally love her.

I’ve watched Jillian for years and years on The Biggest Loser, I’m a huge fan. A few months ago we got news at Goodlife that Jillian was going to be partnering with Goodlife to launch her brand new group fitness class (BODYSHRED) exclusively at our clubs in the next year. The fact that she was coming IN PERSON to teach the class in Hamilton was totally outrageous. I had to be there.

I called the club immediately to register my spot, but unfortunately 2,400 people beat me to it. The girl on the other end of the line (who sounded totally harassed and like she was in desperate need of a tequila shot or 20) busily explained to me that there was a huge influx of registrations, way too many for them to handle, and that head office was going to take over and do a lottery draw for the 40 spots in the class with Jillian. She took my name and phone number, and I hung up expecting never to hear from them again.

Would you believe that they freakin’ called me on Tuesday of this week to tell me that I had been chosen for the class on Wednesday afternoon!??!?!? AHHHH!!!

I seriously can’t remember the last time I’ve been so excited about anything, I was beside myself. The class was yesterday and it was awesome! BODYSHRED is a 30 minute workout that follows the 3-2-1 philosophy. 3 minutes of strength, 2 minutes of cardio and 1 minute of abs/core work. Jillian re-vamped the workout a little bit for us because I think she wanted to make someone cry, so she amped up the amount of cardio big time.

Thankfully, I did not cry, although kind of felt like it at one point.

A lot of people have asked me how BODYSHRED compares to BodyAttack, and the short answer is “it doesn’t”. It’s like comparing a watermelon to a roast beef sandwich. They aren’t the same type of workout, and shouldn’t be compared. Both of them kick my butt in different ways, and are challenging, high intensity workouts. Of course, my heart and soul are both still firmly entrenched in BodyAttack. I think they always will be.

BODYSHRED was a nice change from the classes that I do 5 days a week. It was good to mix things up a bit, challenge myself in new ways, and getting screamed at by Jillian Michaels was pretty freakin’ fantastic! When BODYSHRED launches at the clubs eventually, I think it would be a class I’d like to take maybe once a week or every other week to keep things fresh and challenge my fast twitch muscle fibres (our group exercise classes are notorious for being heavily geared towards slow-twitch muscle fibres).

I’ll leave you with a bunch of the pictures that I took during the workout; unfortunately Jillian had to make a very quick exit after class because she had to get to a speaking engagement downtown so I wasn’t able to get a picture with her 😦

My overall impression was that she is a very busy lady, and that maybe she isn’t as much of a hardass as she seems on TV. Although she was tough and very demanding in her teaching, she also seemed to empathize with those that were struggling, and offered options as well. That being said, I do seem to recall her yelling “GET YOUR ASS DOWN RIGHT NOW OR I’M REALLY GOING TO LOSE IT”…………………………make of that what you will 😉

Have a fabulous long weekend – train hard and meet me back here on Tuesday to tell me all about it!!!

Happy Wednesday!

The weather where we are has been absolutely out of this world all week, on Monday it was 27 degrees! The sun was shining, the sky was blue and it was really spectacular to get outside and enjoy some fresh air. The entire community seems to be coming alive, people out running, walking their dogs, watering their lawn, playing ball hockey on the road and biking. Oh and speaking of biking……

I BOUGHT MY BIKE FOR THE IRONMAN 70.3 THIS WEEKEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The last bike I ever owned was a “Huffy” brand bike, I think the last time I rode it was about 10 years ago (or more) and from what I remember, I totally sucked at it. When we were kids my Dad used to ride his bike with my brothers and I about 5km to McDonalds, and I can remember one year I was too tired to make it back to our house and my mom had to come and pick me and my bike up on the side of the road. Oh the shame.

I did some research before going out to shop. My biggest fear was getting a bike where I had to ride in a “tucked” position for the entire time. Basically, I just really, really don’t want to be this guy:

 

I know that the “aero tuck” as the cyclists call it is absolutely the most aerodynamic riding position, creates the least drag and shaves precious seconds off your time. In a sport won and lost in miliseconds, those seconds can be a total make or break.

But let’s be serious – I’m not planning on winning the Muskoka 70.3 Ironman. (Sorry to disappoint). Actually, if I cross the finish line at all, I’ll count myself darn lucky. Since I’m planning on being on my bike for about 4 hours, and then will have to get off it and run a half marathon, I’d really, really like to be somewhat comfortable on it.

I learned from my research that what I was really after was a “road bike” vs. a “tri-bike”. Tri-Bikes seem to be much more aerodynamic, and use energy more efficiently for triathletes because of the riding position. On a tri-bike, the riding position is much more forward then on a road bike. What the forward position does for you is transfer the working load into your hamstrings and spares the quads from having to work as hard as they would otherwise. This in turn saves your quads for the run after you get off the bike. Genius in theory, but I just can’t live with the forward position. Not yet anyways. Maybe I’ll get there.

Sorry quads.

So road bike it is. I knew approximately how much I wanted to spend, so Matt and I figured that we would just walk into a couple of bike shops and ask someone to help us find a bike. We strolled into the first shop and a very nice man explained a bit about road bikes to us, and gave me two options to pick from, one within my price range, and one outside of my price range slightly, but a “step up” in caliber. Both were this kind of ugly teal colour, but I kept my mouth shut for fear of sounding vain. It’s not how the bike looks; it’s how it performs right?

I almost got swayed for the more expensive bike, but thankfully Matt and the guy from the store reeled me back in by pointing out that since this is my first bike, if I do end up loving the sport (and I really hope that I do), I’m going to want to upgrade the bike in not too long as it is and go for the multiple thousand dollar carbon-fiber bike. I seriously doubt I’ll ever spend multiple thousand dollars on a bike, but hey, anything can happen I suppose.

We went on to our next stop, and that was where all the magic happened.

Another very nice sales man brought me over to (you guessed it) another teal bike. What is with all of the cheaper bike models coming in teal?! The bike seemed nice enough, similar to the one that I had looked at in the first shop, except a little bit cheaper. Our sales man had to walk away for a minute to help out someone else, and when he did, that’s when my eye caught sight of a foxy black and pink beauty 3 bikes over from the teal one.

I casually wandered over and started stroking the bike. She was beautiful. Matt and I figured that it would be one of those multiple thousand dollar bikes, and probably even more for the colour on it. When the sales man came back, I closed my eyes and asked the question. How much for the foxy black and pink bike? When he replied cheerfully that this was just the 2013 colour for the teal bike that we had just been looking at, and it still fell within my budget, I wept with joy.

Well, I didn’t weep, but I did jump a bit and do a lot of happy squealing. Matt wasn’t impressed with my bargaining skills.

I was ready to pull out my credit card right then and there, but we had to wait a couple of hours for them to set up the bike in my size in the back so I could take it on a test drive. While we were waiting we checked out one more bike shop, got totally insulted by this very rude man with terrible hair and walked out without looking at a single bike.

I took my black and pink baby for a test ride around the parking lot and was so shaky on it that I think the poor 16 year old kid that was trying to help me was worried about his own personal liability in the whole situation. It didn’t really help that I was wearing sandals and jean capris pants I guess, but I felt like I had never ridden a bike in my entire life!!

 A couple swipes of the Visa later and we were walking out with her in tow!!

Allow me to introduce: Jill. Or Jill the Giant.

She’s pretty 🙂

On Sunday morning I took Jilly for a little 3km ride around our neighbourhood streets and I felt awesome!! Much less shaky when I was dressed properly (and wearing a helmet).

 

Things started to click when I was on the bike big time. I started to realize that my body type (with my bulkier frame and thick thighs) was totally NOT built to run long distances. Everything about the way my body is built works in direct opposition to running. But everything about the way my body is built is TOTALLY made for biking. It will take some practice and a lot of long rides, but I’m hopeful that the bike will actually be a strong leg of the race for me in triathlons. I also love it because it’s non-impact and is kind to my joints!!

Now, if anyone knows of a 90km, kind of hilly but completely and totally abandoned road with zero cars on it in the Greater Toronto Area, please let me know. I’m scared silly I’m going to get hit by a car on the road!!!!

Have a great afternoon everyone and GO LEAFS GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

No I’m serious, I mean EVER.

I’ve kind of touched on the fact that I am really awful in the kitchen before, but I think I’ve out done even myself this time. But first let me explain how this god awful smoothie came to be. It all started on Friday night at the grocery store when I stumbled across this:

 

 I’ve heard everyone and their brother talk about how great Kale is for you. It’s everywhere. Kale this, kale that, kale will cure cancer, rocket ship you to the moon, allow you to lift vehicles and a handful of it is a suitable replacement for 12 hours of sleep…

I decided to look up some of the benefits of this dark green leafy little gem myself so that I could see what all the fuss is about. Consider my socks “knocked off”. This stuff is the real deal!

 

1327% of your daily Vitamin K??? 354% of your daily Vitamin A???

Interested in particular about the “cancer prevention” properties of Kale, I dove a little deeper, and found this article from World’s Healthiest Foods that explains all about the health properties of this super food, and why we shouldn’t live another day without it.

The long and short of it is that Kale seems to do a really good job of combatting something called “oxidative stress” (or a compromising of our oxygen metabolism) and chronic inflammation. Both oxidative stress and chronic inflammation are risk factors for developing cancer. So preventing them is a good thing.

I’m sold. Into the cart the frozen chopped Kale went.

The problem that I often have when grocery shopping is that I act kind of impulsively, and don’t really plan ahead very well. I hardly ever take a grocery list to the store and I’m usually running a mile a minute just trying to get in and get out so that I can get on to whatever or whoever is waiting for me to finish up. The result is that I often end up with a hodge podge of ingredients, and bits and pieces of meals in my house, none of which really go together. It was the same story with the Kale.

By the time Sunday night came around and I started thinking about how this week was going to be awesome, how I was going to start eating really well and really get my training underway, I remembered the Kale sitting in my freezer! What a terrific way to start the week – with a big, yummy, cancer-fighting, energy powerhouse Kale Smoothie!

Of course, when push came to shove, I had basically no ingredients to put in my smoothie. My strawberries and blueberries had gone mouldy on my counter over the weekend, the only juice I had was orange juice (and I just couldn’t stomach the thought of putting orange juice on my Kale), I had one last, lonely banana that was nearly black and very soft and gooey, and a carton of 1% milk. After rummaging in my freezer a bit, I did also come up with a bag of frozen “Summer Fruit Salad”.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

This morning at 7:15am I cheerfully tossed about 2 cups of the frozen Kale, a handful of the summer fresh fruit salad, that black banana and about 2 cups (or more) of milk into my blender and whirled ‘er away.

Matt’s family was in town for a family wedding this weekend, and Matt’s mom Dianne happened to be up to witness this whole endeavor. She politely didn’t say anything while I floundered around the kitchen (although I sure would have liked to have been inside her head while she watched the whole thing) until I finished whirring away, and she wandered over and pretty much summed up the whole adventure in five words:

“It doesn’t look too good”.

 

Yuck.

Now in all fairness – I know not to judge a smoothie by its appearance. I’ve heard all about these “green” smoothies, and everyone swears that they taste fantastic, even though they look like pond scum. I decided to give my Kale Beauty the benefit of the doubt. Bottoms up.

It was absolutely, completely and totally, mouth puckeringly awful. And that’s being diplomatic. There wasn’t much taste to it, except for this really bitter, awful after taste that I STILL have in my mouth 4 hours later, but the texture was just repulsive.

Shudder.

I’m not giving up on Kale yet, but I definitely need to find a better recipe for it. Does anybody out there actually enjoy this stuff and have any suggestions for getting it down without your mouth puckering like you just took a Tequila shot?!?

Hope your week is off to a great start – what have you got on tap for training this week?! How about any eating goals?! Talk to me!

Happy Monday 🙂