A Mega Post: Travel, Training, & the Halfminds!

Alright, I know I just fell off the face of my blog for the past week.  I did start a post last Thursday but never finished it due to travel issues that gave me an unplanned overnight in Detroit and left me running on 2 hours of sleep last Friday (not great).  Then over the weekend I spent Saturday catching up with friends and ran a relay on Sunday.  The craziness of my schedule continued Monday when I joined in the Boston Strong Syracuse event and last night officially started our kickball season!!  So, my life is a little crazy right now, and I haven’t had the time or inspiration to catch up with writing this past week.  However, I am going to change that right now and use my lunch break to catch you up on the happenings of the past week!  (Warning: long blog post to ensue.)

So first, the travel schedule – I had a board meeting to attend in Kansas City last week.  Nothing too exciting here, but it did make for some interesting scheduling of my workouts in the hotel.  Also, it gave me a chance to look pretty crazy to the other people in the workout room as I kept jumping between the stationary bike and the treadmill for my brick workout.   

Hotel gyms are not my favorite.

As I mentioned, on my way back from KC I was stranded in Detroit due to weather.  I’m not going to get into details since I was pretty frustrated with the entire situation, but I will share the one bright point which was the ability to have some Caribou Coffee the next morning when I returned to the airport at 4:30 am for my second attempt to return home.

The time in the airport also gave me some time to think about my upcoming races… I checked out my countdown app and realized that the racing season is truly upon me! The next three up:

When I finally returned home Friday around noon, I was exhausted and most of Friday was spent just trying to catch some rest and fit in my swim workout.  Which I will say, swimming when your body is exhausted is not fun.  I really think that workout was one of the longest swim workouts that I have ever endured.

Saturday brought sunny skies to Syracuse, however when you got outside, the wind and temperatures reminded you that yes, we do still live in Upstate NY and no it’s not quite spring yet.  Regardless of what the calendar might say.   I was supposed to have a 3 hour outdoor bike ride for my training, so my friend and I decided to attempt an outdoor ride even though it was only about 45-50 degrees out.  We lasted 1 hour 20 minutes before we called it a day.  My toes were SO cold.  I guess I now understand why some bikers have covers for their shoes for colder days.  I’m definitely ready for spring to actually arrive since I have another 3 hour ride scheduled for this coming weekend. 

Sunday brought about The Seneca 7 Relay Race. Myself and a few friends from my running group signed up for this relay back around Christmas.   This race starts in Geneva, NY and runs the entire length (77.7 miles) around Seneca Lake (one of the Finger Lakes in Upstate NY).   Our team decided to run under the name “The Halfminds” and we also decided to dress up for the event with the guys sporting kilts and the girls in tutus.  One of girls made blue and yellow ribbons for us to wear in honor of the events in Boston last week and we also decided to sport the blue and yellow in our tutus.  I was surprised that not very many people dressed up in any crazy outfits for this relay.  Definitely a different experience than Ragnar… but it did mean that our team was pretty popular.  I feel we had our picture taken a LOT by other runners and the event staff.

The race started at 7:30 am and we were to report at the start line around 6:30 – along with travel time, this meant a 4:30 am departure from my house Sunday morning.  I have to admit these early mornings are one of the things that I both love and hate about racing.  I really hate getting up that early, but once I’m up and going I love the fact that I am up before the sun and ready to take on the day! 

The Halfminds at the Start Line…

CBW & I in our tutus!

I have to admit, I was pretty hesitant about the whole running in a tutu bit, I’ve seen other people run in them and just thought it would be annoying and slow you down.  However, it turns out that running in a tutu is really fun and didn’t bother me a bit (must be my inner 7 year old shining though)!

In fact, I actually hit a new PR this week with my first leg of the relay.  I ran 4.6 miles in 33 minutes, leaving me a 7:15 pace!  (Seriously, when did I learn how to run?)

My running stats for this race were as follows:

Leg 1: 4.6 miles, roadkills 22-4

 

Leg 2: 4.9 miles, roadkills 16-1 

 

Leg 3: 2.6 mile, roadkills 7-1

In short, I think I’ll just always run in a tutu. Why?  For 3 simple reasons:
      1) I’m sure people are just thrilled to be passed by a chick in a tutu.
      2) It made me run faster [just kidding, I know my training is paying off]
      3) It’s fun.

Note: Reason 3 is definitely the most important reason.

Hanging out with the team, trying to stay warm before my second leg!

Our team at the finish line – ready to do this again next year!

After the race on Sunday, I definitely woke up a little sore Monday.  (My legs are not used to running that fast, for that many miles…) The good thing is that my schedule was calling for a planned rest day… the bad news was that I found out about the Boston Strong Syracuse event and wanted to participate.  Luckily CBW and RB who also ran Seneca 7 had the same reaction.  We all decided to grab some yellow and blue (of course I grabbed the tutu) and head to the parkway to walk in the event to show support.   Also, I think Rox was excited that I decided to walk since that meant I could bring her along.  She sported the blue and yellow ribbon that Nurse had made me. 

Rox is ready for the Boston Strong event.

Overall, Syracuse had a fantastic turnout for the event and got some great local news coverage.  Our friend even got on the 9WSYR news clip (see the guy with headband toward the end – you can see Roxie in the background to the left…).

Yesterday, I headed down to Ithaca to be a guest lecturer for the Cornell Vet students for work, then I had a chance to stop by one of the local wine stores that I used to go to when I was at undergrad.  I was SO excited because they carried Zuccardi wine!  I met the Zuccardi family last May when I traveled to Argentina with my grad school class, so it was very cool to be able to buy a bottle of their wine in the US!  Now if only I could just travel back to South America again for another week…

Zuccardi!!

So if you’re still reading, I’m impressed.  But seriously, thanks, hopefully you’re finding some of this interesting.  I thought I would leave off this post with a three random tidbits and teasers for this week.

First: My current song obsession.  I’ve been listening to this for about 2 weeks, and I haven’t managed to kill it yet, but I’m sure I will shortly. 

Obsessed.

Second: I’m 9 weeks from Syracuse 70.3.  Training is going well, and I’m excited to see what lies ahead as I continue to work with Coach K!

Training Plans Continue!

Last:  Remember Chickin Wing Wednesday?  Well, we’re following up with Mac and Cheese Monday.  Stay tuned for updates on the delicious (this time homemade) goodness of the next food tasting expedition!

Coming up: Mac and Cheese Monday!

I hope you’re all having a great week & hopefully I’ll post a little more often to avoid the need for another mega-post like this!

A weekend of mini road-trips.

This weekend was a weekend of mini-road trips.  To start off, Friday night I headed down to Ithaca to revisit my old stomping grounds from undergrad.  It was a beautiful afternoon and a great excuse to get away from home for a bit and enjoy a good walk down memory lane.  While many things are still the same, a lot has changed over the course of the past 7 years – yes, 7 years – not sure how that happened.  Time really does fly.  There were so many new buildings on campus, all with new design features which sit alongside the traditional buildings.  It was a little weird, but kind of neat to see all the changes too.  After a long walk around campus with a friend, we grabbed dinner at an Irish pub in the commons before grabbing a drink at the Chapter House and then a second one at Dunbars – oh the memories I have from those two bars.  College certainly was a fun and interesting time, and it was a fun to relive a few of those memories!

The Clock Tower – Cornell University.

One of the new buildings at Cornell.

A little visit to Dunbars…

On Saturday morning, I was up bright and early to head up to Fulton for a two hour swim clinic with my coach.  The pool in Fulton really is beautiful.  It made me a little jealous compared to the city pools… but I guess that is to be expected.  The swim clinic was a good breakdown of form and technique to help boost power and efficiency in the water.  Definitely all good things for helping me finish the 1.2 mile swim that I’ll be completing in the Syracuse 70.3!

Morning Swim Session in Fulton.

After the swim clinic, my coach and a few of the girls that are on the team headed to Oswego for a computrainer session.  This was the first time I had completed a computrainer session and I have to admit it was totally cool.  Basically your bike is hooked up to a trainer that is controlled by a computer to add resistance, incline, etc.  It also measures cadence, mph, power output, and other stats.  The goal of the day was to complete a 20 minute Time Trial to help set our heart rate zones and then to ride a portion of the Lake Placid Ironman course.

I had no idea what to expect with the Time Trial since you basically want to ride full out for 20 minutes to determine your max heart rate.  The owner told us to monitor our power output and let us know that generally the best bikers average about a 170 output for the trial.  With this information, he warned us to not go too hard in the beginning and that we might want to stick with 150-160 on the power meters. However, about 10 minutes into the trial, I realized that I had a lot of energy left and started to push a bit.  After the trial was over, I found that I was able to average a 187 – and still had energy left over… which means that I want to try again since I realize that I could have gone a lot harder.  We get to try again in about a month, so hopefully I can get a better read next time!

Afternoon Computrainer Session in Oswego

After the swimming and biking on Saturday, I scooted home to watch SU win the game against Marquette to earn a spot in the final four (Yea CUSE!).  Later I was able to catch my old roomie and her husband who live in NZ on Skype for a bit.  It was so great to catch up and to see her,  since I have not talked to her in a few months now.  She’s about to have a baby in the next month or so and it was fun to see her with her baby bump!  Also, I’m super excited since she, her husband, and the baby will be coming to the US this summer!! I can’t wait to see her again, it’s been almost 2 years since we’ve seen each other (other than on Skype).  Finally, I closed out Saturday by catching a drink with a friend to celebrate the SU win, a great ending to a fantastic day!

On Sunday, the Easter Bunny visited our house and brought Rox a new toy.  It’s pretty much the coolest toy ever… a purple dinosaur which actually made it a whole half hour before she was able to rip into it and kill the squeaker (that’s a new record for a squeak toy in our house).

Rox & her present from the Easter Bunny!

The rest of Easter included a 6 mile trail run in Green Lakes in the rain.  I thought I would find a lot of mud to have some fun in, but surprisingly the trails were almost bone dry – even in the upper trails of the park!  I was shocked as I usually get at least a few mud runs in during the spring.  I guess it shows you how dry the region really is right now.  It also makes me hope that we don’t continue to have a drought again this summer.  That would really hurt a lot of the farms in the region to go through a second dry summer.

Finally, I finished out Easter by going to a coworker’s family gathering in Caz.  She invited myself and another coworker to attend, it was really fun, the food was fabulous and everyone was super friendly.  They really made us feel quite at home, and it was a great way to spend the holiday evening!

Now, we’re back to Monday which started off with a cold and rainy morning.  Looks like the start of spring might continue to be a little cold, but I’m going to keep crossing my fingers for some warmer temps.  Although I have to admit that the cold weather does make it easier to continue to stick to my workout plan involving the bike trainer and the treadmill.

Back at it – Full Schedule this week!

We’re into block #2 of training and starting to build the workouts again this week.  I have my first brick workout this Wednesday and a couple of whopper workouts coming toward the weekend with a 13 mile run on Friday and a 2.5 hour bike ride Sunday.  In between these 2 fun workouts, I have my youngest sister’s wedding on Saturday!! Can’t wait for the fun, festivities and the dancing!  It should be a fun filled weekend after what is promised to be a busy week at work!  🙂