It's been a while...

OK, so I'm a terrible blogger.  It's true. But I'm feeling the urge to get back at it.  Since my last post, I survived the worst winter on record in Boston (it really was awful),

My walk to the train

My backyard, mid storm. Yes, it got deeper.

I got a line (which means an actual schedule for a flight attendant, not just on call) and got my daughter married off.  She was the most beautiful bride ever!

Just a little bit busy. But things are hopefully going to settle for a minute or two.  Coming up, my oldest is moving out east for a summer job, middle child is graduating and probably joining the military.  What am i going to do with only 2 kids in the house?  Well at least middle child won't be gone soon.  It takes a while to get processed.  Number 4 is going to high school and getting his drivers license soon.  And little princess is turning into a stunning young lady instead of a cute little girl.  They grow up way to fast. 

Now that we're all caught up ;)  I'm always tired, bone tired, beyond exhausted when i get home from work.  I usually need to sleep for a couple days to be human again. 

So, that combined with the constant rain of the last week,  meant I wasn't getting in any out door workouts.  

And my yard looked like the Bates Motel. So yesterday, the workout was the yard work. Got the kids involved and we dug, pulled, and mowed for a few hours.  Then little princess and I ran into Home Depot for some flowers. It was dumping when we got back, so they haven't gotten planted. But I feel like my front yard is pretty again!  

And my body is sore today! 

Training again, I am training again! (in Boston ;) )

So I haven't done any personal training for close to a year. While I always loved training, I hated the "business" aspect of it.  I just really love helping people change their lives and find their "inner athlete".  Putting a dollar value on that was hard.  But now that I'm in a different career, I find myself missing that part of my life.

I'm so excited for a new opportunity that has literally jumped right into my lap.  My beautiful, wonderful, adorable crash pad roommate and dear friend has set a goal of doing a 5k, and realized that strength training will help her meet that goal.  She asked me to help her since she's never lifted weights before.  YES YES YES!  Super excited to be helping her!

Here's the workout.  This is a great workout for getting started.  It focuses on proper form, which is critical in injury prevention.

For this workout, if you are a first timer, do 10-12 reps, and 1 set, 2-3 times the first week.  Then the next week you can move up to 2 sets.  You should feel sore from a workout, but not debilitating pain.  Keep the weight low while you learn form and then slowly increase weight.

Squats: feet shoulder width apart, push your butt back like sitting in a chair, and the goal is to sit low enough so your thighs are parallel to the ground and put the majority of your weight on your heels as you stand.

Lunge: biggest mistake in a lunge is keeping that back leg straight as you lower your body.  Bend that back leg and drop the knee down to the ground. And push back up through the front heel.

Back row:  this can be done with a resistance band or cable machine.  As you draw your elbows back, pulling the resistance towards your body, squeeze your shoulder blades together, hold and release slowly.

Push up: If you are unable to do a full push up on the floor, rather than dropping to your knees, stay on your toes and put your hands on a bench. This way you go through the full range of motion and engage your core as you build your strength, use shorter steps or benches till you can do push ups from the floor.

Shoulder press:  start with light weights, standing upright, squeeze your butt, draw in your abs. This builds core strength and protects your back.  As your raise the weight over head, don't allow the weight to fall forward.  Rotate your arms back till you can barely see your biceps in your peripheral vision. Biceps should be in line with your ears when arms are fully extended. Lower back down to shoulders.

Laying leg raise: laying on your back, start with legs up in the air, tuck your hands under your hips and pull your lower back to the floor, lower legs to the floor and raise back up.  If you cannot go all the way down, lower as far as possible so that you can still raise them back up without losing control.

And last of all a 60 second plank.  Hold your body static in pushup position.  Adjust your body into the above pushup position if holding the plank on the floor is too hard at first.  Keep your back straight.  Think of your joints and draw a straight line through your neck,  shoulders, hips, knees and ankles.

Run til you see the whites of their eyes

I spend a lot of time in Boston. A lot.  So much in fact that I've started to take the wealth of history here for granted.  While shopping for a tour guide book, my friend found me a fantastic book of runs through Boston neighborhoods. A few days ago, I decided to use it.

First up?  Charlestown and Bunker Hill!

 Here's the map.  It starts at North Station, crosses the river and then runs past the historic Constitution battleship, along the harbor, them up into Charlestown, to Bunker Hill, and then through the charming neighborhoods.

Here's the view from the Charlestown Bridge.

The Bunker Hill monument. Awesome hill climb on the road leading up to the monument with a great stair climb!

 The Charlestown neighborhoods are so charming and adorable, I could live here.  ;)

 Because I believe that the founding of this country was divinely inspired, I am fascinated with early churches. The sacrifices made by these patriots for our religious and political freedom is so inspiring.

 

 I finished off my run in the gas lamp district.  Aptly named for the still fully functional gas lamps that line the streets. SO CHARMING!  After the run, I headed to the farmers market just down the road and bought some gorgeous raspberries for breakfast. Sorry, no pics of them.  I ate them before it occurred to me to take a pic.  So you'll just have to imagine them!

Sightseeing and a Workout

It's such a beautiful day for a run along the Charles River with my friend Maria. I just had to share the scenery with all of you! 

32 Miles of Awesome

I swam in the Hudson, biked down the middle of a major NYC highway and ran through central park chatting with strangers. Three things I never imagined doing in my whole life. And peed my pants doing all three.  Yep.  You read that right.  Triathlon is the only sport where it's OK to do that.  ;)

My husband Mark, aka The Sherpa, accompanied me for obvious reasons (see nickname again if you didn't get it). Because he's also an endurance athlete, he gets it. He knows all the crap I need to get done, the massive amounts of equipment i need to haul around,  and doesn't question why I need my $7 watch from Walmart (that has been on every race for 5 years).

Or why I have to do my pre-race routine exactly the same way every time.

He also doesn't complain when I make him haul my bike in its case (52 lbs) up to the third floor on a narrow staircase to a rented room in Harlem.  Yes, Harlem.  I now know the neighborhoods in New York much better than I used to.

So the tri transition area was in Riverside Park, next to the Hudson.  About 72nd street.  The day before, I checked in my bike, toured the transition areas, the swim entry and exit and reviewed the map of the bike ride, important turns, and the route to run from transition area, along 72nd to Central Park, around the park and to the finish line. All very good things to do.  We then proceeded to get a bit enthusiastic and walk towards our apartment in search of something to eat.  By the time we gave up and took the train, we'd walked around 5 miles that day.  NOT a good thing to do.

Morning of the tri, both phones were blaring annoying alarms at 345 am.  By 415, I was in the tri suit, bags in hand, heading to the A train downtown. Exactly on schedule.  BTW, riding the subway at that time of the morning is a little unnerving.

You hear about rats on the subway, but......

We jumped off on 72nd, and turned toward the park.  But as we approached,  it was disturbingly vacant.  Finally I saw some lights and tents. But something was off.  Not till I saw the VIP sign did I realize we are in Central Park! AT THE FINISH LINE!  Transition closes in 20 minutes and I am 10 blocks away in the center of the WRONG park.  Thank you cabbie who works the night shift!  Made it, threw down my crap and was out with 5 minutes to spare.

It's a weird experience walking to the swim start alone in a sea of thousands of athletes.  Striking up random conversations, trying to calm your nerves. I met a pro doing this race with her first timer friend, a grandpa who's done it every year since it started, and two lovely ladies who happened to be racked right next to me in transition.  What are the odds of that?

Karen got Veronica and I in more pics than I can count!  And I had the opportunity to encourage a new athlete scared to even start the race.



Along the way, some lessons were learned.

During the swim, I discovered that the Hudson really is a bit salty. Which resulted in finding that if you play "suck and blow" with the Hudson, you will lose.  I'm still hacking from that!  I also found out that even if you've never cramped before in the swim .... there's always a first time.  And big rookie mistake: don't take a wetsuit to a race that you haven't trained in recently at least once. I actually have used this wetsuit before, a couple years ago.  However I've done a lot of upper body work over the summer and my delts are definitely bigger. So the range of motion was not good.  But river swim=fast. Thank heavens!

The bike ride was gorgeous!  The Henry Hudson Parkway borders Riverside Park and is green and lush!  It also has hills.  When I think New York City, hills do not come to mind! Yay for past training in my Utah home!  While training for this race mostly happened on a spin bike, past rides on little hills like Unity Pass, climbs up to Camp Williams and killer rides up Suncrest all have taught my mind what my body is capable of doing, even though my body had kind of forgotten. Mental toughness makes all the difference.

The first little hill out of transition was really, really steep! And my chain came off right after I got up it.  As well as two more times during the race.  This is a known issue with Speedster on specific gear changes. :/ Speedster is awesome for training,  but I think Green Flash will always be my racing partner from now on.  She's super light, aerodynamic and a very sexy bike! I race WAY faster with her.

It rained quite a bit up to this point, which resulted in a LOT of triathlon glitter, aka muddy road grit, on me after the ride.  And my socks were soaked!  So glad I packed a spare pair and changed out at T2.  By this time the drizzle was about gone and the sun was coming out.

As I ran from T2 to 72nd street and towards Central Park, the reality of this whole race began to sink in.  I am running in Central Park!  Who thought little me, from small town Utah, would get to participate in this huge, amazing race through NYC!

I high-fived spectators, chatted up other racers, thanked volunteers, oorahed some marines, claimed to be Ryan to get cheers from some poster holders,  gazed at the gorgeous skyline, and just took it all in.

Crossing the finish line, I felt like such a champion.  I'm so grateful and happy I had the opportunity to do this race.  Much thanks to my employer who gave me the entry as well as the transportation!  ;)

BTW, to my single girlfriends .... you really should take up the sport.  How often do you get to see how cute a guy is,  know his age and his physical fitness level before you even exchange names.  Seriously. You're missing out ;)

Triathlon is the best sport ever! And I'm so proud to have been able to check this race off my bucket list.

Binge Eating and 7000 Stairs

Last night I had my dinner at the appropriate time on my last flight.  I had my snack and should have been able to fall asleep on time, let my body rest as long as it wanted and enjoy a nice morning.

But, instead, when the cravings hit, I didn't say no.  Nothing really bad,  just so much at the wrong time of day.  :/ epic fail.

Chocolate Dipped Kind Nut Bar   200 calories
Chocolate covered Clif Bar 140
4 squares of chocolate 200
Cocoa dusted almonds 300
Dark chocolate cashews 200
Snack pack of multi grain crackers 80
(One of these things is not like the other! )

So that's a grand total of 1120 calories right before bed.  Nothing even horrible,  and there is a common theme.  Nuts and chocolate.  Not sure what that means
... but apparently I needed whatever they offer.

Usually if I have a higher intake day here and there I don't worry about it.  My activity is high enough to absorb them randomly.
 But that's like an extra 400-500. Not 1120.

I slept like crap. Woke up multiple times, hard time falling back asleep. Awful night.

I don't need my mind thinking that eating like this is OK.  And I'm not into punishing myself for a binge. But I felt like I needed a reminder of what 1120 calories feels like.

Thus,  7000 stairs.  Yes,  you read that right, 7000 stairs.

After a little Google research,  I discovered that the average adult (150-165 lbs) will burn .11 calorie ascending and .05 calorie descending a stair.  Total = .16 per stair.  (There were higher estimates, but I found this on several sites and many had research to back the findings)

1120/.16 = 7000 stairs exactly.

What does 7000 stairs look like?  Well most homes are going to have 13-14 stairs in each flight.

So go run up and down that once.  Feel your heart rate increase?  Breathing a little harder? A bit of a burn in your calves?

Now do that 500 times.

That is what 1120 calories and 7000 stairs is like.

My hotel had 18 floors and two parking levels under that.  Well really it has 17 floors, (no 13th floor haha) but the first floor is extra tall.  Anyway, using my super sleuthing skills, I now know that there are 282 stairs and total of 20 floors (including the parking) with an average of 14 steps per floor.

I did the entire thing 25 times.  25 * 20 floors = 500 flights and 7000 stairs.

My calves are going to HATE me tomorrow!

But today I love that I did this.  When you dissociate the food you eat, with the effort it takes to burn it, you are on a slippery slope to becoming unfit.

And if you have never understood the relationship, this might help you understand why you are not seeing the results you are hoping for.

A specific weight or size is not the end all be all,  but they are tools to help you gauge your fitness.  Knowing the types of food, quantity and the amount of exercise needed to help you feel good and meet your goals is important.

And today, I learned that 7000 steps is a lot of work. Certainly not worth 15 minutes of binge eating.

Sweat

See this sports bra?
Notice anything about it?

Usually after a workout, there is a sweat line. No so today. Because the whole thing is DRENCHED! 

Along with my shirt and shorts. 

Sweat feels so good and so cleansing. 

This pic of the sweat puddle under the spin bike does not do it justice.  There's a matching one on the other side. When I wiped down the bike and mat, they actually splashed all over! 

According to Wikipedia (the ultimate source of all knowledge haha)

"sweating is primarily a means of thermoregulation which is achieved by the water-rich secretion of the eccrine glands." And "Sweat contains mainly water. It also contains minerals, lactate, and urea."

But to an athlete,  sweat represents all your hard work. It's your frustration left on the trail. It's emotional cleansing. 

I frequently work out solutions to problems while running.  If I'm alone on a trail, I've even been known to yell. Just get it out! And the sweat I leave behind feels like tangible evidence of those frustrations leaving my head and my heart.  

Sweat also helps me monitor my effort vs my results. I used to think of I was dripping wet after a workout,  I must not be strong enough to handle it. In fact,  the opposite is true.  Higher sweat rates are thought to be related to better fitness. As your fitness increases, your body becomes better at cooling itself. Thus, more sweat. 

So wear your sweat proudly. You earned it!