Brick! (bike-run-ick!)

I'm in egypt and israel for two weeks! So I will not be getting to the blog much. However I did run this morning, on a treadmill, overlooking the Nile!

Anyways, here is some educational reading to tide you over. If you've ever wondered where the word brick came from:

The term "brick" has multiple claims of origination/derivation. Among those is the derivation from a partial anagram of Bike-Run. Also, it is simply a descriptive term of how your legs feel for the first part of the run. Another is given credit to Mark Sisson and Scott Zagarino (1988) who associated the term brick to the idea of "Just another brick in the wall"... as noted in a song by the group "Pink Floyd". Another association of this term has been claimed to originate from a New Zealand athlete by the name of Matt Brick. Bike Run Ick!

5ks of christmas

I did the 5k version of the 12ks of christmas this morning. It was my first race. It was a nice distance (about 3 miles), pretty easy, and made sure I went for a run this morning. I think I did it in about 30 minutes (maybe a little less?), I'll get the official time tomorrow. I did run the entire time, and wasn't tired at the end. The first mile was all uphill, but after that it was down or flat...

I did get a free long sleeve t-shirt. Yep, that was a lot of my incentive in doing the race.

In other news, my fundraising has caught up to within $400 of my mom's. (She was way ahead of me for a while). So ummm, Everyone should donate now, so I can pass her. Because winning is good.

biking

Today we did some biking, and had a little bike handling clinic. We practiced a few emergency stops, and some turning... but the ground was covered in black ice, so we were pretty cautious.

The last time I rode my bike I managed to fall... so all the ice everywhere made me slightly nervous and thus slower than average. I probably only did about 15 miles, some of the faster people did more... However I was not that tired at the end, which is good. And we went off the main trail, and did some road biking, which provided a few hills, which was good. Our triathlon route is hilly, so all that flat riding gives a false sense of security. I'm happy we are incorporating some hills (albeit small ones so far) into our training.

I need to start biking to work more often, to get in more time on the bike. I think that might be my most forgotten of the 3 sports at the moment.

Fit with Fido

Let just say running with a dog is slightly harder than running on a treadmill.

Wednesday night I started volunteering at the Seattle Animal shelter, doing their "get fit with fido" program. You basically come once a week (or more), and take a dog out on a 4 mile run. I was quite excited because I definitly miss having animals in my life... and I figured it would be good motivation to run.

I got slushy, a very cute, soft friendly american bull dog mix. Apparently he didn't get the memo that It was going to be a nice easy run, since he started off pulling as hard as he could the first 5 minutes. He really wanted to get that dog ahead of him. And when he finally stopped pulling me forward, it was because he noticed a closer dog behind him. After the first 5 minutes though he steadied into a trot at the perfect pace. We were good partners. However every mile we did stop for a few minutes for water etc, and he did feel a need to pull for the first minute or two after every break.

At the end he also felt like he could keep going a few more miles. Definitly was not tired. It was overall quite fun. And the dogs all definitly looked happy. It seems like a good program, and made me run longer than I probably would have otherwise. Yay puppies.

Technique Shmechnique

We had another coached swimming practice this monday. It went a lot better than my first one. We did a lot of drills to work on technique, like just using arms... just kicking etc. Which was good for me. We also did some normal laps. to keep building up our base in swimming.

The tough part about swimming is that at this point we are supposed to be working up our base, and its hard when technique gets in the way. When running, all I need to do is make sure to run enough each week, and my stamina will build up... However swimming we have to keep thinking about our strokes.. and kicking, and breathing and all that crap... WHILE trying to get better at just doing it for longer.... blegh.

I'm happy swimming is the first event of the triathlons. I think that decreases my chances of drowning significantly. Though the fact that we will be getting kicked in the head etc from all the people around us will definitly not help...

In other news, I actually stuck to the training schedule this week, and fit in training on 6 days in a row. and finally took a break yesterday by JUST going riding. My poor legs.

Spinnnnning

Yesterday marked our first spinning class. It was actually pretty hard... It is similiar to a staionary bike, however you can increase/decrease the resistance by twisting a knob, and you have to keep pedaling the whole time. The constant peddling is what makes it harder than a normal bike, no coasting allowed!
The "Coach" was "biking" at the front, running us through a series of excersizes. After a short warm - up we are told to crank up the resistance and pedal hard.... My legs were slightly sore pretty early on. (I'm guessing the rock climbing AND running I did the previous evening didn't help). Anyways, we basically just kept pedaling, increasing and decreasing speed and resistance for the whole 45 minute work out. The "hills" were pretty rough, especially when you'd be feeling tired, then be told to raise the resistance, or pedal even harder. However, the blasting of "since you've been gone" during one of the rough parts, helped to overcome the tiredness. I mean, who can be tired with an image of blake (/everyone on spring break) screaming SINCE YOU'VE BEEN GONE!!!!... at the top of their lungs?
Overall, it was not that exciting. However it did beat being outside in the 30 degree weather. ouch.

In other news I fit in a swim this evening. Attempting some Freestyle stroke. I think I was doing it, it did feel awkward though. Tomorrow is an early morning "trail run." Should be exciting.

Thanksgiving Training

So thanksgiving week was full of lots of training... Well... Eating training. Big dinner thursday. Turkey sandwich friday. big dinner friday. big dinner saturday.... I did fit in a nice 2 mile run outside on friday. That was good. Then I blamed saturday on the rain... and I'm not sure what happened to sunday. Monday I felt sick...

So... That was a nice little break. Now it is time to get back to training. We have our first spinning class on thursday. I've never been to one of those, so that should be interesting. and Hopefully I'll fit in a run before then. Btw, its umm... snowing in seattle?!

My suspicions where confirmed

I am indeed not good at swimming. Tonight was my first swim practice.... So, as a kid I took swim lessons, and learned all the strokes. Then apparently at some point early on I made the decision that breast stroke was good enough for me. So I am decent at that, I can do somersaults backwards and forwards, but when they told me to kick... Well it all went downhill from there.

My mom and I got pulled into the "special" section of the pool to work on technique. (Alone with two others... apparently everyone else somehow have much better technique). We mostly worked on kicking. We all definitly improved our technique by the end a lot. I could feel that I was kicking better, but it is very disheartening when you're kicking and kicking and kicking, then look around, and have barely gone anywhere. I found out that if i kick really really hard, I go somewhere, but if i just kick medium, or even pretty hard, I go nowhere. There is somehow nothing in between somewhere and nowhere. But at least by the end of the hour, I had good kicking technique. Maybe next time I will even get to use my arms!

Looking forward to the long wet road head of me.

First bike ride

This morning we had our first bike training. It was a 10 mile loop, timed, so that we can split into groups by our speed for future rides. My mom and I were exactly the same speed. Well. That is for the first 3 minutes or so. Then she pulled ahead. I'm comforting myself by keeping in mind that a) she bikes every week, and I rarely bike, and b), not a single runner passed me the whole time. That's right, not even one.
Although it turns out she only finished a few minutes ahead of me.. So we'll probably get to train together. We just went at a comfortable pace the whole way, (we weren't supposed to push ourselves), so it was quite pleasant. Not to mention the sun was shining, which was unexpected given the past few weeks of rain (which have included some flooding in the area!). So the bike ride itself wasn't bad, legs will probably be slightly tired tomorrow. However, I went straight from the bike onto a horse... and there I definitly felt it in my legs... Apparently two sports in a row, is harder than doing each one separatly. Who would have thought. Although I'm sure hoping out of the water, onto a bike, then bursting into a run will be no problem :)...

Triatha-Who?

So my mom and I signed up to run an olympic length triathlon. That is a .9 mile swim, a 26 mile bike ride, and a 6.2 mile run. We're doing it with Team in Training, so they provide us training, tell us we can do it (even if you're totally unathletic), fly us to the location (we conveniently chose hawaii), and all we have to do is raise $5600 each for cancer research.

Easy right? So this blog shall be a place to chronicle the experience of becoming a triathlete. It should be made slightly more interesting, given that the only strokes I know in swimming are doggie paddle, and breast stroke (Nobody uses that freestyle stroke anymore these days right?). I think running will be the easiest part for me... Which doesn't say that much. I can currently run a couple miles, somewhat easily... But I'm not sure I've ever run 6 miles in one running...

So it should be a fun winter... Here goes.

(btw, here is my website, if you haven't donated yet: www.active.com/donate/tntwaak/RVasky)