"Very Superstitious"

This past week, regular training started up again. I still have to be careful on my run and keep it in Z2 for now, but I can at least do it. I did about 2.5miles on Thursday and felt fine, but I felt like I had a clamp on the left side of my butt during a 70minute run on Sunday. Going to the doctor to find out what that means today... At least my knee wasn't bothering me, but the pain went back up my leg! What a drag...

Anyways, my blog post today is about the weird superstitions/quirks I have noticed..especially during the last couple of days.

1: My Club Swim bathing suit does not allow me to go fast. Whenever I wear that suit, I always have a hell of a time making the interval and people who I usually swim a lot faster than are closer to me. Therefore, that suit is OUT. Also, my orange Brian Long swim cap no longer likes me. Like the bathing suit, whenever I wear that cap I just suck. Lipe gave me a silicon Brasil cap that works much better.

2: Some of my wrappers in my Bento Box are good luck and can NOT be replaced. This is really gross, but I have a mashed up chew in my Bento Box from Vineman ...but I can't throw it away! That was my first half-Ironman and I thought I had a good ride, so therefore that chew thing is good luck and is staying in there. Liz one time asked if I wanted her to throw out the "garbage" in there and I nearly gave her a heart palpitation by screaming "NOOOOOOO" (sorry football head). I think my blackberry flavored Gu is going to stay in there because that was the first Gu I took in on my ride with Kathy this weekend ..but more about that later.

3: Spandex/Sports bra- My racing spandex and sports bra are always the same. Neither one are tri gear, but they have worked for me in the past, and I will continue to use them! My spandex are Lululemon bike shorts that are basically cotton with a little tiny bike pad in them. Definitely not water resistant, but I first chose them because they didn't give me wicked muffin tops/ thigh tops like some spandex do! My racing sports bra is also cotton, but it is my favorite and I've worn it for every race!

4: Highlighting-anyone who has been around me long enough knows that I LOVE following Felipe's training program... and I get upset/a little nervous if for some sick reason I can't do everything. After each workout I get so excited that I get to come home and highlight the workout on my training program, indicating that I've completed it. These past couple of weeks have NOT been good since I couldn't do much running ... which meant no highlighting. Not a good day if highlighting does not take place.

5: Another weird swimming thing.. if I finish a Masters workout and it is 3.700, for example, I have to swim a 300 warm down to make 4.000. Today, I finished the workout and we swam 4.150.. so I had to swim the extra 50 to make it to 4.200.. 4.000 is such a better distance than anything in the 3's, so that must be done. Last week the swimming total was 19.400 lcm ...not as much as Dave's, though!! I figure if I can't run too much, I can definitely keep up the cardio with swimming. Liz has also increased her swimming mileage and a huge improvement has been made on her run. She was on fiyahhh during yesterday's 90 min run!
Ok, that is enough of my creepy ticks!

On Saturday, I went on a ride with Kathy because we both had a 4.5 hour ride and are fairly similar in speed. Well, we are similar on speed on flats.. going uphill - Kathy kicks my ass. Hard. My lovely friend Kathy picked me up early Saturday and surprised me with the planned route. We were going to climb Honey Springs (the bitch of the hill in Gran Fondo) and then add on the Great Western Loop. I didn't know what I was in for because I had never done any of this route before! Wherever we started,(I was completely lost, I was just hoping to keep Kathy in sight so I didn't get lost) we immediately went up a long, slow incline. I looked down at my Garmin and saw that only 10 minutes had gone by.. I knew I was in for a hell of a day. The ride up to Honey Springs wasn't too bad, I was able to hang with Kathy, since we were just dealing with a couple of rolling hills. Once we got to Honey Springs, Kathy took off and I was just trying to huff and puff my way up that biotch. One couple passed me who were dealing REPEATS on the hill. They were amazing. When I finally was almost done, I was so embarassed to see Kathy coming BACK UP the hill to get me!! Oh yeah, it looks like I've got some work to do on the hills before St. George!!

Kathy is so nice and would never tell me that I sucked (even though I was quite horrible on Honey Springs) and is like, "the only reason why I got up faster is because I'm lighter than you!" Ok so new plan.. work on hills and loose 50lbs so I can be like Kath! Just kidding, she helped me a lot and I realized that I am a "masher" meaning that I perfer to muscle my way through things instead of spinning my legs more. Felipe and Matt Simpson told me this because when I ride I usually am in almost the heaviest gear because that is where I feel the fastest. I DON'T think I will be in the heaviest gear during St. George, so I've got to train myself to spin more.

The rest of the ride went well, we finished way before 4.5 hours so we went back out 40 minutes and then came back. Since Kathy was dragging me up all the hills, I decided to be fair and help pull her. She didn't really need the help, I think she was just letting me be nice by leading. :)

On a completely different topic.. my dad was out here last weekend for business, and I was able to see him for a little bit. More importantly, he finally got to see the bike he had just bought. Luckily, H.M. passed the test and my da loves the bike! I am trying to get him to race the NJ State Triathlon in July ... I even told him that I would let him use my (old) bike!

Palm Springs + San Dieguito coming up next!