A week in the Making

Last week we were scheduled to have our first team bike ride. Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate, and we did a 3 mile run in the rain instead. Rain isn't that big of a deal, it's the wind that sucks. Thankfully, I had previous experiences with running in the rain, and I remembered my garbage bag. What I didn't think of was to bring some extra bags with me and work on my fundraising. Damn lack of enterpeneurail spirit. Oh well, maybe next time. Who am I kidding! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there's no more experiences with rain during training times. =)

So I had an extra week to anticipate my first team bike ride. Thankfully, I had some distractions, no work, and preparing for Thanksgiving to keep the nerves at bay. So on November 27th, I woke at 5:30 so that I had plenty of time to have food, and get myself to our meeting site approximately 20-25 mins away. Thankful I had gotten myself an early birthday present of a portable Garmin GPS navigation system to use for my car. I made it to our meeting spot w/ plenty of time, to attach my bike wheel, and get some of the butterflies out of my system.
Coach had a lot of information to go over with us, and standing around in the cold wasn't any fun, again, thankful to my previous training experience I dressed in layers and was ready to listen. Then it was finally time to get into our groups and start our ride. We were doing a 2.5 mile loop approximately 5-10 times, depending on ability level. I went 5 loops and was relieved to have bought and worn my bike shorts. I don't know if I could have dealt with sitting on a bike saddle for that length of time with out 'em. =)
With the first team bike ride going so well, I got out to join the team again today for another 10 mile bike ride. There were rolling hills on the course today, and I felt good. Let's see how the legs hold up for my birthday swim tomorrow.

Getting into the Swing of Things

This was the first full week of coached and uncoached training sessions. It was long and emotional. Monday the team had our first coached swim session. It started at 7:00pm in a community pool in LaJolla, which means it didn't make sense for me to come all the way home from work before going, considering work is the half way point (note to self: need to seriously look into moving closer to work). So I stayed late at work, and made my way to the pool. Up until Monday, I was feeling pretty good about this whole Triathalon training, but by Monday, I was pretty nervous, and unsure of what I had gotten myself into. I haven't swam for true exercise or purpose since I had instructional swim while in summer camp as a kid. I began to seriously question my ability to do it. But while I was sharing my nerves with one of my co-workers, I said, "no one asks to be uncomfortable when going through chemo, or they're not scared of what will happen when they are diagnosed with cancer, especially kids." It put my fears into perspective, and got me a bit more prepared for the swim. I however, was still nervous as HELL. I couldn't help it, but I didn't let my fears get the best of me. There's approximately 100 people on the tri team at this moment, (that's including support staff) and the coach asked if there were any beginners out there. Knowing that my endurance sucks, and that I was nervous, I raised my hand with approximately 20 other people. I was relived to see the other hands. The coach then separated us when it was time to get into the water. He gave us pointers, on form, position, and a few other things, and then had us get in the water. Coach continued to give us pointers as we were in the water, and I have to say, by using the pointers the coach gave, I felt a difference in my swim from when we started and when we finished. I believe being a beginner gave me the confidence boost I need to be successful right now. I also forgot how much I enjoy being in the water.
On to our first coached run session. That was Tuesday night, thankfully, not as late as our swim, but late enough that again it didn't pay for me to go home from work first. I got to the track for our pace assessment. We were going to run a mile at our fastest and then Coach is going to devise a training plan for us to do our best 10K distance. Coach had us do a mile warm up, with some breaks for stretching, and lecturing. I took my time on the warm ups. I was paranoid that my shins were going to act up, since they hurt like crazy from the run we did on Saturday. So slow like a turtle I went, and surprisingly no shin pain! I kept anticipating the pain as I did each warm up lap. But it never showed up. I was relived again, and I just figured as I ran faster for the assessment, it would show up. Well, I started somewhat slow, again with a crazy amount of people at varying running speeds, it wasn't so easy to get out of the starting gate fast. I also conciously made myself go slow, I knew I had 4 laps to complete and my goal was not to walk to much. So I  completed the first lap, and I didn't walk. There were 2 other people who I was pitting myself against. I would pass one, and then another and then one of them would pass me, and on it went, for laps, 1, 2 and 3. I think I had my first walk break towards the end of lap 2, but since I was so close to the start/end I kept it short. I then hit lap three and breathing was becoming difficult for me, so I took more walk breaks, but tried to keep them short. By lap 4, forget it. I couldnt' breath, but kept my arms up and swinging, and tried to speed walk. I think my speed walking is as fast as my running is at this point. But I kept telling myself, keep one foot in front of the other. So I did. and I finished my one mile in a little over 11 mins. At first I was shocked and relived. I wasn't the last one to cross the finish line. Then I was proud of myself for the time I finished in. Then.....I....got.....mad..."how could you walk so much?....If you didn't walk you would have finished faster....etc....etc..." I couldn't believe how fast I was able to take away any and all pride I had in myself. I seriously would have kicked my own butt if my legs weren't so darn tired. But I did make myself stop, and remember that I wasn't last, and I was proud of my time. I still have moments where I begin to beat myself up over my walking breaks, but how much faster I could have gone. But then I remind myself, it can only get better.
Wow! this is long, so I wont bore you with the rest of the long details, plus these two events were the most news worth anyway.
I'm off to prepare myself for my first team bike session (weather permitting) tomorrow. Can't wait to share how that goes with you.
Thanks again for the support and don't forget to make a donation if you can. I still have a ways to go until I hit my fundraising goal!
http://pages.teamintraining.org/sd/sealtri11/stunick

Training Session 1 and Expo

Today I went to my first team training session. I've been directionally challenged lately, and I didn't want to be late, so I gave myself an hour to go 30 mins.And guess what?! I made it with plenty of time and didn't get lost at all. I signed in, got my picture taken, received my nice florescent green swim cap, and started mingling. Not surprising, I met some really nice people, some who actually live near me (I see carpooling in my future) a few that share my name, (but they still don't know how to spell it correctly), and someone who lived in CT for a few years for work. It's nice to have met people who I have some basic commonality with, to help build up relationships with.

After spending 2.5 hours going over important information about what we are getting ourselves into, and what we need to know about each sport we will be participating in for our triathalons. we set out on our first full team training run. The coaches split us up depending on the distance we wanted to run. The lowest mileage was 2 miles, while the highest was 8 miles. It had gotten a bit warm, but then again it's San Diego, so even though it felt warm, it was so nice to run. I ended up running with a woman from the team (who surprisingly I 've forgetten her name already) and we chatted and compared notes. as everyone knows whose reading this blog, it's nice to spend your training time with others, it helps it to go faster. 

I've also volunteered to help organize a team fundraiser with the team captain. We will be doing a Jail N Bail fundraiser. So I'm off to go try and get donations for us to use.

Trying not to compare

I went to my second event for the San Diego/HI triathalon team last night. They had kick off last night. It was different to be at kickoff during the week. I'm so used to waking up early on a Saturday to go to a large school gym with hundreds of my closest "friends". Instead there was a small group of us from the marathon, cycle and tri teams, and maybe 3 vendors sharing their expertise and giving out some coupons.
The small size was the biggest difference I found. I guess I can get past that, especially since I found the people were the same, and that's really all that matters.
To top off kick off, I received an email at work today regarding my honored teammate Raul....
Raul's father called one of our co-workers who wrote...  Mom and Dad "went to a meeting with Raul’s team of doctors yesterday to get the results of the imaging tests that were performed on Raul.  They were told that all the tumors in his abdomen, neck and cheeks are all gone.  He had a great response to the chemo and they are so HAPPY!"