hello 2011, it's a 15 hour week already!

Today I finished up 2 really good, consistent weeks of workouts. A 70 minute run and a 60 minute bike this afternoon brought me to a total of over 15 hours for the week (14 if you don't include yoga). I am really happy with that. It's still January and I am hitting 15 hours already? Yes, some of it is strength, but even so, it helps me remain confident about my June Ironman. One more pretty big week and then I get a rest week (that will fall on a week of working nights so I should be able to see if my sleep issue has improved at all).

After a rough start (workout-wise) to the year, I feel like I have finally pulled it together. I feel my run slowly coming back and my swim getting faster. And I am REALLY itching to get outside on the bike. It's 33 degrees out, which is great for Rochester in January but definitely not "yay lets bike outside!" weather. But at least running outside will be fantastic!

I'm not afraid to talk about those weeks of bad workouts that I was having. I am a prime example of how your personal life can affect your training. How stress at work can affect your training. How lack of sleep can affect your training. And I don't even have a husband or family to worry about! Mix these things together and sometimes it's a struggle just to exist day to day, much less try to train for an Ironman. Everyone has low points, and the key is to just keep swimming. Do what you have to do to feel better, do the workouts you can do, do the best that you can. Sometimes it's a scramble at first but then eventually things start to improve. And when that happens, you realize that you haven't "lost it" or gone off the deep end..

And I'm going to go ahead and link you to one of my FAVORITE songs to listen to while I am running. Perhaps I don't really seem like the type of girl that likes Eminem, but I do. Unfortunately, people upload so much crap on youtube that I couldn't find the actual music video.

On an unrelated note, I have managed to keep my apartment clean and organized for over 2 weeks (might be a record), I have not seen the squirrel in the kitchen since my landlord boarded up its hole last weekend, and yesterday I finally spent my Christmas money on a pair of Lululemon Groove pants. They are currently being held hostage hemmed and I will get them on Friday - can't wait! Also, the Verizon iphone is finally going to be available for pre-order this week! I am totally hopping on board with the iphone.. I have only been waiting 2 years to be able to get one!

My parents called me today.. from the IKEA store in Philadelphia! My parents are awesome enough to have driven 3 hours to buy me a bookcase (and as it turns out.. TWO bookcases) for my new apartment because the closest IKEA store to me is in Canada. Seriously, you don't find better parents than that! I have set a tentative moving date for the Feb. 19th weekend.. everything just depends on the weather!

3 weeks and counting!

the 3rd swim

I am currently loving AND hating my 3 swims per week (up from 2 swims per week last year). I am loving it because it  gives me an extra workout to do per week (more hours = more badass) and I KNOW it will make me faster in the water. However, I hate it because now I smell like chlorine almost all the time, I hate trekking to the gym that 3rd time (actually I hate all trips to the gym), and it messes up my schedule of MWF bike/run, TT swim/lift. The 3rd swim is on Friday. Friday is a hard day to have an extra workout, but it does beat having it on the weekend, where I was prone to skipping it. So last week I HTFUed it and got it done.. pretty late because I had to work til 6:30. Tomorrow I will HTFU it again and get it DONE!

The drive to destroy my (only) Ironman PR is what is REALLY getting me to the 3rd swim.

Today I had Mary's infamous "Ironman swim set." Let me run you through this set, which has been gazed upon by the eyes of many Train-This athletes, but I had yet to see it. I actually didn't even realize that I had this workout today until this morning because I tend to not really look at workouts in advance (I know more or less what my workout structure is like, and I look at details right before I do the workout). So, here it is!

Warm Up:
500 yds easy

Main Set:
500 yds: every 4th 25 FAST
500 yds: every 3rd 25/50 hard
500 yds: every other 25/40 hard
500 yds: maintain best average 100 yd time

800 yds: kick with or without fins

5x400 yds: pull with P&B on T-time + 10 sec

Cool Down:
200 yds easy

Total: 5500 yds


Now, this is not as bad as it looks. Instructions were to swim as much of the set as possible in an hour, and then stop. Every swim workout I do takes about an hour, so I was not overwhelmed by this. I managed to do all of the 500s, the entire kick set (I used fins FOR SURE), and 200 yds of pulling before I ran out of time, totaling 3500 yds. I think I did pretty well, and I REALLY liked the set. I loved the 500s with the hard/easy intervals because I think that caters to my swimming abilities (i.e. I am terrible at speedwork of all kinds) and will really be helpful for Ironman because during Ironman there is no resting at the wall!

Also, I will 'fess up to being the girl from Mary's blog post today who never remembers her T-time. That's me! For the past 2 months I have been blatantly disregarding my T-time (although I can gauge it pretty well while swimming) until Mary made me look it up and then double checked to make sure I had followed through (which I did!). If that's the worst thing I do as an athlete (Mary, no answering this!!!!) then I don't think I'm so bad!

So I am excited about swimming more, I am being honest about my swimming, working hard, not cutting corners, and I am ready to go balls to the wall in all aspects of my training this year. I am already hitting 13 hours per week and it's only January!

Let's get GOING!

Random-This

I had a kind of frazzled day today (mostly due to work) so although I am feeling nice and relaxed and happy right now, I think I am going to make this a post of randoms!

One thing that makes me smile is that right now I am typing this blog while lying on my couch, snuggled under blankets, with a candle burning and my cat lying on top of my legs! Also, it is 30 degrees out which basically means we are having a major heat wave in Rochester after the negative temperatures from yesterday!

I did ALL of my workouts last week. All of them! I am OFFICIALLY back at it!

I started a new set of swim workouts today.. and so far, I am loving it (I get bored with swim sets pretty easily).

I am trying to decide how to divide up my year-end bonus from work. Yup, you heard me right! I GET A BONUS!!! This will be the first bonus I have received in the history of my entire life! Ideas that keep coming to me include: iphone, Ironman, savings account, lululemon. I know what I should do with it. But I also know what I want to do with it. And these two things are very, very different! The main problem is that my supervisor has yet to tell me (or anyone else that he supervises) what my bonus is going to be, so I have no idea how much I am going to get.

I got renter's insurance for my new apartment (it's required). Also, by moving out of Rochester and into a suburb, my car insurance goes down by $70! So that's pretty exciting.

My brother sent me my birthday present in the mail, and he got me a cable kit for my Cervelo that comes with PINK CABLE HOUSING!!! My bike is going to look so freaking sexy at races this year!

Also, if anyone would like to watch my swim video from our testing day in Syracuse, here it is! (They call me... THE SHERIFF!!!) Make sure you check out my super-sweet flip turn. Yes, I am self-taught! (You can also check out my cleavage if you are so inclined.. those Splish swimsuit must be designed for flat-chested swimmers or something!).

Wow.. weird mood today!

squirrels and social engagements

So I had a really amazing weekend (I am going to go ahead and call this my "birthday weekend" since my birthday was on Wednesday and I had to work instead of doing anything fun).

Friday I did nothing other than work out before and after going to work. And ate some pizza at work with the other B-shift guys.

Saturday, I had an interesting encounter with a squirrel IN my apartment. Now, if you are not aware of the backstory, there have been squirrels (not sure if that's singular or plural) living in the walls of my apartment for months. I can hear them running around at weird times, and you can see where they are getting into the walls if you are outside the house and you look up at the roof. Apparently, a squirrel finally chewed its way into my apartment on Saturday. I was getting ready to get on my bike when I saw my cat, fur bristled, in the hallway outside of my kitchen. I walked into the kitchen to see an oatmeal packet in the middle of the floor and a tail disappearing into the crack between the wall and my cabinets. Yikes. I took a bunch of plastic bags and stuffed them into the crack, thinking that would deter the squirrel, and then I hopped on my bike. Less than 20 mins later, I heard noises in the kitchen, so I went and checked, and there was the squirrel sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor. I yelled at it and it ran back into the wall. This kept happening multiple times! I ended up shutting the cat in my bedroom (because I didn't want her messing with it) and left 2 hysterical voicemails with my landlord, which went something like this:

Hi Rob, this is Alexa. There is a squirrel sitting in the middle of my &$%#ing kitchen and it's chewing on my garbage bags and trying to steal my oatmeal, and I had to shut my cat in my bedroom because I think it might have rabies, and I am trying to get a 2.5 hour bike ride done and I can't do it because I have to keep chasing the squirrel away, and I can't keep it from coming into the kitchen and I am FREAKING OUT AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO OR HOW TO DEAL WITH THIS. PLEASE HELP ME!


Dramatic, yes, but it worked. He came over, pulled out the cabinets, left some poison in the wall, and boarded up the hole. So far, no squirrels have been sighted in my home. I feel bad about the poison, but I don't want wild animals running through my apartment, chewing on my stuff!!

 After the squirrel drama had subsided,  I was able to finish my bike ride and run and then I went out to dinner with my friends Ari and Trevor to Owl House. After eating FAR too much, we went to their apartment and watched the movie "Case 39." Now I cannot watch scary movies when I am alone, but watching it with company was fun; I especially enjoyed both Ari's and Trevor's running commentaries, example: "don't go in the closet you stupid idiot!!" hahaha. Good times. Also, we all screamed simultaneously at the scary parts. It's kind of fun being scared - with company. :)

This morning I went running with my friend Amie (we ran for an hour in 9 degree weather) and then we met up with her boyfriend for brunch. Her boyfriend is into some crazy mountain biking and has done an Ironman, and Amie runs and does triathlons, so we had a nice conversation about peeing on yourself on the bike, in the middle of the restaurant. Classy.

Then I went to a teammate, Don's, house for a surprise baby shower for Kim H. (another teammate). Not your typical baby shower. No annoying baby games, no squealing over ridiculous baby presents, it was basically a Train-This party and was REALLY fun!

I then did an hour recovery ride on my bike in my new Louis Garneau TT shorts while watching "P.S. I Love You" (I know, worst trainer movie ever) and then snuggled with my kitty. Great ending to a great weekend! But I had a really great weekend with a lot of different friends and I am heading to bed shortly feeling very happy. :)

nothing to do with triathlon and everything to do with.. furniture?

One of the more exciting parts about moving is deciding what to keep and what to throw away. It's a given that you'll probably have to buy some new stuff or replace some worn out stuff. The problem that I am having, being that I am moving in a month, is that I don't have any money to buy any new stuff.

The only new thing that I am getting is a giant IKEA bookcase, and that is courtesy of my parents. It's going to be my room divider/major storage area - so doubly useful (if I can actually put the thing together).

Some other things that are high on the priority list are: microwave (because the apartment doesn't come with one), wine glasses (because who wants to drink wine out of a plastic solo cup?), and 2 stools or chairs for the "breakfast nook." After talking to my parents, I was made aware that they actually saved my microwave from when I lived in Syracuse a few years ago, so now I don't have to go out and buy a microwave! A guy from work told me that he has tons of extra wineglasses and would be happy to see if he has a set of 4 he can give to me. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the stools. What I don't want to do is go buy some crappy, ugly stools because they are cheap. It's a small apartment, and I'm going to have to look at those stools (or chairs) every single day because the breakfast nook is also in the living room. I'm not sure exactly what I am looking for, but I like these, and these (so expensive).. I'm leaning towards stools over chairs because they take up less room.

In dreamland, where Fiona shits money, I would love to replace my living room furniture (the couch and chair that I currently have belonged to my parents and are at least 15 years old). Don't get me wrong, I have the most comfortable couch on earth but it is really ugly and is starting to look super worn out. But, couches are expensive. I also don't have end tables. I have a 2 drawer wooden filing cabinet that "acts" as an end table (that's where the lamp sits). My coffee table is handmade by some dude and was $25. The other lamp that I own is one of those dorm room floor lamps with 5 bulbs that you can bend to point in different directions. At least the cups are white and not multicolored, but it's still pretty embarrassing.

I have nice bedroom furniture, but that's because it's the bedroom set that my parents bought me when I was a little kid.

At some point I'm going to have to pull it together and furnish my apartment like a "grown-up" but for now.. it's going to have to be bits and pieces here and there. I don't necessarily care if all of my furniture "matches" (since I am really not the matchy-type).. but I would like my pieces of furniture to reflect my taste and personality. I like bold colors, I like originality, I am a bit of a hippie so I like "rustic" types of wooden furniture pieces in natural colors (nothing painted). Even though the bookshelf that I am getting is from IKEA (mass marketed box-store furniture = yuck), I feel like it reflects my personality: it's enormous and it can hold TONS of books/DVDs which are both something I really like, and I knew I wanted one the minute I saw one in someone else's apartment. I want to find the same thing with stools.. something that I really like that I will want to keep when I move, not something that I buy just to have for now. I am done buying things that work "for now" so I may even just hold off on stools until I find some that I really like.

This is what my current apartment looks like (the living room). That is where my bike typically sits. You can see my super-comfy but ugly, ugly couch and matching chair set.

Even without the bike, it is pretty cluttered, but is MUCH cleaner looking. Unfortunately, there is really no inconspicuous place for me to put my trainer in the winter (and in the winter I tend to just leave my bike on the trainer because it's a pain in the butt to keep taking it off and putting it back on) so it ends up in the middle of my living room. This is a BIG goal for the new apartment - get the trainer in the corner, against a wall, SOMETHING so it's not the freaking centerpiece of my home. I would also like to get that chair somewhere where I will actually sit in it - I NEVER use it where it sits in this apartment, and stuff (clothes, my coat, workout gear, etc.) gets piled on top of it.

I am also getting rid of a bunch of furniture. The bookcase (the shelves of said bookcase are only being held up by the books underneath it), the red chair, the cat condo, the 2 DVD racks, and my computer desk and chair (which are not in this picture, they are to my immediate left in this photo, to the right is a gigantic closet) are all going into either the garbage (the bookcase), storage (red chair, computer chair, desk), or sold on craigslist (Fiona's cat condo - she's going to be pissed because she LOVES it but it's just too big and it makes me look like a cat lady).

I'm not really sure what the point of this post is, other than the fact that this is what I have been thinking about lately. I signed my lease on Monday, I get my keys Feb. 9th, and then I can start moving stuff in! It's going to be a big change in my life, albeit a very positive one, which is why I am spending so much time thinking about it. So I just thought I would share (and I welcome ANY decorating tips, reorganizing suggestions, cheap/nifty storage ideas, or tiny apartment stories that anyone has!).

Another year older..

..but none the wiser.

For realz.

Today, I turn 27 years old. FML.

Kidding.. I am kidding. At least I am not 30 yet. I have not yet crossed over the threshold into the dreaded "30-34" age group. I actually like that my birthday is in the beginning of the year so that I am always racing as the "correct" age.

I celebrated my birthday by riding my bike for an hour, and then going on an awesome 45 minute endurance run in the snow on my pair of sprained ankles. (I am not being sarcastic about the run being great - it was a perfect day - chilly, snow flying, but no wind). And yes, I have TWO sprained ankles. One is about 2 weeks old - I slipped on some ice, crunched my ankle and fell right on my butt, in public, with people watching. The other one I sprained on Sunday night, running on a bare road, with no known reason why I twisted it. Nothing new about me with a sprained ankle, however 2 at once is a first for me - maybe they cancel each other out?

I got back from my run to two good things: a package from Amazon waiting on my porch and a photo in my email of our new team uniforms. The package was my birthday present from my parents, the photo was from Kim, our team uniform organizer/team manager/team bitch. Haha! The package included the book "17 Hours to Glory" which is a collection of real-life Ironman stories, The Office: Season 6, P.S. I Love You, a Skidless yoga towel, and a Kindle gift card!

I managed to actually obtain my new team uniform which arrived today (shhhhhh.. Kim may have done me a birthday favor). They are much higher quality than last year's uniforms; they are Louis Garneau. I got a tri top, a crop top, tri shorts, and a warm-up hoodie. The only piece I had time to try on before heading into work was the soft-shell hoodie/jacket thing. Pretty sweet, right? (There is also an adorable embroidered Train-This logo on the front of the hood!!!).

I had to rush home and take a shower before work (working 3-11 on my birthday = ewwww), and lo and behold, what was in my mailbox? Another package from Amazon containing The Office: Season 2, also from my parents. I'm not sure how I owned every season of The Office except for this one, but that is now remedied!

I have had quite an eventful night at work, concluded by me dropping an uncapped bottle of magenta dye. It got all over myself (hands, lab coat, sleeve of white sweater), the lab bench, all down the front of the cabinets, the floor mat, and underneath the floor mat. Thank god it was water soluble so I was able to pretty effectively clean up all of the surfaces with water. My hands were not so fortunate. For a good hour I worked in the lab with freakishly pink hands, until the B-shift supervisor brought in a "mystery" solution used by "guys working the machine" (I don't ask...). I was able to get rid of most of the hot pink by scrubbing my hands with the bleach solution and a Dobie pad for 10 mins. Healthy, maybe not, but very, very effective and now I no longer have bubblegum pink hands. Although they are now very dry, they itch and reek of bleach.

So after all that.. I can't wait to go home! I might drink a birthday beer! More likely, I will watch a birthday episode of The Office, try on my new uniform, and then promptly fall asleep at midnight. Cheers!

Train-This Testing Day in the 'Cuse

Yesterday was the most fun I've had in a while. A bunch of my Train-This teammates (as well as Coach Mary and Coach Kelly) congregated at the city YMCA in Syracuse for a testing day! This YMCA has a room with (I think) 8 computrainers and a bunch of spin bikes. 13 team members gathered from near (Syracuse) and far (Canada) with some coming from Rochester and Buffalo as well.

Those of us who hailed from the west hit a bit of a snowstorm about 20 miles out of Syracuse. This resulted in almost EVERYBODY arriving late (me included). No worries, since Mary is basically the most laidback coach ever.

that's me in the pink headband and
Amelia making the funny face.. looks
like we were really working hard, right?

I was in round one on the computrainers (supposed to start at 10, didn't even get to the YMCA til 10:15). We found the bike room, changed into our gear, and then warmed up on the bike and got them calibrated. The man in charge of the computrainers, Ted, did a GREAT job getting everyone calibrated and familiarized with how the system works. Then we did a 10 mile time trial. There were 7 of us "racing." I am not very pleased with how I tested but whatever, I don't train with power since I don't have a powermeter, so the watts are irrelevant to me. What I did get was actual good HR data for Mary because this was a legit testing day for me. I do NOT test well on my own. The computrainers are interesting (this was only my 2nd time on one). I'm not really sure if there is any way to really replicate riding outside, and when riding a computrainer it does change the resistance that you feel when you climb a "hill." However, it is pretty interesting to watch the elevation change. In my option, nothing will ever be a substitute for outdoor riding. But for the winter months, I think the computrainer is definitely the best option. Now just to rob a bank save enough money to buy one...

After cooling down and taking our bikes off the trainers, we changed and hopped in the pool while the other group did their bike tests. Mary had rigged up the "coach cam" which was basically an underwater video camera taped to the bottom of a broom. I kid you not. This way she could videotape us swimming directly at her, and then walk alongside us on the deck with the camera in the water so she could get side action shots. Pretty ghetto/awesome!

The testing was really fun because I was able to do it alongside teammates - some who I see often (such as Kim), some who I see rarely (such as Amelia) and some who were there for their first time (like Greg). I also met some teammates that previously were only known to me through the Train-This google group. Fun times are had when everybody gets together, especially when the 4 vegans on the team convince us to go to a vegan cafe to get lunch after testing. (For the record, I am vegetarian, not vegan). Note: vegan milkshakes are delicious, but my stomach was still disagreeing with me 12 hours later!!

Greg got his initiation into Train-This while at lunch; all of the girls were talking about how Bree Wee dropped out of IM Cozumel because she got her period, and we were discussing what our strategy would be if we had that problem. He was the lone guy left at the table with nothing to contribute and probably was feeling pretty uncomfortable. Oh Greg, you just have NO idea what you're in for with this team! :)

book & itunes from Kim, mix CD from Amo, bottle brush from Mary!

I just love seeing friends and getting to spend the day with them, especially doing something that we ALL love! I love that my friends care about me, and that I got 3 birthday presents! (Not that I care about presents at all, but getting gifts from people makes me feel special!!).

I mean really, could I have asked for
an any more fun day than this?