I was thin once....

I have been unpacking more boxes and I did a box with photo albums in it. I, of course, had to look through all of the pictures in the albums. I saw pictures of myself as a teenager and realized that I was actually thin. In my mind I have always been overweight, but in reality I was maybe 10 pounds overweight as a teen and it wasn't until I hit college that I really put on weight. My big issue was that I didn't gain the Freshman 15....I gained the Freshman 50. So I was thinking that it was inspiring to realize that I actually COULD be thin. Now I just actually work on getting back to that place.

My New Hero

My new hero is...Dara Torres!

She's 21 days older than me, and just look at her! (Oops, did I just give away my age?) I can't wait to see how well she performs at the Olympics. She's already got one medal (this time -- she's got tons of others from her previous four times!)

In case you're living under a rock, and don't know who she is, google her or check out her wikipedia page.

I just thought I'd provide a little inspiration here!

Finished!

I finished the race today! To get my results, go to the Danskin results web page and click the link. Scroll to the bottom and select "2008 NEW ENGLAND RESULTS" under "Search Results Data." You can look me up by name or number, 1211.

I'll post a description of the race shortly on my other Blog, Midlife Motherhood.

The day before...

How goes the Triathlon preparation? Are you excited for tomorrow? Just here cheering you on.

Still on Track

I've been updating in the comments of the last post, but I thought I'd put in a post to let everyone know I'm still on track with the final 2-week training I outlined. The only thing I'm missing is the practice race, where I do the whole swim/bike/run. At this point, I don't think I'll do that because I don't want to overwork myself within a week of the race. But today at the pool I swam 1/4 mile (1/2 the race distance) and then rode for 20 minutes on a stationary bike. That felt pretty good (although a stationary bike doesn't feel much like a real bike.) I'm scheduled for a rest tomorrow and then I've booked childcare at the gym to swim on Wednesday. (Perhaps I'll do another transition to bike and maybe even transition to a 5 minute run, as well.) Then a couple of bike rides Thursday and Friday, and I'm off to the race expo on Saturday!! I'm not really nervous (yet). It will be a fun weekend away from home with my friends.

If you are interested to check out the race: www.danskin.com/triathon and look up the info for the New England race.

More updates later!

From here to triathlon...

Ok, it's 11 days to race day. Here's my training plan for the next 10 days and my race goals. I figured I write them for all of you to see, so I can be held accountable.

Thurs (7/17) Race practice run: Swim 1/2 mile at pool, drive home (5 min), bike 11 miles, run 3 miles (last run before race)
Fri. Rest day (Need to make a birthday cake.)
Sat. Bike ride
Sun Early morning open water swim at Walden Pond with training comrades
Mon Swim at pool with Sara
Tues Rest day
Wed Swim at pool with Sara
Thurs Bike ride
Fri Bike ride
Sat Rest day and race check-in day
Sun RACE DAY!!

Race goals:
Swim - Under 30 minutes
Bike - 1 hour
Run - Hard to predict, without the preceding swim & bike, I think I can do 35 min or less. I definitely don't want it to take longer than 45 min, no matter how badly I'm hurting. Maybe I'll update my goal after my practice run tomorrow.
Transitions - I'll keep these as short as possible -- no dilly-dallying perhaps 5-6 min. on the 1st and 2-3 on the second.

Overall time: I'd love to beat 2:10.

Sporadic training

I've been having a hard time keeping up with the training on a frequent enough basis. I did those 2 runs in a row, then a week later, I did an 11 mile bike ride (in 55min - ugh!), and then today I ran 4 miles. I really had to push to get in all 4 miles and it took me 50 minutes, but I did it. I wanted to prove to myself that I could keep running even when I'm really tired. (It was hot, too.) I did more walking than I would have liked, but I did run (at my slow and steady pace) for most of it. Sometime in the next week I want to do a swim/bike/run combo and use the parking lot at the gym(pool) as my transition area. I've got a route planned from there with an 11 mile bike and 3 mile run. Wish me luck. (The race is in 2 weeks.)