Try For a Tri

Stealing from a friend...

2011-01-29T19:21:00.000-08:00

...who has decided not to post how much she weighs, but how much she has lost. I think this is a great idea and in an effort to get to my goal weight and restart my tri training I'm going to do the same thing. Each week I'll post my weight loss. So far I have been losing the baby weight without really putting any effort into it. I'm down 34 lbs since I had Hudson seven weeks and five days ago. :-) Too bad I'm still a good 25 lbs from my goal weight. :-( Oh well, it will happen. Since having Hudson, I've had my six week check up and I'm clear to do all the normal stuff that I should be doing to keep my body healthy. The easiest thing I'm going to do is stop drinking so much soda. I'm not going to cut it out completely, because I would just be setting myself up for failure. However, I need to cut a big chunk of it out because I've been drinking way too much of it lately. Also, my super awesome brother and sister in law got us a fantastic double jogging stroller for Christmas. I'm very excited to use it and get my bum in shape. So those are my first two goals and Mondays will be my weigh in days...so wish me luck! :-)

I'm BAAAAAAACK! :-)

2011-01-13T08:34:00.000-08:00

Okay, so here's the quick rundown, that most of you already know...So the whole running thing got a little difficult for me. Because I was pregnant! We have now added adorable little Hudson Peter to our family and he is just precious! He is almost 6 weeks old now so I can hopefully get started back into working out and training for a tri! Just in time for the upcoming season! Life is crazy busy right now, so I'm just going to have to do what I can when I can. It would really help if they would actually plow the snow off our road, but whatever. :-) Our family will also be joining the fitness center just down the street...it has a pool so that should help! It will probably be slow going and I'll be lucky if I'm ready for a sprint by the time the season comes around, but oh well! It'll happen! :-) I'm going to make it happen! I think I only have three years to my deadline to be in the Ironman in Kona...so I'd better get crackin'! :-)

Just when you thought I was gone...

2010-04-09T10:13:00.001-07:00

So I know you may be thinking “Wow, we having heard from Paula in a while…that slacker!” In all honesty, I HAVEN’T been slacking! We’ve gotten ourselves a little running group going. Jenn, Lisa, Gena and I all faithfully follow Josh on what is now a 5k run/walk. We run for 3 mins, walk for two. Josh and I are also going to be doing a 5K run on 04.17.10. So that should be fun! A few weeks ago we had a SUPER nice couple of days so we pulled out all the bikes, got tires fixed/pumped up and took a couple short rides. We really haven’t done much with the bikes since then but it’s supposed to be getting nicer so hopefully we’ll be getting on our bikes more. We still don’t have a place to swim, but we’ll be working on that here pretty soon.  We’ve also been doing an ab workout after we run that Josh put together for us and if you get a chance to do the Biggest Loser Weightloss Yoga…oh my gosh it will kick your butt…but it’s awesome!  So really I have been making some headway. I don’t feel like I’m going to die every time I run…although running is still not my favorite thing to do. Coming up in May I believe is an short tri and the swimming part is in a community pool…not nearly as difficult as open water so I think that will be a good one to start with! Cross your fingers for me that things keep going well!! 

Look at me...I'm meeting a deadline! :-)

2010-02-26T10:11:00.001-08:00

So I gave myself until today to set up some kind of schedule for my training. I was trying to think of what would be the best way to do this and I realized that until Josh gets here, I'm a little limited on time and options. Also my schedule will currently EXCLUDE swimming...seeing as we don't have a place to do the swimming just yet. So here it is...it's simple and there aren't exact times, but it's a start and I'm hoping it will help me stick to it.

Mon, Wed, Fri : Running - in the evening. I went for a jog a couple of weeks ago and Ryan came with me. It was short, but it was fun and we were able to talk all about his day. The only downfall was that he likes to jog holding hands with me (completely sweet, I know) so it's a little more difficult. :-) Also after we get our tax returns, we are going to see if we can find a deal on a jogging stroller so Cole can go with us also. So then we are getting some family time in AND exercise! :-)

Tues and Thurs : Biking - in the evening. Yes, I'm doing all my exercising in the evening. And that's okay...as long as I'm doing it, right?! This is also going to take some tax returns. :-) First of all...as you all may remember from my trip back in the summer to Idaho...where I killed both tires on my bike...so yeah, I never really got those fixed. I know, I know...SLACKER! Also, I would like to get a comfy (but inexpensive :-)) bike seat for Cole so he can also enjoy our rides. Ryan has learned to ride his bike and I think could keep up with us for a little while. For Josh and I, the bike riding is the easy part. Yes, we need to be ready for the hills and the distance, but in all reality...it's riding a bike. We aren't doing this to win, we are doing this to finish and try our best. And if I can get my babies out there, exercising and spending time with us then that is most awesome! :-)

So there it is...my "schedule". Simple, but what I need and also includes my family with me. When we figure out where we are going swimming, I'll add that. I'm thinking it will probably be Wed and Sat mornings and on Sat we can take the boys with us because they both LOVE swimming. :-) Am I happy that I got this done...yes. Do I feel accomplished at all...no. I haven't actually DONE anything yet...when I do, I'm sure the feelings of accomplishment will overwhelm me! :-)

Someday...

2010-02-23T08:52:00.000-08:00

Someday I'm going to look back on this blog and think...man...it really took me a long time to get into the swing of things with something that I "apparently" want to do so badly! So let me start from the beginning...

When I started this blog it was a way of motivation for me to do something that I had always thought would be amazing. Something that I really wanted to do and was now finally going to get on the ball and do it. Well not long after that decision, Josh and I really hit it hard and we did pretty well. Then our own personal tragedy happened when I had a miscarriage in May '09. It wasn't something we talked about with many people outside of our family. Although it was hard for me physically to get back into the swing of things, it was the mental toll that I was not prepared for. That took much more time to recover from than I ever thought.

It finally happened though, were I was back at a place mentally that I thought I could do it. Josh and I did well, even did a "mock tri" that neither one of us did TOO horribly on. We both participated in a "fun run" and also did pretty well on that. After that, the rain of Washington set in and I lost the bulk of my motivation once again. I don't mind be cold, but wet...no thanks. Unless I'm showering or swimming, I see no reason for me to be soaked.

Josh has been amazing, keeping up with his training. He's doing great and I have NO doubt he could finish a tri if he entered one tomorrow. Me on the other hand...not so much. Believe me, I have all the desire in the world...what I don't have is motivation. Two things generally stand between me and the training I must do to be the triathlete I've always dreamed of being. I will explain these to you...

1.) Sleep. I LOVE sleep. I love getting good sleep(which for me is rare). The thought of getting up before the sun and sacrificing those precious hours of being snuggled up in my warm, soft bed is almost enough to make me panic. Also, I'm a grouch when I don't get decent sleep. I know, I know. You are thinking "Duh Paula, most people aren't super happy when they don't get decent sleep." Well you OBVIOUSLY haven't met my sister, the woman runs off maybe four hours a night! And you OBVIOUSLY haven't met me. I'm not just a grouch...I'm the kind of grouch that strangers cross the street to get away from and makes children run passed my house. I'm more than just irratible, I'm mean. So as you can see, sleep is pretty important and it's hard for me to let go of. Not the best reason in the world, trust me I know...but it's still a hurdle for me.

2.) And this is probably the BIGGEST one, my children. You see, since it's so hard for me to justify losing sleep and getting up early to train...it's even harder for me to leave my kids after I've already been gone all day at work. I want to be with them and spend time with them. I don't want to get home only to leave again, or get home even later than I normally would and miss out on that special time with my boys. My time with them on weekdays is limited, so to me it's precious. Time with them is non negotiable.

So now you see my dilema. I want to be a triathlete, but I love my sleep and I love my kids. I have to find a balance. I have to be diligent. You don't just wake up one morning being able to compete in a triathlon, you have work for it, earn it. I'm going to have to sacrifice to make this happen. Since I won't sacrifice time with my children, I'm going to have to sacrifice down time, a little sleep and find a way to incorporate my children with my training. I'm giving myself a deadline of this Friday to create a plan of action. I'm going to catch up with Josh and I'm going to be a great triathlete!! (at least that's what I'm going to keep telling myself! :-))

There, I've laid it all out there. So wish me luck!

Third times the charm...right?

2009-09-12T00:08:00.000-07:00

So over Labor Day weekend, we headed to Idaho to spend the last real weekend of summer with family. It was a beautiful weekend and Josh didn't let me forget that we still had training to do. So we headed out on Saturday morning for a bike ride, the first one we have gotten to do together! About a mile from home I got goatheads stuck in my tires...yes...BOTH tires...so within two blocks from my grandparents house, I couldn't put my poor bike through anymore torture. Without any of my weight on it, my rims were basically on the ground! BOO! So I walked it the rest of the way and then Josh made me sweat a little more with a run. The heat just about killed me and I probably would have committed murder for a glass of water. But I lived through it.
However, my poor brother and sister in law whom we depend on far to much for help with the kids will not be in Seattle the weekend of the 20th. Total bummer. I was however lucky enough to find the last tri of the season in this area! It will be Columbus Day weekend! I'm sure the water will be ridiculously cold in Mid October...but we will survive. So I'm hoping that the third time is the charm and we will get to participate in our first Triathlon!
I'm also excited for Ryan too because they have a kids tri and now that he has learned to ride his bike without training wheels he gets to participate!! YAY RYAN! So please keep wishing us luck that we will get to keep going with this!

First go...

2009-08-24T01:02:00.000-07:00

So on Saturday, Josh and I took the boys to Mayfield lake so that we could do a "mock tri". I did a little better than I thought I would, but I know that I really need to pump things up in the next thirty days.
Josh did amazing! He's seriously such an inspiration! We each did a 360 meter swim (only 40 meters short of the 400 we need!), a 7.2 mile bike (only 5 miles short of what we need) and a 1.5 mile run (1.5 miles short of what we need). Josh had a good time of 1 hr 6 mins. My time was FAR from stellar at 1 hr 23 mins. Both Josh and I were talking about how crazy different it is to swim in open water than it is to swim in the pool...the nice, temperature controlled pool! You also feel COMPLETELY disoriented after the swim! Now I know why it takes people longer in their first transition...when you get out of the water, your legs feel like jelly and your head is spinning. It's definitely a weird feeling.
So we have decided that each weekend we are going to go back to the lake and keep doing our mock tri and upping our distance each time in hopes that we can get up to the full distance. The sad thing is that this is only a TRY a Tri...so it's just a baby tri! I told Josh that in a couple of years we are going to look back and laugh at how hard it was for us to do this first one...but it will all be worth it in the end!
As I have said before, my goal is to finish...and it would be nice if I didn't finish dead last. :-) I'm proud of us for sticking to this and keeping each other motivated, although Josh's motivation far outweighs mine! :-) So there is the latest update on my journey to become a triathlete!

PS...Happy Birthday to me...I'm 30 today!

Slacker...

2009-07-26T21:50:00.000-07:00

I'm such a slacker! I have lost all motivation! Really, I don't know if it's the heat or what, but I'm fading. I only have until mid Sept and I feel like I'm starting from scratch. I know I can do this, yet my desire is fading. Josh is doing great and he's going to be completely ready. Hopefully my mojo will come back and I won't be a failure. Come on determination...find me again!

Ah the training...

2009-06-28T22:13:00.000-07:00

So over the past couple of weeks, I've lost a little poundage which is nice, but there is definitely still more to go. Due to the lack of training that happened, Josh and I won't be doing the tri in July. Instead we have found one in mid-Sept. So I would like to complete at least one Sprint Tri, which is .5 mile swim, 13 mile bike and 3.2 mile run. If there is more than one available, I'd like to do them also, so I can continue to improve. But then I would like to move up to the Olympic distance by Sept of '10, 1/2 Ironman by Sept '11 and finally a full Ironman distance by Sept '12. I figure I'd better have some specific short term goals, but also some general long term goals too!
I think my biggest hurdle will continue to be the running. I don't like to run. For me, running with out a soccerball is basically torture. :-) But that's okay...I'll push through! So wish me luck and hopefully it will all work out!

Starting over...

2009-06-19T21:20:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I have posted here. Some things have happened in the past couple of months that have made my training for the tri take a back seat. Now that I am back in the saddle, it's almost like I'm starting all over again. I put on some weight...sad but true and am working on getting that under control. So square one, here I am. Maybe someday I will go more in depth as to what set me back, but right now I feel as though I should keep it to myself. Maybe I'm not quite over it yet or ready to talk...who knows.

So last night I worked out with my friend and it was nice to have someone to chat with (through the huffing and puffing), it makes the time go by faster. I'm going to start the running training in July. Now that it's summer and we have better weather and more daylight...I'm hoping it will be SLIGHTLY easier to motivate myself.

I will update again, when I have a few more days of training under my belt.

The beat goes on...

2009-04-13T14:28:00.000-07:00

For school I enrolled in a personalized fitness class, which is basically a self study. You work out, turn in logs and get credit for it. I also enrolled in an early morning weight training class. I really don't mind getting up and going to work out...but I can totally put it off normally. Well since I am being graded, I really don't have the option of putting it off. :-)
This morning was nice. I got up, went to work out. I was on the elliptical for 30 mins and on the treadmill doing my couch to 5k for 25 mins. For my personlized fitness, I had to turn in what my weekly work out will look like. I think if I can stick with it, by July I will be more than ready for the tri...I'm putting a lot of faith in myself!! :-)

Running, Day One

2009-03-30T21:51:00.000-07:00

So tonight I started my running training. I'm a pretty sucky runner. Seriously. I played soccer most of my life and never had a problem with running. If I was dribbling a ball I could run a six minute mile. But the thought of running just to run, not to score a goal, not to steal the ball...it's just not appealing to me. I know, I know finishing the race is the drive, the goal...but that doesn't work for me. I restarted Josh's couch to 5k. I think it's a good way to reintroduce me to running again. I have to remind myself that I WANT to do this. If it was just swimming and biking, I really don't think I would have a problem at all...but for some reason, I just canNOT get into the running. Maybe I need someone to hold a Snickers bar in front of me to chase. Or maybe I just need to buy a soccer ball and dribble it everytime I run. Or maybe I just need to suck it up and realize that part of the Tri is a run and just DO IT! We'll see how it all goes!

Swimming...

2009-03-22T23:34:00.000-07:00

We recently joined the YMCA. One of the reasons is because Josh gets a pretty good deal though work and another reason is because we need a place to practice swimming. Never in my life have I claimed to be a good swimmer. I can basically keep myself from drowning and that's about it. Today we decided to go to the Y and let the boys swim. Josh worked out for a bit while I played in the pool with the boys. After a while, Josh joined us and then told me to go swim laps for 10 mins. Um...yeah...no. I was TOTALLY embarrassed to swim laps! I know that there is never going to be a time when I am the ONLY person in the pool, but still I didn't want to do it. So Josh went first. While he was gone I was thinking about the fact that I would NEED to practice if I ever expect to swim in the Tri. So when he got back, I asked if there was an extra lane open, he said there was. I mustered up all my courage and walked over to the lap pool and got started. Now in high school I took a swim class. I specifically remember them teaching us how to freestyle swim properly. So as I am swimming, I go to put my face in the water and I realize that I have completely forgotten how to breathe while swimming. I know you are supposed to take a breath to the side and then put your face back down, but all that I managed to do was inhale some water! So the rest of my laps I swam with my face out of the water, which looks somewhat silly and is much less productive. Now my new goal is to remember how to swim the RIGHT way! This is going to be a process. In the end, I swam 100 meters freestyle (sort of) and 50 meters backstroke. Yeah, that is LESS than half of the total distance I have to swim and when I got out of the pool my legs were JELLY! I keep telling myself that I am going to get better, I just have to stick with it...but my postive self talk is somewhat faltering. I'm hoping that once I see some improvement that will help me to stay positive and want to keep trying harder!

Dream of a Tri...

2009-03-01T09:12:00.000-08:00

Last night I had a funny dream. My dream included my best friends, Becky, Erin and Katie along with myself. We had entered a team triathlon, but it was different. Each of us had to complete the whole triathlon, one after another, then our combined times would be our total time. Katie went first, then Erin, then me and Becky finished up for us. We were all cheering and screaming for Becky because she was only a couple seconds behind the leader. Somehow Becky kicked it into high gear and blew right passed the leader! We had won the whole thing!! We all got medals and then we got a huge trophy. We were being interviewed by the news and I said "Wow, this is like a dream!" Shortly after that, I woke up and realized it WAS a dream. It was pretty awesome though because it got me pumped to think that maybe I could actually do this! YAY for inspiring dreams! :-)

In the beginning...

2009-02-18T10:14:00.000-08:00

A million years ago when I was 19, I was much more fit than I am today. Of course, that was ten years and two kids ago! Anyway, my big idea when I was 19 was to someday enter the Ironman Triathlon. Insane, I know. It seemed SO exciting! Competing with all those people for a tiny amount of glory just for being able to say "I finished the Ironman". Can't you just imagine it? Crossing the finish line with my family waiting for me, I'm barely winded and being congratulated by everyone around me for this amazing accomplishment! Like many ideas that came to my mind at the age of 19, this one too fairly quickly faded from my brain and I continued on with my life. Every once in a while something would remind me of my dream to compete in the Ironman, but like every busy mom, the amount of time it would take to train seemed so daunting that I would push it out of my mind once again.

Call it a midlife crisis (Hey! I'll be 30 in August!), but my insanity has returned and my dream to compete in the Ironman is alive and kicking! Lucky for me, I just happened to marry a certified personal trainer (apparently you have to do more than just marry one to be fit) who also loves to bike. So my wonderful husband, Josh, will be my coach. Again, lucky for me, Josh's boss happens to be a swimming coach. I have all my bases covered right? Not so. There is so much preparation that comes with just beginning to train for one of these things. I have to get a bike, a helmet, bike shoes, swimsuit (possibly my worst nightmare), running shoes, training clothes (apparently it's not efficient to run in jammie pants) and squeeze time out of my day of work, school, kids and wife-ing to train.

After having done some research, I have found out that you can't just ENTER the Ironman. You have to EARN your way into it. You have to prove that you have the stuff to bust out a 2.4 mi open water swim, a 112 mile bike and a 26.2 mi run. You have to compete in an Ironman Qualifying event and trust me, there aren't a whole lot of those! If you place in the top THREE of your age group you get a spot. They also have a lottery system which I haven't totally figured out yet.

Now I'm not totally delusional, I've never done a triathlon and don't even know if I'm cut out for it. So to begin my quest, Josh and I are entering a Try-A-Tri. This is a tiny, baby, mini triathlon that will let me test the waters of the triathlon world and see what I think. I will be swimming a quarter mile, biking 13 miles and running 3.1 miles. Don't laugh, a girl has to start somewhere! The best female time for my age group last year was 1 hr and 16 mins. I don't think I will come even close to that, so I also checked out the last person of EVERYONE in the race to cross the finish line, that was 2 hrs and 46 mins. My only goal is to finish the tri and hopefully not be the dead last person to finish. However, if that should be my fate, I will greet it with open arms. I currently have a little over five months to train for this and although the task that is laid before me seems near impossible I have a little faith in myself and alot of faith in the people supporting me!

I'm incredibly lucky that Josh is so supportive of this and willing to train with me and even enter the triathlons with me. If he wasn't, this would all be just a crazy pipe dream.

And thus my trek begins.