Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Bear Lake Triathlon

So I am a slacker and haven't had time to blog. So much has happened in the last month. I got a new job in Orem, finished my tri, and am now we are moving to Lehi. The Tri went rather well, and I had no injuries. I finished in an hour and 52 minutes and 3 seconds. Erik was there the whole way and was such a great support. Now we are getting ready for the Lake Powell Tri in two weeks. Here are some pics from the Bear Lake triathlon for your enjoyment.
























Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Triathlon Training and the added benefits.

As most of you know, I have been training for a triathlon pretty much all summer. P90X has been put on hold until the off season since it is very time consuming. I will be participating in two Tri's this year, one this weekend at Bear Lake, and one team tri Oct. 17th at Lake Powell with Erik. They will both be sprint distances, and I am very excited about them. It has been a lot of hard work, and I have been worn out, but so worth it. Erik has been so supportive with all my training and the seemingly billions of dollars it costs to get all the gear for one these things. He has also been running in order to prepare for his portion of the Lake Powell Tri. He hates running, so that is some serious dedication.

I am a little worried about the Tri this weekend since I did a 32 mile bike ride out to the Great Salt Lake last Friday and had some problems. My calf cramped up around mile 22 and I had to get off my bike and stretch for a half hour in order to make it the last 10 miles back. Even then, I could only bike back at a measly 13 miles an hour without causing another cramp episode. Ever since then, the calves have been in overdrive. I have done everything I can think of to fix them including: heat, massage, potassium pills, vitamin E, pills, banannas, electrolyte pills, etc. Kim was nice enough to work on them for me at work today to get them back to normal. Tomorrow we are going to hook them up to e-stim and fatigue the muscles so we can get the rest of the knots out. I am hoping that helps, because I have invested way too much money into the tri to not be able to do it. I basically loose $400 this weekend if I don't partipate, so I am pretty motivated to get my calves back to normal. They are getting better though, so I have high hopes still.

The training has been great for my back though. The swimming has improved my back muscles so much that I don't get any sciatic pain anymore and I can lift heavy things a lot easier. I can actually sit through all 3 hours of church. It is nice to not have the pain anymore. I think I will be a triathlete for life. Here are a few pictures from my training.

Cooling down at the end of a workout in California.



After a 14 mile bike ride with Erik and his Dad in American Fork

After an open water swim clinic at Blackridge resevoir. It really helped to get an idea of what mass chaos would erupt on race day. We had to practice swimming over and under each other and stuff like that. It was very helpful.

The great thing about Tri training is you lose a lot of weight and have to go shopping. I lost 2 clothing sizes and am now a size 3 jeans and a size small shirt for the first time in like 5 years. It was nice to have an excuse to visit girl heaven (the mall).