Camping

Well, I made my reservation too late for this weekend so I was only able to go for 1 night. I opted for Friday instead of Sunday. On Thursday I purchased a new tent, and on Friday I stopped to pick up an airbed and some sheets. I already had a regular sleeping bag and a fleece sleeping bag.

I was doing stuff Friday morning and finally got on the road to the campground around 3 pm. I arrived at Hickory Run State Park a little before 5 pm. I was listening on the radio about chance of showers, and it was sprinkling a little. I hoped to be able to set up the tent without rain. The tent instructions said set up time of 10 minutes. Wrong! Anyway, I finally got it up except for the staking into the ground because I need to get a mallet, and Hickory Run has especially rocky ground. Then I had to wrangle the rain flap. I managed to get it moderately in the right place. Then I started my campfire. I love campfires! I purchased the makings of s'mores just for that very reason! I got the fire going and everything is going great. I threw my steak on the grill and waited for it to cook when suddenly the rain came. Oh noes!* One of the bad things about camping by yourself? There's no one to take a picture of you holding your umbrella over the fire so the flames don't go out, especially since your dinner hasn't finished cooking. Unfortunately, while I was successful in finishing dinner cooking, I was not successful in s'more having. Sob!



After I got tired of hanging out in the rain, I went and took a shower, and then brought a book to bed. I had a new Maglite torch so I could read. Which was good, because it was only 8 pm! I read for a while and then tried to sleep at 9:30. I wasn't entirely successful, partly because of the rain and partly because I was right across from that bathrooms and there was a lot of talking nearby. Finally I was able to sleep except for the 4 times I had to wake up and leave my tent to use said facilities. Also I got to see how much water was creeping into the tent. Wish I'd had that mallet to keep the tent staked out! I hate that dampness feeling that permeates everything, even if it's not actually wet.

Saturday morning dawns and I woke up to a lot of noise. I'm surprised I slept in as late as I did. It's 7:30 am and I couldn't be bothered to move. However, it's plenty light inside the tent so I could read! I had to get up to use the bathroom again so I went to the car afterwards to snag myself a lemon poppyseed muffin and then I went back to the tent to continue reading. For Saturday I had decided to swim and bike, possibly back to back, possibly separate. I put my swimsuit on and grabbed my wetsuit, thinking I would walk to the lake. Only I couldn't find the path so I went back to the car to drive it. I got to the lake around 10:30 am. I was the only one there. I put my wetsuit on and got in the water. Brr! Glad I had the wetsuit, actually! There are a couple of swimming areas roped off and I don't see protocol for which to use so I stuck to the middle section. (From google maps satellite image it looks like the middle section is 50 or 60 meters long.) I was in the lake for an hour, and then I got out for a break and also to go get my camera so I could document for you! Here's what I looked like for the swim (and taking this picture with the timer was hard to do!) I'm wearing my .5 mil neoprene skin suit, so not a full wetsuit but since my wetsuits are for scuba the sleeves aren't cut for swimming. I figured the thinner one would be easier to swim in than the thicker one. I did feel like my arms were being strangled, which was not fun, but I was able to freestyle a good bit. So I am hopeful that I can swim more of the race course freestyle.


I swam for about 1.5 hours and then I got bored so I went back to the campsite. I did not have to "check out" until 3 pm, so I decided to stoke up the fire and make the s'mores I couldn't do the day before. I got the fire going, and in between stoking it I started to take down the tent. Things were still wet, so I just shoved it in the car and will need to take it out to dry and refold later. I didn't really have lunch food, but I did have 3 small mozzarella balls left over from my tomato & mozz salad the night before so I ate that before I just ate sugar. I thought I might stop to get food before my bike ride (although that didn't work out) so I wasn't concerned with campground food. I read my book and ate roasted marshmallows and life was good. I didn't actually like the graham cracker or chocolate or something so the actual s'more didn't hit the spot, but I have huge love for melty marshmallows. Finally it was 3 pm and I had to scoot as the next people were there already. I just moved my car over to the washhouse to be out of their way. I then needed to oil my bike chain because it was rusty from the rain. I had taken my old bike, the super super heavy one, because I figured I wouldn't be horribly upset if someone stole it. Anyway, I oiled the chain and then went to the bathroom to wash my hands and change my clothes. I did not take the opportunity to fill my water bottles, and I didn't fill the brita pitcher either. I figured I'd just stop at a convenience store and pick up some nice cold water. I left the campground and went in search of a convenience store. Oops, it's farther away than I remembered. Oh well. I came upon a bunch of people pushing a van. "Do you need a jump?" No, they'd run out of gas. I needed to get out of the way of oncoming traffic so I scooted past them. When I got to the gas station I got a gallon of water, some beef jerky, and a container to fill a gallon of gas. The cashier took forever but finally I filled the gas can and headed back to the stranded car. They were still there, so I stopped and gave them the container. I can't imagine being stuck on the road, and they had a bunch of kids in the car. At least it was in the daylight, but still. Anyway, I left them with the container and headed off to the entrance to the Lehigh Gorge trail. (Which apparently wasn't quite the trailhead, but whatever.)

I filled my water bottle, hurriedly ate some jerky, grabbed some snacks and my camera and off I went! It was turning out to be a much prettier day than it had started. I was mostly alone on the trail. It runs right by the river so I was once again on a river trail! It was nice to have a change of scenery though. The trail was heading downhill ever so slowly, which meant I would have to pedal uphill to come back; not the ideal way to do it. Anyway, I figured I would bike for an hour and a half and then turn around and come back so I wouldn't get stuck in the dark. I met this couple from Maryland on the trail. We stopped at the waterfall to take a picture.


In the 1.5 hours one way I rode 15 miles. On the way back, I ate my 2 packs of Gel Blasts and drank all my water. I wasn't in the mood for my luna moons or shot bloks. I think if I'd had a normal lunch it might not have been so bad, but the last 8 miles of the return trip were hard! I kept in my head the "spinning spinning spinning" chant S used during the irongirl tri. I didn't bonk, per se, but I was really glad to make it back to my car and chow down on another lemon poppyseed muffin. I had a hard time getting the silly bike back on my car rack because it is so heavy and I was so tired. I succeeded. I was covered with bugs and sweat so I decided to stop and get some real food and change into more comfortable clothing. I stopped at an A&W store and got a burger and rootbeer! The drive home was unremarkable.

I don't know what I'm going to do with the rest of the weekend. It's going to be beautiful! Maybe run if I can get my leg to feel better! What are you going to do with Labor Day weekend?



*What's with me and new tents and rain? I went camping in 2001, 2004, and 2008 and every single time I've been in a new tent being used for the first time it rains.

Workshops and Triathlons and Training, Oh My!

Well. I have not been remiss in training, even though I have been quite remiss in posting! I'll start from today and go back in time.

I received my new Terry bicycle seat in the mail today! I will shortly be putting the Butterfly Tri on my bike. I may or may not get to ride it today, but I will ride it before the weekend is out!

Also, I am planning to sign up for a ChiRunning workshop. I'll attend with S, and it'll be led by the master dude who wrote the book. I am still having issues with running, and a workshop should really help.

Yesterday I ran 3.5 miles. I was going to attempt 5, but then the sun was going down making it too hard to see so I was going to settle for 4 miles, but then my body rejected that notion after 3.5 miles so I walked the remaining .5 mile back to the car. This is why I need to do the workshop!

Tuesday I went for a 25 mile bike ride. I wanted to turn it into a brick workout, but didn't have enough time to do that and still get ready for work. Pleased with myself, though!

Monday I got 50 minutes in the pool. I was focusing more on backstroke than worrying about freestyling since I'll probably be doing more back work than crawl work in the race, but toward the end I was working on freestyle and did 5 laps free, one lap back, and 10 laps free, so I was pleased with that. My goal is to go camping this weekend (still need a tent and to decide which campground I want) to practice open water swimming to the extent I can.

Sunday I sherpa'd for S at the Irongirl Columbia MD tri. It's fun getting up when the sun still hasn't thought about making an appearance. I managed to cheer for her at every leg, although I didn't get pictures for the run or the bike. I also cheered for everyone I could on the bike leg, since I remember how much it helped my state of mind when people I didn't know cheered for me.






Last Saturday I went on a long bike ride with S's husband J through Rock Creek Park. We did about 26 miles! It's nice to train with someone.

Last week... what did I do? I know I went to Lake Beltzville to get some swimming in. There were a lot of people so that made it less fun. Which is why I need to try it again before the lakes closer swimming options after Labor Day. I got a 3 mile run in on Sunday. I know I got some pool time in, and I know I got some bike time in. Don't remember much more than that!

Less Than A Month To Go

Yeesh!

So it's technically Sunday morning, August 17. Let's see where I am in terms of race preparedness.

I have gotten NO swimming in since August 8, thanks to the pool being closed. Also, a moment to reflect on the fabulous schedule for next week: 7:30-10:30 M-F.

I have not run more than 3 miles in the last 2 weeks. Now to be fair, I have actually run a bunch of times, but generally in a 2 mile block. Especially since for some reason my knee was hurting last weekend and I didn't want to push it. Knee is feeling better now. I also did a few brick workouts in the gym; spinning bike to treadmill.

I had not biked more than 60 minutes since the triathlon, I think. Sweet! That'll get it done.

I'm going to pretend it's Saturday still, since I haven't gone to bed yet. Yesterday I went to the bike shop so I could get a new floor pump, more inner tubes, more Gel Blasts, new SPD cleats, and other things I bought on a whim (Camelbak backpack!). Friday night I worked on replacing the back inner tube on Violet, since I broke the tip off the valve stem the last time I changed it. I also lubed the chain before I put the tire back on. It went much smoother this time, incurring no tears. I put the new cleat on one shoe, and could not figure out where I put the other shoe. I watched more olympics and then went to bed. I still could not find what I did with my other shoe so I went back to the store to buy new ones late this afternoon. I think I might actually like the new ones better than the old ones! I ended up with these Forte Mountain Bike Shoes. I rushed home, put the cleats on, and then rushed to the park to get in 20 miles. I made pretty good time, the weather was great, and life was good. I got to Conshohocken and slowed down to see the damage from the 8 Alarm Apartment Complex fire from Wednesday. I unclipped at the 10 mile mark to turn around and had some technical difficulties. Fortunately I also got a new little tool kit and was able to use it to tighten the screws on my new cleats. (What is it with me and the screws on my shoes? Sheesh!) It got dark on my return trip, and I finished the last 5 miles in the dark, which was a little bit scary since I have no headlight. I was able to use the Damselfly seat for the 2nd time, but I am still going to exchange it for something else. (Even though I'm over the 30 day return limit. I called on the 15th to see if it would be possible to still exchange and the nice Terry people are going to let me do that.)

I was hoping to go camping this weekend at a campground with a lake so I could practice open water swimming as well as transitioning to all 3 sports. Unfortunately it took me a long long time to get my bike stuff together and I don't want to camp Sunday into Monday. What I will try to do instead is to just go for the day tomorrow. I have to look at the options again as I had been only looking for lakes with camping. Now I will look for lakes with biking and leave the camping for some other weekend. If I can do that I think it'll set me up for hope to finish Nation's.

I need to turn off the Olympics, but they are so exciting! And they're only every 4 years! And there's some amazing history being made! It's totally messing up my sleep schedule though.

d is for destruction

Today I got to the gym a little too early for the pool, so I decided to take a book and do a mild walk on the treadmill since I hadn't brought running clothes and anyway did running yesterday. I get upstairs, fill my water bottle, and then turn towards the treadmill. Which is also the direction of the spinning bike. Then I notice the guy in the bike clothes on the floor with tools, messing with a pedal. Curious. I go over to see what he's doing and see that there's a cleat stuck in the pedal. Uh oh. I quickly think back to yesterday when I was using the spinning bike (for 60 minutes!) and how hard it was for me to unclip so that I could get off and put my running shoes on and do a brick session. Um, I believe that might be my cleat you are trying so hard to dislodge. Oops. I try to help and at some point he does manage to dislodge the cleat. I tell him and the guy who's in charge of the fitness center that I'll replace the pedals if they're broken. The fitness center dude tells me not to worry and if the pedals are broken the college will replace them, and really they're just glad I'm working out. Finally, the guy who just wanted to work out gets everything patched up and he tests them out. Pedals are fine, plus a little bit of adventure for his workout.

I'm mortified, and also really annoyed at my shoes. This cleat is from the shoe where both screws have been replaced, and apparently that still doesn't matter. I don't have any idea if the screws are stripped, or what. I was thinking about getting more tri specific shoes anyway, and this might be the opportunity. I have to get this straightened out though because I'm supposed to bike about 30 miles on Saturday!

Anyway, yesterday I followed a good bit of the 9.0 difficulty spinerval vid, although not all of it, and then I just pedaled for the remaining time, totaling 60 minutes. Then I hopped off and put my new Mizuno sneakers on to try them out (much much better than the icky Nike+ ones) and ran for 25 minutes. I started off really slowly and then was able to increase the speed, although I still didn't quite get 2 miles in. I know I need to brick outside, but it was nice to have the treadmill be easier on my legs.

Today I repeated my lackluster 60 minutes in the pool. At least I put the time in. Tomorrow I'm going to get another pool session in before it's closed all next week, and if I have time I'll try to throw in some elliptical or treadmill work too.

Saturday I'm going to attempt 30 miles on the bike, and Sunday I'm going to get a 5 mile run in. Then Monday I think will be a rest day.

Zut!

Training continues to be kind of crappy. And I have not been able to recreate my awesome swim session, so it wasn't so much a breakthrough as a freak of nature. Not only that, but there are signs up this week that say the pool will be closed next week. (I actually thought it was this week, but that's because I misread the date on my watch. Oops! Still, closed!)

I'm seriously concerned about my next race. I do not understand why I am having such a hard time. I haven't been able to do more than 2 miles running or my 20+ mile long bike rides in a while. I have less than 6 weeks to go so I need to get on it!

I'm going to compare training schedules from The Woman Triathlete, The 12-week Triathlete, and Triathlon Training In Four Hours A Week. Then I'm going to put it all together into a training plan where I will hopefully succeed. Although the Woman Tri book wants me to run 9-12 miles next week, and no. I'm hopefully going to get back to 5 miles at my next run on Friday, and then I'll go from there.

Tomorrow I'm going to do another spin session on the only spinning bike at the gym. I'm going to attempt the No Slackers Allowed one, although it's a huge jump forward from the Ride Strong video.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about swimming yet, but I'll try to at least get the bike/run back on track.

Big Breakthrough!

So training has not been going all that well since the race. The week after the race was just bad, and last week I just couldn't find the time to fit it in without losing the few marbles I have left.

I did manage to squeak in an unanticipated 2 mile run on Monday, and either Tuesday or Wednesday (is it bad I can't remember?) I went for a swim. I was pleased with that swim because I was able to get 2 laps of freestyle and one length backstroke for 20 laps. Then I went out of town on Thursday-Sunday and got no training in at all! Plenty of eating though. Nom nom nom.

I thought I might not get a chance for much training in this week either, but on Tuesday I was able to go to the gym and do some interval training on the treadmill. I don't have any particular information on interval training for running, but I used the pyramid from my spinning video - warm up several 30 seconds 6 mph, 30 seconds 4 mph for 3 sets, and then 30 seconds run, 30 seconds walk; 60 seconds run, 30 seconds walk; 90 seconds run, 30 seconds walk; 60 seconds run, 30 seconds walk; 30 seconds run, 30 seconds walk. I took a couple minute break in between and then repeated the pyramid. I was feeling a little pooped after that and my heart rate was a little higher than it should be so I took some time to cool down a little before attempting to jog again, only then my knees were acting funning so I mostly just walked for a bit.

The biggest breakthrough for me, however, was my swim session in the pool yesterday. I got in the water and was feeling pretty relaxed and groovy. I did 3 or 4 laps to warm up and then I started to swim. I was on lap 2 or 3 when I decided I would try to kick turn. Which totally didn't work. After I came up for air and tried to stop coughing, I backstroked my way to the starting point to catch my breath and decided I would start over again. My goal was to swim 5 laps in a row freestyle before needing to backstroke. Imagine my surprise when I got through the 5th one and felt like I could keep going! It did get a little tougher to breathe at lap 6, but I pushed through and was able to complete 10 laps in a row without stopping or backstroking! I did have to rest for a couple of seconds at the turn around points, but no more than 5 seconds before heading back into the swim. I briefly debated about doing more than 10 laps, but I was pretty out of breath and also keep reading about not pushing too hard so the body can catch up. I swam a "recovery" backstroke lap and then I did it all over again - another 10 laps freestyle! I almost pushed for a 3rd set of 10, but I was pretty tired and also wanted to still get in a spinning session so I called it quits in the pool.

I neglected to bring any food with me (again with the sports nutrition problem!) but I was hoping I could take it slow enough not to be too crippled. Yes, I am sure there are people who can do 1.5 hours straight through with no food but not me. I hooked up my ipod and started to do the Spinervals video I've been doing, opting not to skip to the super hard one. I forgot to bring in 2 water bottles, which was very dumb, but I just got off the bike when I needed to refill my bottle. I did fine with the warm up but was having a hard time with the pyramid, although I did complete that portion. I skipped on past the spin your legs out portion and just did some gently spinning for at least 15 minutes, and then I finished with the last segment, very glad to be finished. I had a Pro Bar because it has lots of protein (need to get more of them!) and also had hummus and carrots. Tasty!

I'm back to worrying about making it through Nation's, but I do still have 6 more weeks. I bagged running today, but might do some time on the elliptical machine after my swim, which I am determined will be awesome again!

Know When To Hold 'Em, Know When To Fold 'Em

Not just good advice for poker!

This week was less than stellar for training. I got my hour-long swim in two times, which was according to plan. My run and bike though have not followed the plan. Wednesday I went to go for my run and it was very hot, I got to the park too late, and my shoe was biting into my heel so I gave up after 2 miles. Yesterday I did nothing due to the heat.

Today I put my new saddle on, which was interesting. Then I went for my long bike ride, except 2 miles into it I felt like hurling. I sat in the shade for a bit and talked to S, then I went back towards the car. I did about 8 miles total. So not what I was planning to do. I have to tinker with the saddle because it wasn't working as well as I thought it might. If it still isn't great with the next ride I'll return it and go for the butterfly seat. I went to Home Depot afterwards to get more screws. I got some longer ones to put my frame pump on the frame, and then I had to get more Philips (because I couldn't find the appropriate hex ones although I might try at Lowe's next) for my SPD shoes because I found I was missing another screw from the cleat before my ride. I don't know what's going on there, but note for all you clipless-pedal peeps - make sure you check your screws before you ride!

Tomorrow is the next day, and I think I'm going to attempt to swim and get a treadmill run in. I'll use that as an opportunity to try out the Mizuno shoes I got in exchange for the Nike Plus ones I hated.