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Archive for the ‘Biking’ Category

Redemption, Thy Name is Trek 2.3 WSD

Posted in Biking, Family life, Gear, Triathlon, tagged , , , , on October 15, 2012| 3 Comments »

After Saturday’s sluggish 13 miles of running, I did some water running on Sunday (boring but a good workout and a break for my plantar fasciitis plagued feet) and then hit the trail for 20 redeeming miles on the bike on Monday. That ride felt amazing! Of all three triathlon disciplines, I love biking the best. To me it’s the most kid-like and joyous activity. While I’m not quite fearless on the bike, I feel free and powerful and just so darn happy to be out on the trail. Monday happened to be an absolutely gorgeous day to be out. With the breeze and the fresh air from recent rains, I could almost ignore the fact that it was 91 degrees (33 C) in mid-October. In fact I tried really hard to ignore the fact that it will also be in the 90s when I attempt to run 20 miles later this week. How insane is that, that I biked 20 miles in 73 minutes and in a few days I will run 20 miles in about 200 minutes? No wonder I like biking the best! 😉

To amuse myself on the trail, I finally named my bike. First, I decided it’s an “it” not a “she” or a “he.” Don’t get me wrong, I did debate awhile about whether or not it should be a “he” so I could name it Matthew and pretend I was riding Matthew McConaughey.

Matthew McConaughey at Nautica Malibu 2008

Matthew McConaughey and I could totally be triathlon buddies. Here he is at Nautica Malibu in 2008. Photo by Denise Cross. THANK YOU Denise. I think it’s safe to say we all thank you.

Sorry Matthew, my heart belongs to my other long-haired love, my husband Mike.

My husband Mike

My long-haired husband Mike, who I sometimes lovingly refer to as Fabio, for obvious reasons.

My second love is this, my Trek 2.3 WSD (Women’s Specific Design) road bike:

Trek 2.3 Women's Specific Design

Meet Bullet, my Trek 2.3 WSD (Women’s Specific Design) Road Bike

I’ve named it Bullet, as in, faster than a speeding Bullet, silver Bullet (the obvious color reference), and Bullet train. Let me explain. When I race, one of my mantras is “locomotion,” which I say as “lo-co-mo-tion” to the cadence of pedaling on my bike or the pounding of my feet on the run. I pretend I’m a freight train, barreling forward to the beat of the mantra. My core is solid while my legs are pistons, powering me along the route.

If you have a bike, have you given it a name?

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Another 15-Miler

Posted in Biking, Family life, tagged , , , , , , , on October 1, 2012| Leave a Comment »

No, I did not run 15 miles again, this time I retraced my running steps on the bike. My two older girls got invited to a birthday party at Mission: Renaissance, a great little art school tucked in a shopping plaza just five minutes from the Santa Ana River Trail. While they drew this:

owl pastel

My seven-year-old’s owl, which she named Spring. Love those eyelashes!

and this:

red brown owl in pastel

My 10-year-old’s owl, which she named Amber. Love the shading on the sky!

I rode my bike on the trail for 65 minutes. I thought it would be cool to take a different look at how far I’d run the day before. Ha ha, I said “cool.” I should have said “absolutely broiling hot.” It was 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees C) and I could swear it was even hotter on the black asphalt. By the time I walked my bike from my car to the trail, my elbow pits were sweating. Elbow pits? Please wait while I Google that term to see if it’s real. Hmm, it appears everyone knows what you mean by the elbow pit, but its scientific name is the cubital fossa. Good to know. I’m sure that will come up a lot in the future. Anyway, my cubital fossa was dripping with sweat and I hadn’t even started riding. Not a good sign. Then I hopped on the bike and it seemed like I stopped sweating altogether. The breeze, and by breeze I mean blast of hot air from an inferno, evaporated any sweat before it could even appear on my skin. Ooh, let’s have another scientific lesson, this time on how sweat evaporates:

In general when water evaporates it requires heat energy. The amount of heat energy required is called the latent heat of vaporization. If the water is not sitting on a stove that supplies the energy, the energy must come from someplace else…. When we sweat, our skin and clothing become covered with water. If the atmospheric humidity is low, this water evaporates easily. The heat energy needed to evaporate the water comes from our bodies. So this evaporation cools our bodies, which have too much heat.

(Source: Suite 101: Physics of Sweating). Nifty, our very own human cooling system! Except I didn’t feel very cool. I didn’t cool down until I headed back to Mission: Renaissance and grabbed some leftover fro yo from the birthday party. Chocolate with cookie dough topping, to be exact. Question: is 41 too old to call it fro yo? Just wondering. I fear I’m not that “cool.”

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The Culprit

Posted in Biking, Humor, Injury, tagged , , , , , on September 24, 2012| 4 Comments »

In retrospect, it appears that several things contributed to my development of plantar fasciitis, the pain in my . . . feet. 😉 In my marathon training, I made the mistake(s) of adding on too much speed work and hill work at the same time I built up the running mileage. With my new gym membership, I started running more often on the treadmill rather than running on the softer surfaces at the track or on trails. I also made errors of omission. I should have strengthened and stretched my plantar fasciae and calves. Any of those things alone could have done my feet in, but I think there’s one more new thing I introduced that really is the main culprit:

(That’s an Amazon affiliate image, just so I could show you The Culprit. It’s cheaper to buy a spin bike direct through spinning.com, although feel free to buy through my link because the commission would be more than I would normally make in a year from Amazon Associates. 🙂 But I digress.)

Yes, it’s my beloved Star Trac NXT Spin Bike that I ride in my favorite Cycle Sculpt class at the gym. Because my road bike shoes do not fit the cleats on the indoor spin bike, and I do not (yet) have the right indoor spinning bike shoes, I have been wearing my regular running shoes in the pedal toe clips. That means that when I add resistance and stand up on the bike, all my weight rests on the balls of my feet and strains the plantar fasciae. (This is my non-medical, my-own-experience your-mileage-may-vary opinion of what’s happening). How do I know this? My feet were feeling surprisingly great a few days after racing in the triathlon a week ago. I got back on the spin bike for a 40-minute workout and I ended up with a major flare-up of the plantar fasciitis. The spin bike hadn’t bothered me when I remained seated for an entire Cycle Sculpt class, and my hour-plus outdoor bike ride for the triathlon didn’t bother me, but just 40-minutes and a few intervals of standing up on the spinning bike strained my feet. I’m not saying it’s the sole culprit, but it’s definitely a big contributor. I’m not going to give up spinning, but I will certainly stay seated on the bike until I can buy some proper indoor cycling shoes.

The good news in all this is that I do not think running is doing as much damage to my feet as I thought. I got out yesterday for a 12-mile run (if you could call it that — I’d be more inclined to call it a slogging 2 hour 15 minute jog). While my feet weren’t exactly thanking me, they feel pretty good today. Better than my aching thighs and hips! Clearly I’ve lost some fitness in the last few weeks of dealing with the plantar fasciitis, but I’m determined to get back on track, so to speak.

I leave you with a little unrelated laugh, compliments of my bill-paying efforts this morning. When I paid my garbage hauler (trash) bill, I noticed this awesome promise on the bottom of the bill:

IF NOT SATISFIED WITH OUR SERVICE,

WE GUARANTEE “DOUBLE YOUR TRASH BACK”

What are your thoughts on my theories as to what has contributed to the plantar fasciitis? If you’ve dealt with PF, what do you think caused it? Do you have a recommendation for good indoor cycling shoes?

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2012 Nautica Malibu Triathlon Race Report

Posted in Biking, Injury, Race reports, Racing, Running, Swimming, Triathlon, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 16, 2012| 14 Comments »

Long story short: I decided to do the Nautica Malibu international distance triathlon this weekend and I am very glad I did.

It all started with picking the girls up from school a half hour early. “Do they have an appointment?” Ummmm…. “They have my appointment [to pick up my race packet in Malibu by 6 p.m.].” Off we went, safely to arrive at Zuma Beach by 5 p.m. Got my race packet with timing chip, race number, t-shirt (yes I will fit a women’s small I’m-just-wearing-a-poufy-blouse-thank-you-very-much) and bright green swim cap.

Pre-race with triathlon numbers

I swear I’m not five months pregnant.

I discovered I’d be in wave number 10, the last wave, which would start at 7:45 a.m. Not ideal given the forecast for 94 degrees Fahrenheit in Malibu on race day. The guy next to me at the race info board cheered me up by saying, “You don’t look like you’re over 40!” Apparently I was supposed to reply that he didn’t look like he was over 50, but I dropped the ball on that one. I told him to chalk it up to my race nerves.

We camped for the weekend at Leo Carrillo State Beach Campground just nine miles up the road from Zuma. I felt a few adrenaline rushes over the course of the evening as I thought about the race the next day, but I calmly went about the job of sticking my race number on my helmet, twist-tying it on my bike, and pinning it on my race belt. Yes, pinning it on, because I discovered that my four-year-old had taken the race number toggles off my race belt. I’d seen them around the house the day before but made no connection that that’s what they were. Stinker. Safety pins worked fine.

We got to bed around 10:30 p.m. and I had little trouble going to sleep in spite of my race jitters. I guess that’s the advantage of no taper and my exhaustion at the end of a busy week and long drive. All too soon my alarm went off at 4:15 a.m. I chowed down a bowl of Corn Flakes and skim milk and a slice of whole grain bread. Not my usual pre-race meal because in all my effort to be less uptight about races, I forgot to pack the oatmeal. Oops.

We loaded everyone up into the car under the starry sky. I felt bad to awaken the girls at that early hour, but that was the only way they’d be able to see me at the event and they wanted to film and photograph me for a school project. My four-year-old was such a trooper. She jabbered away the whole time I put her in her car seat. “I love you. You’re the best mom in the whole wide world. Thank you for taking us camping. I love camping.” We arrived at Zuma at 5 a.m., and I quickly unloaded for the long walk to transition, while Mike and the girls went back to sleep in the car. I snagged an excellent spot in transition, second from the front end of my rack. I chatted with Jill from northern California and she helpfully gave me some tips about the course and kept me distracted from any lingering race nerves. Triathletes are some of the nicest people you will ever meet. Competitive sure, but mainly against themselves. They know what it’s taken you to get there on race day, and they want you to have a great race too.

SWIM (1,500 meters, a swim mile)

After a quick race meeting at 6:30, we started the slow walk to the swim start. I downed a PowerBar Green Apple Gel around 7 a.m., just as the gun was going off for the first wave. I waited in the long line to use the women’s restroom one last time but quickly decided the ocean would suit me just fine. I dove in for a warm-up swim and had 20 minutes to spare before my wave start. I bumped into Alma, the woman I’d met at the swim clinic a few weeks before. She’d paid close attention to the earlier swim waves and gave me the advice to start off to the left of the pack because the ocean current was pushing swimmers right up the shore and past the first buoy. I’m telling you, triathletes are the most generous people (and I did try to pay back some of that generosity on the course).

Nautica Malibu swim start

Less nervous than just plain excited at this point!

As we waited for our wave to start, the ocean waves got bigger and bigger! Another disadvantage to the late start time. Thank goodness I had practiced at Zuma Beach twice before. Two people in my wave actually had to turn back and DNF. I felt so bad for them, knowing that the first time I’d tried to swim out past the waves in my practice swim, I’d had to turn back and try again later.

I started out strong and did a good job entering the ocean. I battled my usual problem of adrenaline at the start and felt I couldn’t catch my breath. I never have a problem like that in the pool, so it’s particularly frustrating to me on race day. After I rounded the first buoy of six, I flipped to my back for some backstroke to get my breathing under control. At that point, the thought crossed my mind that I never wanted to do a triathlon again. That is laughable to me now that it’s done! It took me a long time in the swim to get to where I could do more freestyle than backstroke. I hit my groove by about the fourth buoy. I was going strong as I rounded the sixth and final one, and I swam hard for shore. I managed to catch two waves and on the second one, I body surfed so far in that I landed on my knees on the sand! What a rush!

Swim time: 28:17, a PR over my prior HITS Palm Springs time of 31:11.
Swim rank: 608 of 1142. Lots of room for improvement (a nice way to put it).

T1

I walked up the beach, mindful of not running barefoot on the sand with my plantar fasciitis. I’m sure that cost me some time in T1 but I used that time to get my wetsuit down and to catch my breath. I felt great at that point, happy to be out of the water! I had no problem finding my bike rack as I’d paid careful attention at setup in the morning.

T1 time: 3:58. Again, more room for improvement.

BIKE, 24.8 miles

I felt strong heading out on the bike. That part of the race is my absolute favorite and if you asked me which is my strongest suit, I would say that, even though my times don’t bear that out, as you will see.

The course is rolling hills up and down Pacific Coast Highway. I passed a ton of people and was only passed by one person that I did not pass back later. There are a couple of no-passing zones on the course and that frustrated me. I was good about using the time to grab a drink and do some recovery breathing to power myself after the no-passing zone ended. At one point I was slowed by an ambulance pulling out on the course. It was quite sobering, much like the time a lifeguard crossed my path on the swim at HITS Palm Springs. I was so annoyed then until I realized he was saving someone from drowning. Doh!

I couldn’t tell if I was pushing too hard on the bike and would burn out on the run, or if I should push even harder. Unfortunately I had hit the wrong button on my Garmin and it was set for use indoors, only telling me the stopwatch time and not the pace! In retrospect I could have gone a bit faster.

Bike time: 1:18:53, 18.8 mph, another PR over my HITS Palm Springs time of 1:19:25.
Bike rank: 524 of 1142, top 45.9%.

T2

I goofed up racking my bike and had to flip it around but didn’t lose much time with that. I took a few extra seconds to squirt some sunscreen into my hands and I slapped that on as I ran out of transition. I’m sure I looked ridiculous, dripping in sweat and globs of white zinc oxide sunscreen, but it was totally worth it. I have a slight sunburn at the outside edges of what I could reach on my back! I’m guessing by the time I was out on the run, the air temperature had hit 80+ degrees.

T2 time: 2:06. I wish it were under 2!

RUN (10K, 6.2 miles)

My legs felt great for the run. I don’t remember feeling like I had lead legs like I often do coming off the bike. I ran by feel and effort, with no Garmin data to tell me how I was doing. In retrospect that was probably a good thing. I feel like I left everything out on the course. It was HOT and hard, not nearly as fun as the bike portion. I used the 6.2 miles to practice taking in fluids at the aid stations each mile. I missed one aid station, thinking I’d hit the opposite one as the course looped back, but I had misjudged the course and it was a long way back to that point! I was parched by the time I reached the next aid station. I grabbed water to pour on me and Gatorade to drink. The Gatorade tasted like liquid gold and I knew I needed the nutrition.

At one point on the second half of the run, I passed a guy who then uttered, in the saddest Eeyore voice, “Five.” I strongly suspect I was the fifth female to pass him that day! I had to suppress a smile. I’m not even sure he knew he said it out loud.

At mile five, I sped up as best I could, and when the finish line was in sight, I put on the kick. Now I know why I look so hunched over at every finish — I forget all about form (which I had been so good about practicing throughout the rest of the run) and I practically will my body across the finish line, leading with my head and neck! I did finish strong, if not pretty!

Run time: 52:10, a PR over my HITS Palm Springs time of 55:35, but not a PR over my stand-alone 10K time of 51:29. Pace of 8:26.
Run rank: 390 of 1142, nearly in the top third!

Finish time: 2:45:34, a 7:24 PR over my HITS Palm Springs time of 2:52:58. My husband was quite impressed, given what he said was a harder (ocean) swim, a harder (hillier) bike, and a harder (hotter) run.
Finish rank: 9th of 40 in my 40-44 age group, top 22.5%. 60th of 301 females, top 19.9%. 443 of 1142 overall, top 38.8%.

Nautica finish

One happy finisher and one awesome “TRI” husband!

Things I would do differently: (1) work even more on the open water swim and get my breathing/adrenaline under control, (2) practice T1 to get my time down, (3) push even harder on the bike, (4) practice racking the bike so it’s second nature, (5) use spray sunscreen to get those unreachable spots.

Things I’m really happy about: (1) I am super happy with my run time. The main reason I trained for a half marathon last spring was to improve my running form and speed after my last Olympic distance triathlon in December 2011. Mission accomplished! I cannot believe I was nearly in the top third of runners overall, male and female. (2) I’m amazed at my swim time as well, given how much of the swim I did with backstroke, and I know I can do even better next time. (3) Body surfing! (4) I am thrilled that I had a PR for all three disciplines and the finish time.

As much as I debated whether or not to race, I know it was a good decision to do it. My feet feel no worse from the plantar fasciitis than they did earlier in the week, although I know it will likely take me an extra week now to recover and feel as good as they did on race day.

Did you race or train over the weekend? How did it go?

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The Long Weekend

Posted in Biking, Family life, Marathon, Running, Trails, Triathlon, tagged , , , , on September 5, 2012| 1 Comment »

The “long” in “long weekend” refers not to the Labor Day three-day weekend, but the long run and long ride I did on Saturday and Sunday.

morning full moon over Southern California

The full moon smiled on my morning run

Early Saturday morning I busted out a new personal distance record with 14 miles, most of which I ran at the track because my delicate feet needed a softer, flatter surface than the roads near my house. The run felt great with a pace of 9:40 and a total time of 2:15:27. That’s 6.2 miles per hour for 14 whopping miles, and I can still remember a year and a half ago when I couldn’t run a mile on the treadmill at 6 miles per hour!

After a cold water bath (I no longer torture myself with ice but do dip in a cold tub for 10 minutes), a glass of chocolate milk to drink, and a quick hot shower, I hopped in the car with my family. Friends invited us and another family to spend the weekend with them in Poway. Poway is a pretty town in San Diego County that calls itself “The City in the Country.” I can tell you it makes for an amazing setting for a long bike ride. My husband Mike and I roped our friend Seth into a 23-mile ride along the SR-56 bike trail.

Three happy bikers

Mike, Seth and me. Gee, that doesn’t look like a cell phone camera self-portrait at all!

As you can probably guess from that creative trail name, the SR-56 bike trail follows State Route 56, but it’s prettier than its name implies. If you’re willing to do a little riding on the road at the end, you can make your way from Poway all the way down to Torrey Pines State Beach.

On the Cliffs overlooking Torrey Pines State Beach

Rewarded with the view of Torrey Pines State Beach from the end of the trail

I went to University of California, San Diego, so this is my old stomping grounds. Mike must have thought of that when he chose to wear my UCSD long-sleeve technical tee for the ride:

bikers at Torrey Pines

Yes, my long-haired husband also has no problem wearing my woman’s technical tee. I love you honey!

We were all enthralled with the view and happy until we realized the 11.5-mile ride back would be uphill! (That’s the thing in California. You quickly learn that any trail headed toward the ocean runs downhill and, you guessed it, anything headed away from the ocean runs uphill. See: water, river, flow, ocean, your physics lesson for the day). I looked at it as great preparation for the rolling hills I will ride on PCH for the Nautica Malibu international tri in a couple of weeks. I also enjoyed it more than I should have, because I am faster than the boys on the hills (granted, they are faster than I am on the downhills and turns because me = chicken). While I waited for the boys to finish, I tacked on an extra two miles, just to say that I did 25 miles total, a little more than I’ll need to ride in the triathlon.

I owe a big thanks to my friend Bonnie for watching the kids while Mike, Seth and I rode. It’s a double treat to ride with them and in such a beautiful setting. (The third treat was the post-bike recovery fuel of a half-slice of decadent chocolate cheesecake!)

Did you do any training over the long Labor Day weekend?

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My Workouts on the Run Less, Run Faster Marathon Training Plan

Posted in Biking, Marathon, Running, Strength training, Swimming, Triathlon, Weight training, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 31, 2012| 6 Comments »

I confess I have the dread disease that requires me to log every mile of every swim, bike and run, and every minute of exercise. If I don’t document it in at least three places, it didn’t happen, much like if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it. I track my runs and bike rides with a Garmin and/or with MapMyRUN, then record them on MapMyRUN, on my computer spreadsheet, and on my paper marathon training schedule. That’s normal, right? 😉 Just nod and back away slowly, and maybe you won’t catch this dread disease.

The fact is I find the data fascinating and it all helps me keep on track for my triathlon and marathon training. I’ve got an Olympic distance triathlon coming up in two weeks (!!) and the marathon in 10 weeks (!!!) I’ve been following the Run Less, Run Faster beginner’s marathon training plan. It calls for three runs per week (speed work, tempo, and long run) plus at least two cross-training workouts. For cross-training of course I do swimming and biking, a natural fit for the triathlon training. I also throw in some strength training. All that means that I exercise an average of six days per week for an average of six to six-and-a-half hours total. (Now I know that sounds like a lot to someone training for her first 5K, and like nothing to someone training for an Ironman. I don’t compare myself to anyone else (although if you want to leave a comment to tell me how much you’re training for your 70.3 or 140.6, I’d be curious to know the answer!))

For me the week generally looks like this:

Sunday: 60-minute bike ride or 30-minute ocean swim
Monday: rest day, possible 30-minute strength training
Tuesday: 60-minute speed workout, generally 6 miles including warm-up and cool-down
Wednesday: 30-minute swim or 40-minute bike ride, plus 20-30 minutes strength training
Thursday: 60-minute tempo run, generally 6-7 miles (this will be going up as the plan proceeds)
Friday: 30-minute bike ride plus 30 minutes of strength training; optional rest day or only strength training
Saturday: 120-minute long run (soon to be more as I head into new territory with 14+ mile runs!)

It ends up being three runs, two bike rides, one or two swims, and an average of two strength training sessions. By the numbers for August:

Swim miles (a swim mile being 1500 km): 5.25
Bike miles: 101.3 (full disclosure: I count 30 minutes on the spin bike as 10 miles)
Run miles: 100.59 (woo hoo, broke my first 100!)
Number of strength training workouts: 8, for a total of 3 hours 25 minutes

My handy computer spreadsheet shows me a pie chart that compares the ratio of swim to bike to run to weights, all based on minutes. It consistently stays at about 58 percent running, 18 percent biking, 14 percent swimming and 10 percent strength training.

Do you log all of your workouts? In more than one place?! Please confess that I’m not the only one.

What are you training for if anything and what does your mileage and workout time look like recently?

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10 Tips for Eliminating Excuses Not to Exercise

Posted in Biking, No Excuses, Running, Triathlon, tagged , , , , , , , on August 20, 2012| Leave a Comment »

These 10 tips for eliminating excuses not to exercise go beyond the traditional advice to lay your workout clothes out the night before, set your alarm across the room, exercise first thing in the morning, or carry your bike pump on the bike. These tricks have saved me more than once and kept me on track (so to speak) with my marathon and triathlon training.

1. Memorize a basic strength training routine that does not require any equipment. I cannot count the number of times my workout plan has been derailed by the weather, lack of transportation, or a sick child who needs to stay home in bed. After doing the series of strength training exercises laid out in Train Like a Mother just a couple of times, I found that I could do the exercises on my own, anywhere, anytime. You can watch a video demonstration online of How to Get Ripped Like a Mother. Sometimes when I am supervising my children on the playground at a park, I will do triceps dips on the park bench, pushups on the grass, and crunches on the rubber safety turf on the playground! Before I know it I’ve gotten in a 20-30 minute comprehensive strength training workout with no equipment required.

2. Keep headphones in your pocket or purse. If you can’t bear to run without your tunes but suddenly your iPod is dead, what can you do? Use those headphones to plug in at the gym, or download a free library book on tape to a media card in your smartphone. If those aren’t options, swim in the pool (I have found an outdoor pool that plays music!) or choose a local trail and enjoy some people-watching while you log some “unplugged” miles!

3. Pack your workout bag with alternatives. The other day I drove 20 minutes to the bike trail only to find that I couldn’t inflate my front bike tire with my bike pump (note to self: repair tire valve stem; check tire inflation at home). Because I’d worn my running shoes and not my slip-on shoes that I normally wear before changing into my cycling shoes, I was able to salvage the workout with a 4-mile run on the trail. Stay flexible with your plan by packing your swimsuit in your running bag, and bringing your running shoes when you plan to bike.

4. Keep extra sunscreen and toiletries in your gear bag. Perhaps you’ve driven to the gym on your day off only to find it unexpectedly closed for the holiday. If you’ve packed sunscreen with you, you can take your workout outside instead. Just don’t store that sunscreen in your car — the heat degrades the sunscreen, reducing its effectiveness.

5. Research your workout alternatives. You can rescue a workout by knowing in advance what your alternatives are. If you’ve arrived at the gym only to find the pool closed due to a baby’s “accident,” instead of swearing “SH!T” and going home, hit that local city pool that charges a small one-time usage fee. Keep a list of bike and running trails and local parks.

6. Store hairbands on your key chain. This tip applies to long-haired ladies (and men like my husband!), and fathers with girls who are active in sports. I use a carabiner to clip hairbands to my keys, but you can hook the bands right on the keychain too.

7. Invest in some face wipes. After a recent workout I was so sweaty that I could literally wring sweat drops out of my clothes. I can hardly wait to change clothes and clean myself up after a tough workout. If I have errands to run or someplace to be before I can get in a shower, I use face wipes to do a temporary cleanup job. I like Burt’s Bees Facial Cleansing Towelettes with White Tea.

8. Plan for injury. If you’re sidelined by injury from your normal routine, learn to shake it up with cross-training and strength training. With your doctor’s okay, try low-impact aqua-running in the pool, or train on the bike for an upcoming running race (yes it’s possible — check out Train Like a Mother, mentioned above).

9. Keep extra water and snacks in your car or gym bag. Not only is it good emergency planning, keeping extra bottles of water and a snack like graham crackers, nuts or granola bars can fuel an impromptu workout.

10. Cut yourself a break. When all else fails, embrace a rest and recovery day. Use the time to readjust your workout plan for the week to make up for the day. Most importantly, adjust your mental attitude. DO NOT let today’s rest make you feel like you’ve fallen off the wagon, so you might as well not exercise the next day either. That is no excuse! It’s even more important that you exercise the next day. Use your rested body to power out a faster, harder workout than ever!

What tips do you have for motivating yourself to get the day’s workout in no matter what life throws your way? Have you ever rescued a workout by having a backup plan? Once, when I had just 30 minutes before I needed to pick up my toddler at preschool, I ran around the lake path at a nearby park. Nothing unusual about that, except I was wearing jeans at the time! Can’t stop me! 😉

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No Excuses: An Athlete’s Most Important Quality

Posted in Bike trails, Biking, No Excuses, Trails, tagged , , , , , on August 12, 2012| 2 Comments »

Last we spoke I was planning to head to Zuma Beach in Malibu in the morning to preview the swim course for the Nautica Malibu Triathlon. That remained the plan this morning, right up to the moment my seven-year-old said, “I don’t feel so good.” Sure enough, the thermometer revealed a temperature of 100.7 degrees Fahrenheit. No beach day for us. I could have gone by myself, but I was following what I consider the first rule of open water swimming: Don’t swim in open water alone. If it were a protected, waveless cove with a lifeguard or a calm, shallow lake where my feet could touch the ground at all times, I might be willing to break that rule. Not in the open Pacific Ocean, without buoys, and with unknown lifeguard coverage. The whole point of going out there was to test the waters with waves and wind, and I wasn’t willing to risk swimming in those conditions alone, in spite of the fact that I am a strong swimmer who has never had a problem. That preview can wait a few more weeks, although the triathlon website helpfully reminds me that there are only 33 days until the event!

So, a monkey wrench got thrown into my workout plans. That brings me to what I consider an athlete’s most important quality. It’s not talent, speed, strength, or agility — it’s dedication. How dedicated was I to getting in a workout today? Could I bounce back and switch mental gears for a new plan? I had a choice to make. I could (1) scratch today’s workout altogether, (2) swim at the Y (an option until a friend helpfully texted the warning that the pool was closed “til further notice”), (3) pay a few dollars to swim at another outdoor pool facility, or (4) brave the heat wave and go for my regular Sunday long bike ride. It seems Southern California has a fever too:

Car external thermometer readout

My car’s external thermometer readout at the bike trailhead parking lot.

I hit the bike trail for an easy 10.3 miles with a few speed intervals thrown in. The 100-degree heat posed no problem as long as I stopped at the drinking fountains for a water bottle refill. The only issue was that the first water station was surrounded by about 30 homeless people. I was less worried about my safety or my water needs and more worried about the people who had to bear the dry, relentless heat we have been experiencing here. Thank goodness on the return route I saw that the reason so many people were gathered in that area was that the food truck arrived to serve an afternoon meal. I looked to see if I could spot a name on the truck so I could donate to that organization. Sadly I couldn’t see it and I wasn’t willing to stop because I already had a homeless guy joking with me that he wanted to hitch a ride on my aero bars! I smiled and rode on.

I love the Santa Ana River Trail and I have never felt unsafe there. Many homeless people live under the bridge underpasses but I have never had an issue with them. I won’t run west toward the beach by myself in the early morning, but I’d ride my bike no problem, and I’d run later in the day without worrying. The route east toward the wealthier suburbs are fine at any time. The trail is well enough used that it’s not a cause for concern. I’m cautious and smart and I listen to my female, internal warning system. (Don’t worry Mom and Dad! I know you’re reading this!) Bad things can happen anywhere no matter how smart and cautious you are, and I think of Sherri Arnold often, but more often than not I think of my getting out there as a small honor to her.

At any rate, today’s bike ride proved fun and uneventful. I approached Angel Stadium and the Honda Center in Anaheim:

Santa Ana River Trail view of Anaheim Stadium and Honda Center

Santa Ana River Trail view of Anaheim Stadium and the Honda Center

and eventually stood right under this:

The A at Angel Stadium

The A at Angel Stadium as viewed from the Santa Ana River Trail

Heavenly.

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