It's Official, Mother Nature Doesn't Want Me To Race!

Ok so the Tsunami surge during my fist triathlon might have just been a coincidence, but now with Tongariro threatening to blow it's top at the team half marathon location, I think mother nature is trying to send me a message!

Still, joking aside, I am just getting back into my stride with my training after a fairly extended break with whooping cough.

It's great to be getting back into it.  I didn't realise how much I would miss it until I stopped.  It's nice to feel the muscles tightening up again after being so lazy for a while.

I have also changed my training program as it seemed a bit daunting to try and jump back in after and extended break.  This is my latest plan. What do you think?

Half Marathon Training Guide
WEEK	MON	TUE	WED	THU	FRI	SAT	SUN
1	Stretch & Strength	5k Run	3.5k or Cross	5k & Strength	Rest	6.5k Run	Tri Training
2	Stretch & Strength	5k Run	3.5k or Cross	5k & Strength	Rest	6.5k Run	Tri Training
3	Stretch & Strength	6k Run	3.5k or Cross	6k & Strength	Rest	8k Run	Tri Training
4	Stretch & Strength	6k Run	3.5k or Cross	6k & Strength	Rest	8k Run	Tri Training
5	Stretch & Strength	6.5k Run	3.5k or Cross	6.5k Run	Rest	9.5k Run	Tri Training
6	Stretch & Strength	6.5k Run	3.5k or Cross	6.5k Run	Rest	5k Race	Tri Training
7	Stretch & Strength	7.5k Run	5k run or Cross	7.5k Run	Rest	11k Run	Tri Training
8	Stretch & Strength	7.5k Run	5k run or Cross	7.5k Run	Rest	12.5k Run	Tri Training
9	Stretch & Strength	8k Run	5k run or Cross	8k Run	Rest	10k Race	Tri Training
10	Stretch & Strength	8k Run	5k run or Cross	8k Run	Rest	14.5k Run	Tri Training
11	Stretch & Strength	8k Run	5k run or Cross	8k Run	Rest	16k Run	Tri Training
12	Stretch & Strength	6.4	5k run or Cross	Rest	Rest	Half Marathon	Tri Training

Scream if you wanna go faster

It is true. I have finally lost it.  I am absolutely utterly crazy.  But that's okay at least crazy people can make others laugh and that must be a good thing. I was a bit surprised though when I told my friend Paul as I fully expected him to fall off his chair laughing, but he was really supportive.

So today I will share with you first of all what it is, then why.  Because I'm sure some of you will instantly ask "why???".  So if I may ask that we keep all questions for the end please...

Team "Scream if you wanna go faster" is Denise, Rose and Me.  Or is it Denise, Rose and I?  I can't quite remember.

From left to right - Rose, Lea, Denise

The three of us have decided that later this year we'll be entering a half ironman event.

...

Done laughing?

We'll be entering this as a team and so one of us will be doing a 2km swim, one of us will be doing a 90km bike ride and the other a 21km run.  At this point in time I have been assigned the 90km bike ride.  Yes, typically I don't put 90km and bike ride in the same sentence and I have a lot of work ahead of me to make the distance, but more importantly to do it in a half decent time.  I don't expect to win or anything, but I don't want to take forever doing it and I most certainly don't want to be the first person in ironman history pushing my bike during the race (with my luck that will be the precise moment the whole of New Zealand's tv and newspaper reporters will right there).  So I have a lot of hard work to do in the next 211 days.  Or rather 209 days as day 211 is the actual event.  It might seem like a lot, but I'm sure it will go much faster than I would like.


Why are we doing it?  

Well I suppose because we only live once and we may as well do something crazy while we're at it.  Doing it as a team is certainly more manageable than doing the whole event all by ourselves.

It wasn't really something that we planned to be honest.  After getting rather hooked doing the Kapiti Womens and Palmerston North triathlons Rose and I suddenly found ourselves looking out for other events to do.  As a joke I'd sometimes send her links to ironman events - because how crazy is that?  Then the next moment she replied "why don't we do it?"  and I was like "what???!!  Like in seriously???" and she was saying that if we did a half distance one as a team it could be done.  Maybe I had lack of sleep or something that night, I don't know, but the next moment I agreed.  So our next step was to get our third team member and so Rose emailed Denise with a "this might sound like a crazy idea, but we were wondering..." and Denise then replied with a "I guess I'm crazy too so I will say yes".  And so here we are, 211 days away from our half distance ironman event...

There is another reason we are doing this too...

We will use this opportunity to raise money for the Make-a-Wish foundation.  It is another charity close to my heart.

If you had one wish today.  Just one wish - what would it be? 

Having had a child who fought a life-threatening illness I know that for these children and their parents the one wish is that they would get better.  All other dreams and goals and wishes have to be put aside for a long long time, maybe even forever, because right at that moment nothing else is more important than helping your child get better.  I'll tell you one thing - it is probably the most exhausting thing I've ever done.  There were many nights I left the hospital to go home with Caitlyn, tears streaming down my face as I desperately prayed and begged that Bianca would not be taken away from us.

For Bianca her life revolved around hospital stays, unpleasant procedures, horrible chemo that not only affected how she felt, but it "stole" her hair and changed the way she felt about food.  And it is all about the numbers - 830 days of treatment.  117 days "living" at the hospital in a tiny little hospital room often in an isolation setting where she wasn't able to leave the room, 650 days of chemo, 47 blood product transfusions and so many more things. 

But Bianca is one of the lucky ones.  She is off treatment and doing well even if she is not yet considered cured.  Even if we are at times still picking up the pieces.  But she's doing well.

Many other children are not as lucky.

The Make-a-Wish Foundation helps grant special wishes.  When your child is that sick, you do not always have the luxury of time or other resources to help make their dreams come true.  For many children - they will never again have a chance to do something other than getting treatment for a horrible disease.  So for one moment The Make-a-Wish Foundation helps a dream come true, helps brighten a child's life.  Helps them forget about the illness they are fighting, the medicines they have to take, the side effects.  It helps lift their spirits and helps them believe in magic again when they have lost the innocence all children are supposed to have.  It gives a special moment in time when you cannot be sure you will have many more moments in time.

When we were right in the thick of things Bianca's special wish was to meet Suzie Cato and I will never forget that day.  Bianca's face lit up and you should have seen the excitement and the wonder in her eyes.  (To share in this day, click here).

So Rose, Denise and I will be doing our half ironman event to help raise money for the Make-a-Wish foundation.  We are "dreaming big" for kids who might not have any dreams left anymore in the hope that we might make a special wish for a special child come true.

Please will you sponsor us and help us reach our goal.  We've created a secure fundraise page (click here)  You can use a credit card.  It is a secure site.  The same site I've used to raise money for the Child Cancer Foundation and every single cent raised will go directly to Make-a-Wish.  Alternatively let me know and I can let you have bank details and reference details.

Please sponsor us and help us reach this important goal.  Every little bit will make a big difference!  And in exchange we will do the biggest thing we've ever done and keep you updated on how we go along.

Enthusiastic or Obsessive?

One thing that I am finding with my training program is that it certainly doesn't get boring.

I always seem to be at one extreme or the other.  Either raring to go or sore, achy and wanting to go back to bed!

This week however, the enthusiasm is bordering on obsessiveness.  Despite being aware of the dangers of over training, I am struggling to take a rest day.

I had a rest day scheduled for last Monday, but the kids got new scooters and I ran to the school and back with them twice = 5k .  Each day, I promise myself I will take a rest, but I am loving the buzz that the exercise brings and because my body is more used to this level of exercise now, I find it easier to ignore the niggley aches and pains.

Also, I think I am worried that if I take a break, I will never get to the stage where I can run a half marathon.

So today I am promising myself that I will take that rest day and just run a bit faster/further tomorrow.

I'll let you know how I get on!

My Muscles Hate Me!

My muscles hate me!

They were slightly disgruntled after the Tri-Swim training on Friday

They were definitely p****d off after the 10k run/walk to the beach and back Saturday (some walking because of achilles injury).

But today the 33k bike ride with some hill training and time trials (thanks to our lovely triathlon coach Lynley) just about finished them off and now they are completely uncooperative!  It's a struggle to even get up off the sofa.

Mind you, it didn't help that I was having a bad bike day.  My saddle was loose, so it sank down to the bottom setting and I had to cycle the first 13km with my knees up to my chest.  Then my gears failed, so on the hills I had to stand up and peddle to get up the hills, so my times were useless.

It was lovely to spend time with Lea and Denise during training though.  The training much more bearable when you are having a laugh with friends.  I'm so lucky :-)

I will have a rethink about my training program as it currently doesn't allow any rest days.  Not sure I can keep that up for 12 weeks.

Feeling rather productive

Between yesterday and today I've been really productive.  Yesterday I wanted to try out my new watch which I got that acts as a bike computer (considering I lost my last bike computer) and this one also comes with a heart rate monitor.  Wasn't really the reason I got it, but rather interesting to see my heart rate and that yes, I am indeed working my butt off on some of these hills (oh no wait...the butt is still very much there...).

So yesterday morning I went for a 10km bike ride and averaged 24km/h.  I'd really like to be faster, but I suppose it was a hilly ride so it is okay.  Next week I need to look at doing flatter and longer rides so I can work towards longer distances.

Last night we also had our swim lesson.  It was hard work, but easier than it was when we first started (if that makes sense).  Val, our instructor, always works us hard, but she is very good.  Usually it is just Rose and I, but last night Denise and Paul (one of my friends) joined us for the session.  It felt good doing our lesson again.

This morning I joined Rose for a run and we decided to run for 5km.  She wanted to do a 10km distance or do something for 90minutes.  So I cycled to her house, we ran our 5km, then walked with some running in between.  So all in all we did a 10k distance and of that we probably ran a total of 6.5km or 7km.  On top of that I did a total of about 6km cycle (to Rose's house and back) so I was really productive today. 

Next week my aim is (weather permitting) to do significantly more cycling and work on going longer distances and then once a week look at doing my shorter hilly ride. 

Scream If You Wanna Go Faster!

A real roller coaster couple of days so far this week:

• Amazing Tri training with Lynley on Saturday                                 - Yay!
• Hurt my ankle so couldn't train for a few days                                - Boo!
• Finalised my half marathon training program                                   -Yay!
• Had to miss the first day of my training program as ankle still hurts - Boo!
• Hill Training with Lea, easier than I had expected                           -Yay!
• Bad training session today.  Hot, slow and painful                          -Boo!
• Sat here watching biggest loser, feeling inspired                             -Yay!
• Wish I hadn't eaten chocolate before biggest loser (feeling guilty)   -Boo!
• Met with Lea and Denise today and feel inspired and motivated    -Yay!

It's tough sometimes when you are having a bit of an up and down week.  When I look back to other times when I have tough weeks, it feels like I am never going to get past it, and a short time can feel like an eternity.

There have been some really good times this week as well as some pretty bad times.  I know that I just need to keep at it and it will get easier.

Finally!

Up to now I have not managed to run a distance without some walking in between.  First of all I've been struggling with a leg injury for a while now.  As in for months making it really uncomfortable to run.  But lately it seems that maybe, just maybe the injury might finally be all gone.  I sure hope so. 

This morning I went for a 5km run.  I changed my strategy a little bit because usually I would go for 2.5km in one direction and 2.5km back home, but then I start thinking just how far I am still from home and so I start walking.  But today I decided that I would run 5km in one direction before I would start walking.  And that's exactly what I did.  I ran 5km without any walking.  And I did it in 47 seconds faster than I did my recent 5k run at the Great Forest events.  I am so proud of myself.  I then walked 5km back home and so all in all I did about 10km. 

Denise, Rose and I also met today and discussed some goals and we are all very excited, but definitely crazy.  We'll share more information really soon.  Watch this space!

Catching up with training

Finally the kids are back at school.  It is a bit of a mission now that it gets dark so much earlier, but now that the kids are at school it does mean that I'll be able to get out during the day to work on my fitness.  In celebration of this fact I went out for a bike ride today.  Well I'm saying celebration, but it took quite a bit of motivation to actually get myself sorted to go out.  It is so much easier being lazy, but I know that I have to make the effort.

The route I took has fairly tough hills.  In my world anyway.  I know the hills are important as that will not only help with my running, but will make my biking easier going forward.  Until then, they are hard.  Incredibly hard.  I didn't check distance or speed, but simply just went for it. 

At one point after struggling with a few of the hills there was a lovely downhill ahead.  About halfway down I suddenly thought "oh...this will be a fairly tough uphill on the way back".

In total I did about 14.5km so am pleased with today's effort.

Tomorrow I will hopefully get out for a swim and I'll try and go out for a run. 

Speaking of running we had our Saturday training session on the weekend and it was a really good session.  We focused on running drills, posture, stretches, core strength and working out our cadence.  It is so wonderful having an amazingly talented coach helping us.  I kind of thought my legs would be sore after the session, but surprisingly they were perfectly fine (hopefully a sign that I am now fully recovered). 

Now that the kids are back at school, I intend taking full advantage of that and catch up with the training I had to let slip in the school holidays.

Finding the Right Half Marathon Training Plan

As I am trying to increase my running from 5k level, to a half marathon (and maybe eventually to a marathon, Eek!), I have been reading marathon and half marathon book written by Sam Murphy.  Some of the facts that he came up with to do with marathons, I found quite astounding.

In the process of running a marathon you will:

•     Take approx 40,000 steps
•     Shrink by as much as 2cms
•     Increase your heart beat to about 150 beats per minute
•     Breathe approx. 40 times per minute (compared to 12-18 at rest)
•     Pump 25-35 Litres of blood around your body per minute (compared to 4-5 litres at rest)

(source: Marathon and half marathon – Sam Murphy, 2009)

Phew!  Makes me tired just thinking about it.

I have also been doing a lot of online research to try and find the right training programme for me to follow.  It has been a bit tricky as most of them are shown in miles rather than kilometres, so I have to keep converting them using the following chart.

Lea suggested that I look at the Hal Higdon half marathon training plans (thanks Lea :-) and the advanced plan is ideal for the stage I am at currently (able to run an hour at a time)  http://www.halhigdon.com/training/51130/Half-Marathon-Training-Guide .

I copied his training program into an excel spreadsheet, converted it to kilometres and also added in the additional training that I have with Val for swim training and Lynley from Tribrown Coaching (https://www.facebook.com/groups/136720836457684/ ). 

I like the fact that you can change the plan to suit your own needs.  I should really have another rest day in there each week, but I am hoping that the swimming will count like a rest day as it is cross training rather than running, and also, I often find that I have enforced rest days, if the kids are off sick, or on holidays, so I will just take rest days when I need to.

Runners world also offers some good training plans as well as some useful calculators (race time predictor, race split band etc) http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/racing/big-half-marathon-index/4179.html.  They also offer Garmin downloads for those of you with Garmin Watches.

Other training plans that I looked at were:

http://www.shoeclinic.co.nz/beginner-half-marathon.html

http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_4/144.shtml

The other thing that I am learning about, is how to eat properly for the half marathon as you are supposed to practice this before your long training runs to ensure you don’t get any nasty surprises on the day: http://www.ehow.com/how_2034729_eat-half-marathon.html

I will continue to add more info as I find it.

If you have come across any good plans or info about half marathon training, then please let me know in the comments below.

Skinny Clothes Day!

After a sort out last week of the clothes that were too big for me now, I went in search of my skinny clothes today (I use that term loosely as I have never really been skinny).

Anyway, as the kids were playing nicely in the other room, I had a trying on session.  Boy was I surprised!  All of the clothes either fitted or were too big.  I was able to get on all the clothes that I had bought and never worn. Things that I had planned to wear when I had lost another couple of pounds.  Lots of them still had the labels on.

So I now have a whole new wardrobe of clothes to wear.  It makes all the training worthwhile.  Yippee!

Also managed to get a training session in at the gym after Pak n Save, so all in all a good day :-)

Training in the Holidays

Why is it so difficult to train during the school holidays?

Before the holidays start, I have all these little fantasies about the fun, fitness activities that we can take part in as a family.  Then the holiday starts and reality dawns.  I still have to work in the morning and by the time I have finished my work at 1pm, the kids don't seem interested in running around.

My son would rather play video games for as long as he is allowed, and my daughter wants to sit and paint or play my little pony.

I managed to get my daughter to come out for a bit of a run with me yesterday.  She was on her bike and I was running with the dog.  It all started off well, until she started to get tired after the first kilometer and then the dog did his business, which I had to then bag up and run with for the last kilometer (not nice).

Anyway, managed to get a 2k run out of it.  When hubby came home in the evening, I decided to head for the gym for a more satisfactory 5k run on the treadmill (I would like to do this most evenings, but quite often feel too tired by the time hubby gets home)

The kids are heading off to a holiday program tomorrow for the day, so should be able to get a good session in then.  Might need to work on speed rather than endurance though as we have a race the following day.

How do you manage to fit your training in during the holidays?  Any good ideas for training with kids?

Going around corners - a bit more technical than I thought

Usually on a Saturday morning we have a training session with Lynley Brown.  We are just a few motivated ladies wanting to get better at what we do.  We are very fortunate that we have Lynley guiding us because she has certainly been there done that and has even won some ironman events. 

Because today is a public holiday we all decided that this morning would be perfect to go out for our session.  I am really pleased the weather man got the prediction wrong and instead of gusty southerlies it turned out to be the most beautiful sunny day with blue skies. 

For our session today we did a bit of a bike ride which was lovely.  The same route we would do in the Kapiti Women's Triathlon and I have to say when I first did it, it felt quite long, but today felt incredibly manageable.

Lynley focused mostly on going around corners safely without compromising on speed.  Quite a lot to think about like getting enough speed to glide around the corner or roundabout and which foot should be down and which foot should be up and and so on.  I think it is going to take some practise getting used to it.

A quiet week

Last Sunday Rose and I did a massive 21 km walk on the beach.  It is funny though because hearing the word "walk" you would think it can't be that bad.  But let me tell you it was pretty full on.

The first 13km I managed to keep up a great pace, but then suddenly my legs and feet started complaining making life rather painful and uncomfortable for the rest of the way.  Rather surprisingly in the end I found I wasn't last and completed my walk in 03:33:18.

If you would like to read more about the event, click here.

I didn't do any training so far this week.  I'm still waiting for my feet to fully recover and thankfully today my legs seem okay.  This whole week I've been wanting to go out running and am actually missing it as I'm waiting to recover.  I never knew I'd ever want to go running and am actually missing it. 

Tomorrow morning Rose and I will do our weekly training instead of on Saturday morning and it will be a biking skills session.  I am looking forward to that!

Me Run - Never!

Hi I'm Rose, and I am one of the most unlikely runners that you are ever likely to meet ;-)

In fact if you had asked me to take part in a race, my response would have been, 'what, me run - Never!'

Or that's what I always thought.  I had managed to get to my middle 40's without ever needing to do so, and I have struggled with a weight problem since I was 5 years old (in fact, I can never remember being thin), so didn't believe that I had that runners build.

So what changed?

A couple of years ago, there was a strange coincidence of circumstances that spurred me into action:

• I was told that my 7 year old son had high cholesterol (he was being checked as it is a genetic condition on my husbands side of the family).
• I had a dream about running, where I was running so fast that I felt I was flying.  It felt incredible!
• My group of friends were also up for a challenge and we started joking about doing a triathlon, so I signed us up to do a group triathlon.

This meant that we had to make a lot of changes as a family both with diet and exercise.  Although I have always had the kids doing lots of after school activities, I noticed that my son was starting to slow down and lose interest and it was time for me to lead by example instead of cheering him on from the sidelines.

I signed us up for family fun run's (which is a bit of a misnomer when you have a 4 and a 7 year old, moaning are we there yet?  I'm tired!).

It's been a slow process, but things are definitely changing.  Both kids are really enjoying activity now.  My son has taken part in 4 triathlons, 2 5km runs, and the inter-school swim races as well as a half mile swim (without stopping!).  My daughter has taken part in 2 5km runs, has learnt to swim and loves riding her bike everywhere.

As for me, I have lost two stone, and gained a completely new lifestyle and had lots of fun (if at times painful experiences) along the way.  I have also gained some amazing new friends and the support that comes with taking part in the group training for the triathlons.

I still have a long, long way to go on this journey.  I need to build my stamina to do the longer runs, and I need to improve my speed for the shorter ones (pretty slow at the moment).  I still also need to lose lot's of weight, which would hopefully mean the running would be a bit easier and people would not look at me so incredulously when I mentioned triathlons.

I have been very lucky that my husband Mike has been so wonderfully supportive, throughout, and I am hoping to lure him into the triathlon world (he has already done a couple of the 5k runs with me).

Anyway we have a couple of BHG's (big hairy goals) ahead and lots of plotting and planning to do?

I would also like to hear what motivates you to get out there and run? 

Are we there yet?

No.  Not yet.  But we are working on it!

This is a place where we (Rose, Denise and I) will share our goals, adventures and challenges as we are working to keep fit.

Rose and I have been friends for a little while now and thanks to her "gentle persuasion" I decided to enter the Kapiti Women's Triathlon.  A decision that started changing my life. 

As part of the preparation we joined in with a very motivated bunch of ladies each Saturday morning and this is where we met Denise.

For me personally, the Kapiti Women's Triathlon was an amazing event.  And proof that I was able to do this event despite dealing with some leg injuries and having less than ideal fitness levels. And really if I can do it - then you can too! (Read all about my experience here).

Our next event that we did together was the Contact Women's Tri in Palmerston North and I have to admit that right now I'm hooked (all Rose's fault really...) (Read all about my experience here).

Both the Kapiti Women's and the Contact Women's Tri were amazing events for me to start off with.  They were incredibly supportive and I am really glad that I took the plunge and went for it. 

We have a pretty big huge goal that we are now working on, but more on that a little bit later so watch this space... :-)

But who am I?

I am Lea - a mum of two beautiful girls.  Caitlyn is currently 5 and Bianca 8.  We moved from South Africa in 2004 and now call New Zealand "home".

Bianca is my little hero as she was diagnosed with leukemia shortly before turning 4 and received treatment for 830 days.  Once when she was 5 her school had a cross country event and it was expected that all kids would participate.  I was incredibly worried because one of the drugs she received to treat her leukemia affected her legs and she was unable to run like other kids.  I knew that there was no way she would even stand a chance of winning and it broke my heart.  The teacher assured me that Bianca would have the option to have a walking buddy or to be a special helper.  Bianca insisted that she was going to participate.  And she did.  She came dead last, but she participated and she finished the race.  I was so incredibly proud.  To do this despite the challenges she was dealing with is absolutely amazing!  To read Bianca's story click here.

Bianca is my inspiration and the reason why I am also now working on my fitness.  I might not win, but I will participate and I will do my best - isn't that what it is all about?