Seven Sisters Adventure and More

So lets see where were we... Oh yes, Thurs! Still wearing my glasses working out which gets increasingly more difficult the sweatier I am (nice visual huh). But plugging through my training plan as best I can.

Thurs - Spin class and weights. I have been neglecting my weight training which always shows immediately in my love handles and how quickly I recover after my other workouts. So today I did half my weight circuit, took an hour long power spin class, then did the other half my circuit. My arms and shoulders are still sore, they clearly needed attention!

Fri - Quick run at lunch time, just 3 miles. Couldn't workout after work as my attendance was required at Aaron's unemployment celebration. As long as he passes his test in July he starts a new job in August, but rather than waiting it out miserable at work, he decided to just quit and enjoy life for a few weeks. To celebrate we had drinks at The Bar in the Castro. We are all jealous of his new found freedom!

Sat - The schedule called for 3 1/2 hour ride followed by quick 20 min transition run. Now we can do any ride we want for that time, but being the overachievers that we are, the Da'Vine Gals chose the Seven Sisters (gasp from the audience). The sound of "seven sisters" strikes fear and admiration in the hearts of local people. It is well known to be the toughest ride in the area. Why is that you ask. Well it is a mere 36 miles, not bad but in that you do 5000 feet of climbing!!!! And to better simulate race day conditions in Santa Rosa in July we started at noon to get the full effect of the afternoon heat (it worked as temps were about 85). Well we definitely learned the importance of hydration. This ride was the maiden voyage for my camel pack. It worked pretty well, didn't seem to affect my riding (no balance issues or anything) though it was a bit warm against my back. The full camel pack and 2 bottles were completely drained. We stopped at the 7-11 5 miles from the end (after all the climbing is done) to get more water, gatoraid, and pretzels. We also learned never to forget Enduralite pills again (basically salt tablets, help retain hydration). Once back at our starting point we headed out on our run. I am not even sure what my legs felt like I was so tired. That 20 minutes felt like an eternity. All in all the day was quite the adventure. As usual the view from the top was spectacular, you can see both the bay and ocean. But I didn't bring my camera on this ride, so no picture. I guess we will just have to do it again so I can share with you.

Sat night I drove down to San Jose to stay with some friends who were racing the next day.

Sun - 5am the day started with a quick breakfast and helping my friends gather all their race stuff up. Then we rode our bikes the couple of miles to the race start. At 7am the waves started going in the San Jose international Triathlon. I had 5 friends racing the Olympic distance. It was a fun day, I enjoyed being a spectator for once. But was very glad the race started early. Everyone was done by 11. We were back and eating lunch by noon which was good as I was melting out in the sun (not used to the South bay heat). After driving home I took a little nap to refresh myself for the days workout, a 2 hour run. At 4pm I headed down to Lake Merced with my running partner Mr Nano (that is my iPod). Together we completed 3 laps of the lake. That is 13.2 miles (according to Google GPS) and I did it in 2 hours and 10 mins (avg 9:45 mile, nice and slow). The good thing about Lake Merced is there are no stop signs or streets to cross or anything, the bad thing is by the time you are on lap 3 you are getting pretty bored. I need to find some new routes for longer runs!

Note: I made an appointment in July for laser eye surgery consultation. Hopefully I am a candidate and never have to worry about glasses or contacts again. Wooo Hoo!!

Last weekends adventures

Trying to shake off my jet lag I jumped right back into my rigorous training schedule on Sat. We started off at 9:00am for a 46 mile bike ride that included 3500 feet of climbing (velogirls describes it as advanced). So the "Da'Vine" Gals rode out to attack the headlands and Tiburon loop. The ride to the top of the headlands is always worth the effort when you take a moment to check out the view, Sat we saw the fog roll in! It was another lovely, sunny day in the city and made for a very nice ride. Then Sat night was the big Victory party for the triathlon team. The infamous Dragon Bar was the scene for our night or debauchery! We had a great night of drinking, dancing, swapping race stories, and the annual "awards" show and season video. Last year I was the proud winner of the "Most likely to wear the spirit cape out on a Friday night" award. This year I have moved up the ranks and was awarded "Most likely to be doing Wildflower in 2015". That is a lot of pressure, not sure I can commit to that, but it is a nice thought!

Since we were out VERY late on Sat night, we decided Sunday's workout would start at the respectable time of 1:00pm. A dip in Aquatic park quickly dispensed of any leftover grogginess. It was very choppy and the current was strong. It took us almost twice as long to go one direction. After 35 min of battling the tide we got out and prepared for our run. We headed out for the Baker Beach/GG Bridge run at a nice easy pace. 95 min and 8 miles later we were back at our cars and ready for an afternoon nap!

Mon evening found us heading out on our bikes again. It was this night where we officially named ourselves the "Da'Vine Gals". Kara, Renee and I are the fabulous threesome taking on Vineman on July 30th. It will be the first half ironman for all of us. This evening called for 1:15-1:30 of cycling. So we opted for 50 min of hill repeats then an easy ride along the flats for the last 40 min.
Everything was wonderful until about 2:00am when I woke up with itchy, running, red eye. A Dr's appointment on Tues afternoon told me I have viral conjunctivitis!!! Which means my eye hurts and is itchy all the time and there is nothing I can do about it! My Dr thinks it was probably from swimming in Aquatic park in my contacts (which can trap the virus). He gave me a pamphlet for laser eye surgery and some cold drops to help with the itching and told me to take a few days off and stay away from people as I am very contagious. So I heeded his advice and worked from home Tues and Wed. But on Wed afternoon I had to go out for a run, I don't want to fall behind on my training. It is weird working out with my glasses on, but I guess it was Ok. I have to wear them for at least a week and no swimming for now either. Well that is all for now! Stay tuned for this weekends adventures!

Catching up!

I have been chastised for not keeping my blog up to date. So now that I know people are actually reading this thing, I promise to be more diligent! The last two weeks I spent in Spain and Switzerland for work. It was my first trip to both countries and I was not disappointed!

Spain:
We were in Palma on the island of Mallorca. I bet this would be a nice place for vacation, but was tough for work. All I wanted to do was go to the beach, unfortunately I had to go to the congress each day, and stare longingly out the door at the blue, sunny sky! We managed to squeeze in a few hours of shopping on our last afternoon, always good fun.

In Palma no one goes to dinner before 10 and everyone stays out until all hours. The morning starts a bit later and you are supposed to have a siesta in the afternoon before heading to dinner late and starting all over again. This was a bit hard to do when you had to be in a booth in the morning, but the last night as we were heading into a travel day; Brenda and I decided to check out the local scene! We rested in the afternoon and headed to the restaurant about 10:30pm. After a leisurely and delicious dinner we headed to Titos, the local disco. The place was great, spacious, hopping with people dancing, and they played great music! The majority of the crowd was a bit younger then us, but we had a blast dancing the night away. We even met a nice group of guys from Sweden who were there as a reward for top sales. We didn’t leave until just after 5am and there were still people lined up to come in!!! They really know how to party in Spain.

As for training, I was very diligent and ran every morning for an hour. And two of the days I swam as well since our hotel had a pool. I took our travel day to Switzerland as my “rest day”, since I was also recovering from a very late night and lots of dancing!

Wed 6/7 – Swim 45 min
Thurs – Run 1 hr (I think about 6 miles)
Fri – Run 1 hr (6.5 miles, faster pace) and swim 30 min
Sat – Run 1 hr (6 miles)

Switzerland:
I was looking forward to the train ride from Zurich to Bern, unfortunately I slept through the whole thing! But I needed it. We arrived in Bern on Sun, late afternoon. Had just enough time for a snack and then it was straight to the cocktail reception for our meeting. Got to catch up with some of our international customers and got some good suggestions for things to do in Switzerland. Then it was full force into the meeting for the next two days. Tues night after the meeting ended our distributor from Poland (Tomas) took Brenda, Jeff, and our Polish customer to the charming little town of Murten. It was entirely surrounded by a wall, sat on the lake, and if there were not cars parked on the street, looks exactly as it did hundreds of years ago. It was lovely! I loved Bern as well, such a beautiful city and we had a great time catching up with all of our international friends at IPFA. But Wed afternoon it was finally time to stop working and start playing! Brenda and I headed out on a train to Geneva. This part I stayed awake for! It was lovely, the green rolling hills passing by, the view as we came upon lake Geneva and the small towns that dot the countryside. It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. Then we arrived in Geneva itself, so different from Bern. Geneva is more modern, bustling with people, mostly business people. I loved seeing them in their suits riding bikes across town, off to work in one of the tall office buildings! We spent that afternoon and all the next day wandering the narrow streets, enjoying the architecture, quaint spots, and shopping (lots of shopping)! Both nights we had great meals and the service was incredible. Everywhere we went in Switzerland the people were so friendly and helpful, it made the whole trip such a great experience. Thurs night we had a lovely dinner "al fresca" and celebrated Brenda’s birthday. It was great fun and they brought us this enormous “meringue” dessert! All in all a great time, I would love to go back to Switzerland for a real vacation.

Again I kept up my training, even getting lots of people to run with me in Bern. One morning we had 6 of us out there, running through town and down along the river. It was pretty and quiet; we really had a lot of fun. The hotel in Geneva had a really nice pool too, so I swam both days there.

Mon 6/12 – Run 5.8 miles (very accurate given Jeff’s GPS watch)
Tues – Run 4.5 miles, fairly hard (trying to keep up with Sandy who is faster than me)
Wed – Swim 45 min
Thurs – Run 1 hour (probably about 6 miles), swim 35 minFri – Run easy 30 min after I got home, just to stretch my legs out

I am officially crazy

Whispers have been abundant, notes past, theories discussed and now it is official... I am crazy. I got the news last week that I have made it off the waiting list and onto the official list for Vineman, my first half ironman. At first I was kind of excited, there are a few others from the team racing too. Oh boy, what fun! We can train together, go to the event, it will be great. Then Kara sent me the training calendar. OH MY GOSH!!!!! (I used a bit stronger language, this has been edited). For 12 weeks I am to be doing 3 swims, 2 bikes, and 3 runs a week. That means most of the time doing 2 in a day. The workout for next Sat is swim 2000 yards, bike 3 hrs, transition run easy for 20 min. So basically that is going to take me all day!!!!

But I was right about the "fun with the team" part. Last weekend since we had the long weekend I went for broke as far as workouts go and though they wore me out I had a great time.
Sat - Swam 40 min in Aquatic Park, ran 50 min (I did about 5.5 miles) with TNT. Then a group of just the girls went to brunch. We had so much fun, a very different conversation then when the guys are around. We heard all about Kerry's striptease class, sex shows in Amsterdam, and other adventures abroad. Good times!!

Sun - Group of us girls went for a little ride across GG bridge down through Sausalito and back, just an hour. Then Christine and I went for a 30 min run. I could barely keep up with her. Then she informs me she is training for the Nike marathon and hopes to do it in 3:30! So that is why we kept up the 8 min/mile pace. Then the rest of the day I spent soaking up the sun on various patios, having a few beers and enjoying hanging out with friends. It was such a great day outside. I was glad I was living in the city.

Mon - The LONG ride. The schedule says we need to do 3 hrs, so we figure we should be doing 40 miles or more. So we take off across the bridge again, through Sausalito, up and around Paradise loop. It was a beautiful day again. I took this picture as we were riding. Then half the group were on taper so they stopped at Sams. Kara and I took off up and around Paradise loop again. Then we stopped at Sams to meet the rest and have a quick breakfast. Ride time at this point was over 2:30 and we had gone more than 38 miles. After breakfast it was time to head back, through Sausalito and UP UP UP the hill back to the bridge. I was so tired. I think I felt every mile my legs had done that day, on Sun, and on Sat. When we finally got back to Sports Basement I was just knackered. I headed home, showered, and spent the evening on the couch!

Weekend:
Swim = 1600 meters (1 mile)
Run = 8.5 miles
Bike = 66 miles (16 Sun, 50 on Mon my longest ever)