Big day...

Today is a 'big day' because my runner son is participating in his first District Cross Country meet. All eight teams from the Patriot District are running this afternoon (boys and girls) and the top four teams advance to the Regional meet. His team is currently tied for/ranked fourth going into this meet. I'm not sure where the girls stand.

My son has been doing really well with his running and has dropped his time considerably in the 5K distance. Very exciting! He has one team mate who is ranked first in the District and Region, which is just awesome. I am going to be leaving work early today so I can watch. Being the nice mom that I am I baked a batch of brownies for the team for afterwards.

GO ATOMS!

I almost forgot...

I almost forgot to write about the Army 10-Miler, that is! While I did not reach my forever goal of 1:30, I had a pretty good run overall. I think the heat got to me in the last few miles, but it was a beautiful day! It is possible I wasted some energy dodging peeps at the beginning, too, but that is OK. I basically ran the entire 10 miles - only walked the water stops. I felt good the whole time, too, for the most part. As I just said, the heat did get to me, but I did not feel sick, I only slowed some. It was pretty crowded as I mentioned - it too over 20 minutes to cross the start line - see the comparison between the gun time and my chip time: 1:59:09 / 1:38:05. Isn't that nutty? I guess that walk made for a nice little warm up. :-) Before the start I was able to meet up with a bunch of folks from TeamZ, which was nice, so I had some company before hand. I found them again afterwards, too. Many of them were heading out for brunch after but I had a prior engagement to attend to...

Then, this past weekend I attended an Evolution Running clinic as I am hoping to learn to run quicker. I feel like I have a long way to go, but I vow to keep working on it. I need to adjust my cadence and the way I run. Last night I ran with the metronome again - I set it for 2 beats below optimal, which I find I can maintain. I am going to use this setting for a week and then adjust up one. I also tried off and on to concentrate of my foot placement and the use of my legs. I need to review the DVD again this weekend, I think. Tonight I hope to go to the track to use the metronome and work on my foot placement, etc.

TRI-ing something new...

I wanted a fun and catchy blog name... So this is my new blog name. Make that title. I was TriChick64, but that is so boring... I see all those other catchy blog names out there and I wanted fun-ness. I think I like it. Besides, I love the play on words. I am certainly working at being fit, and I do those TRIs... Anyway, while the address to the blog is still trichick64 the title says 'fun'!

Cheers!

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Afterthought: I have written in the 'about me' section that I want to be an Ironman. Now, don't get me wrong, triathlon is not all about being an Ironman, but getting to the finish line - in any race. At least that is what it is to me. Personal accomplishment. I will never be on the podium (unless something miraculous happens!) but I just get such a great feeling upon crossing that finish line. It is amazing. I want to do Ironman though because I am just so inspired by the people that have done them. Reading about personal success stories really gets to me. I am now inspired to do the same and will find out if I have 'it' in me (not Gatorade!) on 7-26-09! Ironman USA Lake Placid, here I come. Of course, there is a good chance that at times I will have Gatorade in me! :-)

Three days and counting...

So, three days till the Army 10 Miler (ATM). I am really excited about this now because the weather forecast looks awesome! It has to be better than the heat wave of last year. Yikes!

This morning I had a great swim. My total swim distance was 1.42 miles. There was a really wacky set that kept you thinking: a 1000 yard swim, or 40 lengths of the pool. On lengths 3,6,9,15,18,21,24,27,30,33,39 were kicking on your back; lengths 4,8,16,20,28,32 were Z3/Z4 and we had to sight (for open water swimming practice); lengths 12,24,36 were all out hard; the remaining lengths were ‘cruising’ at Z2. It was FUN!

I have not been on my bike in several weeks now...maybe a whole month. Tonight I plan to go out for 30 minutes for an easy ride. And I also need to drag my son out since he has not been on the bike in a month either and he has a Sprint tri a week from Sunday (10/12). However, his running is up to speed with all of his Cross Country training! Saturday I plan to go for an easy 20 mile ride in the morning, before packet pick up for the ATM. Sunday I plan to catch the Metro at 6AM. I am really looking forward to this weekend!

Also, I think I am officially in marathon training mode now and am looking forward to that, too. I also want to 'commit' to ironing out the kinks in my strength training and my diet. That means I need to commit to doing both. By my diet I mean more of body fat reduction than weight reduction, but if I lose weight in the process too, then that is a bonus! I have fallen off the wagon in regards to strength training, so I now commit to doing my scheduled training. I need to get a countdown timer going for the countdown to Lake Placid!