Life Lately
HELLO!! It has been a while. I hadn't realized how long until this morning when I took a look and realized the last time I wrote to you all was after the Bend Marathon. There is no real reasoning behind my silence merely that life became its typical hectic self and my mental capacity for writing seemed to diminish. This is a bit of an excuse and when I say it out loud it sounds as though I am I am standing in front of my teacher saying "my dog ate my homework".
What has been going on the last month since I wrote to you?
Work
Work. This has been a bit of a struggle for me. As you may know I started a new job at the end of March. It is a very good job but a tough one, for a multitude of reasons that I won't go into. I am learning a ton as I continue on at this position however it is very mentally taxing and on top of ironman training I often feel like I may have bitten off more than I can chew.
But each day is a learning experience and I am lucky to have a husband who helps me to pick up the pieces when it does become to much.
Everyday Life
The hours that are not spent either at work or training the husband and I try to spend it together. Lately that has meant me trying to not fall asleep before 9 pm but I am lucky to have married someone to which as long as we are next to each other all is good. My favorite part of the week has become Saturday and Sunday mornings in which we both take our time getting up and when we do get up we sit and have coffee watching sports center or just hanging out together. While it means that I often spend the rest of my day training those couple hours of nothingness together are the best hours.
My parents came up for Memorial Weekend and we spent the weekend golfing, biking (65 miles to and from CdA and back), watching NBA basketball, and eating some good food. Not many families when asked what you do when your parents come to visit say the following; golfed, ran, biked (60+ miles I may add), studied, made ribs, went out to dinner, watched NBA basketball all in a quick two day trip.
Brandon has been doing a bunch of golfing and taking on the project of doing some updates to our house. We, and by we I mean Brandon, are in the process of doing some cosmetic updates to the house and so far have already updated the guest bathroom, started re-painting the outside fence, and some yard work outside. The plan is to update the carpet in the living room, add some new sliding doors to our bathrooms, fix the bathtub in the main bathroom, and make a few more updates to the yard. They are small updates but amazing at what they do to give the house a bit of a lift.
Training
The road to ironman is not an easy one and while training is something I enjoy I would be lying if I said it was fun all the time. In fact lately it has been a chore for me to get out there and train. Don't get me wrong I am loving the journey; I love the long workouts, being outside, the crazy tan lines, the pushing yourself to see just how far you can go, I even love the feeling of having pushed so hard you are beyond exhausted, the progress, and all that comes with the journey. However, I am also looking forward to not being on such a strict regiment. I want to be able to run when I want, lift when I want, and not feel guilty if I go to the gym and lift hard versus go for a bike ride.
Despite the increasing number of days where my amazing husband has to force me out the door (or bed) to go train it has been going well. I have increased my time on the bike and spent last week doing a lot of hills, climbed up Mt. Spokane yesterday!
I experienced my first "oops" when it comes to heat a couple weekends ago. I had 80+ miles planned for the day and it happened to be one of those wonderful 95 degree days with no wind here in Spokane. I actually don't mind riding in the heat however when you drop a water bottle 15 miles into your ride it becomes a lot harder to complete your trip. Despite rationing the remaining liquid that I had with me I still ran out around mile 50 and by then I was already struggling to think of anything beside ice cold Gatorade. I made it another 8 miles before I realized it was not worth trying to make it another 20 miles with no water and promptly called my husband to get picked up. It was a little frustrating to not complete my ride however it did prompt me to purchase an aero bar water container in order to ensure that I had an extra amount available to me.
Running out of water quickly reminded me that I have hit a point in my training where trying to figure out my nutrition on the bike has took a new turn. It is the point where I need to figure out how to make it those next 50+ miles nutritionally.
Racing
Currently I am sitting just around 2 weeks out of Ironman CdA 70.3, this will be the last race before Ironman at the end of August.
To say I feel ready would be a bit misleading, but then do you ever feel ready for these kind of things. Since Troika Long Course in which I had a 13 minute personal best at 5 hours I have a goal to break 5 hours here at CdA and have been working really hard on the bike in order to do so. Despite that I am feeling as though I am merely getting slower, though my husband tells me its just that I have been beating the crap outta my legs lately. It is really hard to not get wrapped up in your goals even when, yes, this is just a hobby and something I do for "fun".
Before I sign off on my "life lately" I want to Thank everyone for all the support you've given me on this journey. I know I say it a lot but I really couldn't do it without you all.
Stay tuned for more as I promise to not let so long go in between :)