Born Again Athlete:

Herro

Since I haven't posted a pic in a while, here is a hilarious one of me and Tobes:

I love my Toby.

Today was a good day consisting of biking to track workout, having a good track workout (despite all the hill repeats!) - I'm getting faster, biking back and crossing the Lamar pedestrian bridge over Town Lake and seeing the capital and downtown Austin lit up, going to Whole Foods and having a raw foods salad, then picking up some espresso beans and biking back home.

I'm in the phase of thinking I can probably do this thing. I biked 112 miles on Saturday; we were supposed to 100, but I wanted to see how it felt, and you know what? It wasn't too bad! And I did it in 7.5 hours, which I'm pretty happy about. But getting serious about the rest of the month - no eating crap, sleeping lots and no drinking; okay, except for Halloween night! And more sex - ha, knew I'd catch your attention. I'm sure lots of sex would increase my VO2 max, increasing my cardiovascular endurance, work the
quads....

26 days left!

Hey everybody!

Just some random ramblings....
Some people's blogs are just SO boring. I mean really boring. I mean really, really boring.
Will I be the fattest Ironman out there?
Geez, it seems like everyone is reaching for a sub-4 hour marathon.
I am slow and steady. Emphasis on the slow. I don't care though.
I can't run as fast as a lot of people, but I bet they can't do therapy as good as I can. See, we all have our strengths. Athletics is not mine, but I do it anyway.
I need to eat less and sleep more!
I was paged during spin tonight and had to talk to a patient. Totally had to shift gears - ha! get it? I amuse myself so much sometimes.
I see I have some new readers lurking out there - say hello!
I did 19.7 hours of training this past week!
I need a freakin' boyfriend.
Toby is the bestest dog ever!  Her favorite toys are Moo-moo, Peepo and Doggy.
I am totally going to lose book bowl this year.
I have tried to learn the word synedoche several times, but it just won't stick in my brain.

Stop the Insanity!

Do you know what I did yesterday? I signed up for:

 

Okay, not the 100 miler, but the 50 miler.  I need serious help.

I feel better.

First, thanks for the encouragement. Thanks to Maggie most of all because she addressed a lot of things  I feared.

Second, I want to talk about FLONASE. As I've reported before, I've had horrible allergies since coming to Austin. Someone finally wrote me a Flonase prescription, and within 1 day, it was already working. I was very pleased - I could breathe! Then I started feeling crappy: tired, cranky, irritable as hell, increased appetite. Flonase is an inhaled steroid; it's supposedly topical and doesn't really get into your system. Although, as someone pointed out, cocaine is inhaled through the nose and certainly gets in your system, why not Flonase? Well, at any rate, it's not supposed to affect you as much as taking oral steroids. But it did. It's hard to deny the timing of taking it and how bad I was feeling. That weekend I had a horrible training weekend and at Monday track workout, I had to leave early. My pulse was very high and I was irritable. Even Catherine, in her nice way, said I was more "grumpy" than usual. Anyway, I stopped and I started feeling much better after a few days.

As a physician, it made me realize a few things. These symptoms were not listed as a side effect. Often patients complain about side effects that aren't the usual side effects. I usually sort of roll my eyes (secretly) but now I know - unlisted side effects do happen! Also, my internist (who is actually a co-worker and acquaintence) sort of poo-pooed my complaint that I felt tired, citing that steroids usually make one manic and hyper, not tired. But you know what? I felt tired! I'm not a big fan of doctor bashing (in general, we do know what we're doing, and we do and don't do things for a reason), but hopefully, it will make me more sensitive about side effects than I already am.

And I had a great training weekend - 98 miles on Saturday in about 6 1/2 hours and 18 miles on Sunday in 4 1/2 hours. Did good stretching and an ice bath (I am making these fairly routine.)

My Ironman is 5 weeks away!

What sound does a helicopter make?

Glung, glung, glung.

Happy Birthday Thom and Willie!! My bros - they are twins.

Seeking help

So I think maybe it's the Flonase that was making me sick and somewhat hysterical (more on this later). But Erin suggested that I ameliorate my worries by talking to people to have done an Ironman and remember their anxieties prior to it. So, I will contacting you - Maggie, Kathleen, Greyhound. Anyone else drop me a line for helpful advice. I need it! I haven't been perfect with my training, although pretty good. I'm worried that I will make it to mile 2 of the run and just crumple up and cry on the side of the road. I'm in that "why did I sign up this race" phase.

Wow, what a crappy training week

yeah, I skipped 1 track workout, 1 swim workout, didn't do my long swim and this weekend I biked 10 miles then ran 2.9 miles - barely enough for sprint training! And I've been eating like crap this week.  Ugh, don't know what's up with me this past week.

My Ironman is 6 weeks away! I count only 5 weeks, since the last week is travel week, etc. I'm losing my steam and motivation. I would just like to sleep in all the time. I am also doubting myself to finish.

Ranting and more ranting.

It's my blog and I can write what I want to....

I'm really annoyed and irritable right now. Yes, I understand the bailout crisis, home mortgages, loans and what has to be done, etc, but it doesn't make me less pissed that my tax dollars are going to help people have smaller home loans so they can keep a house that they shouldn't have bought in the first place. When I bought a house in Houston, I could have bought the maximum allowed, a 3000 sq foot place with granite countertops and jacuzzi tubs, but you know what? I didn't. My mortage was 1/7th of my salary, which is way smaller than the recommended 1/3 or 1/4.

And this election is annoying the hell out of me. Does anyone notice that John McCain fumbles and trips over a lot of his words? I'd hate for him to be speaking to the prime minister of some country and saying lots of "uhs" and correcting his words. And Obama just seems like a slick game show host. They both said false things about each other in the debate, by the way.

And don't be so naive to think that race is not a factor. Of course no one is going to go on record stating that they don't feel comfortable "voting for that black feller."  But you know it's out there. I supported Clinton (Hillary) not mainly for that reason, but because I know there are people out there who would rather vote for WHITE woman than a BLACK man. Overt racism is not really that prevalent anymore, but it's stil there.

And speaking of race, the sport of triathlon is obviously devoid of ethnic people. Why? I am very interested in this. It's not as if African-, Latino-, and Asian Americans don't have the financial means, physical abilities or obsessive natures to participate in triathlons. Hmmmm.

And I had a weird dream where I went to do Sunmart 50K and there were lots of people there who didn't seem like runner types. There was a casserole potluck prior to the race, so we were eating a lot. Then a woman confronted her husband who was cheating on her (with another runner in the race) and somehow I got involved so he started shooting a gun at me. I had to hid in a portapotty to escape him. A really gross, disgusting portapotty. I also was wearing a pink running skirt but had no underwear on and was trying to find my underwear.

And my allergies here are KILLING me. If I had known about them, I would not have moved here. Seriously. I may seriously consider moving from Austin if this doesn't get under control because it's affecting my quality of life!

ahhhh, vent, vent, vent. 

Congratulations!

To my new friends who did their first half-Iron yesterday! Yay to AJ, Alisa, Catharine, Christina, Jason, Courtney, Rhonda, Lisa!

I volunteered and it was fun. There were a lot of famous pros out there including Simon Lessing, Tim DeBoom and Michellie Jones! After the swim finished, some of us went to transition area to see the pros finish the bike. They are all so fast in T2! Very calm, very efficient - apart from the run back to the rack, they averaged about 20 seconds in T2!  We saw Michellie Jones come in, and was perplexed by how slow and lackadasical she was taking T2. She put on her shoes, then a hat, then some sunscreen. I then saw her take off her race belt, so she was through. I heard she had a recent calf injury, so I guess she was thinking whether to bow out or not. Still, it was very thrilling to be so close to her (like about 15 feet away)! She is very tiny and everything is pink! Not a regular pink, but a metallic hot pink. Even her shoes. Richie Cunningham won the men's and Lisa Bentley won the women's. She was actually quite behind - was 9th on the swim, then made up some time, but was still 5th on the bike. She started her run significantly behind the leaders. But the announcer reported that she was once the fastest runners out there and he was right! She averaged 6:30 miles and when we saw her on the course, she was booking it! Wow, amazing.

Although tiring, it was fun to volunteer.  It's fun to cheer for others because I know how much it means to me when I'm on the course. And of course, very inspirational! As usual, the T3 members zipped through the course. Holy shit - Carrie is a beast - 5:35!

Free Therapy

Many triathletes are doing their first half-iron this weekend. In spin class this Tuesday, the anxiety in the air was palpable. My biggest strength is not my bike, but my mental ability to get through races. So some advice/tricks to some of my new friends:

1. Worst case scenario: What is the worst thing that will happen if you don't do as well as you'd like, or even DNF? You will feel bad, disappointed, maybe even a little embarrassed. But so what? Doing badly in a race will not cause you to lose your job, your house, or relationships. It's not as if we are going to lose our Nike or Zoot sponsorship because of a bad race.

2. "I'd rather be": when it gets miserable on the course, when you hurt all over, feel sweaty and gross and curse the person who introduced you to triathlon, say to yourself "I'd rather be doing this race than x."  It could be some really bad work situation or relationship situation or even some situation that you'd never really do. I always say "I'd rather be climbing this hill than taking overnight call at Ben Taub hospital." Examples:

I'd rather be doing this awful swim than be going through a divorce.                                               

I'd rather be eating this gross gu than cleaning out portapotties. 

 I'd rather be running in god-awful heat than having to give John McCain a back wax.

3. "I made it through...:" Everyone has had difficult times in their life and made it through that, whether it is death or illness in the family, financial problems, work, school. I bet you have survived through a truly difficult time in your life - and even though it seemed insurmountable at the time, you made it. If you can do that, you can make it through a little ol' race! I know that because I made it through residency, which involved 24 to 36 hour call, worry about killing patients, patients trying to kill me etc, a triathlon is fairly easy.

4. Divide and conquer: DO NOT think of the whole race in its entirety or you will screw yourself. While you're swimming, if you think "crap, I have 56 miles to bike and 13 miles to run - you'll probably get very overwhelmed. While swimming, think of swimming only. While biking, think of biking only (thinking about running afterwards while your legs are hurting on the bike,  can be deadly.)  And on the run, well, I have to think about each mile one at a time.

5. "Jane did it!": I don't mean to be self deprecating, but come on, if I could do a half-iron, I bet you can do. I'm still overweight, do everything slowly, get lost and fall down a lot. Also, my training plans were always kind of half-assed. I just made sure I could swim 2000 meters, bike the course and run about 14 miles. I didn't do bricks or speedwork or interval training or practice my nutrition. And I still finished!

If you have been training with T3, you are ready. I think they overtrain people to make sure you finish.

I will be out there cheering!