My first road rash

Well I finally did it...I took a good spill on my bike last night and now have a nice cherry on my shoulder and hip... Which hurts worse...I'm really not sure at this point.

Rick and I headed out last night for dinner without realizing a nasty storm was coming straight for us. It was awful! I had air in my tire when we started but somewhere along the line my front tire went flat and, well, down I went. Let me tell you, ALWAYS WEAR A HELMET! I was so thankful that I did....

As quick as I was to hit the pavement, Rick was standing over me as soon as I opened my eyes. I knew I had to get out of the street, but just couldn't get up...ugh...slowing we made it and I'm so glad I was with him. We were not too far from home so Rick was at least able to go get the truck and come back for me... my hero :0

Nevertheless, Ironman training continued today with me racing against virtual Kim, (who already beat the first virtual Kim) on the Compu Trainer. Again I kicked her virtual butt. YEAH! My speed and efficiency on the bike continues to improve and I'm so happy. It's crazy to think that in one month I've improved to much...I remember when I use to hate biking and now I'm on my bike as much as I'm in my car.

Well, wish me luck tomorrow...I'm REALLY nervous and hope that my adrenaline is so high that my shoulder and hip don't disrupt my swimming. I'll blog and add photos as soon as I can.

New Event Added

Well, it's official! I'm entered into the 2009 P.F. Chang's 1/2 Marathon in January. This is actually my second 1/2 (I did it in 05) and I'm super excited to see how I can improve my time. Registration fees increase on the 15th so SIGN UP if you want to run too!!

Upcoming Event

This weekend is the Splash & Dash at Tempe Town Lake and I hope that you can come. It's 1000meter swim followed by a 3k, (which I'm not really sure what that is). Should be FUN! I've spent a lot of time swimming so I'm confident in my ability to stay afloat, but I have not been practicing as much as I should these past couple of weeks. So, Dave and I hit the pool today for 20 laps aka 1000m. I felt pretty good. Speeding up in the water is something I need to work on. I seem to have a rhythm that I can't break but in order for me to improve, I need to find a way to kick it up a notch. Perhaps the pressure of this race will show me what I'm really made of. This will be my very first water competition so eekss, I'm pretty nervous! The focus is to stay calm, breath with every stroke and get it done in under 30 minutes. If I can do that I'll be pretty happy.

Can you believe that I'm also worried about what to wear to this thing! You know, I'm not one of these skinny girls who can wear short shorts and a sports bra in public. I have bOObs that don't exactly stay still without EXTRA support. So do I wear running shorts and sports bra in the water? I can't run in my swim suit so that's not an option. Ugh... that means I have to show the world my farmer tan and my extra support bra that looks like a granny bra. Ugh. And what if it's see through. What do I do???

Yes, ride your bike IN the house!

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Rick and I were lounging after a workout and crazy as he is says, do you think I can ride your bike around the whole house without putting my feet down? Now, many of my readers have been to my house and you know that you can do a circle from the dining room, down the living room steps through the hallway and bedroom yada yada and it's a perfect circle....but narrow....HILARIOUS!!! and I do recommend you try this at home, just for the laugh. Nice job Rick.

I did my second duathlon today and with much improvement from the first time around. I have some mental challenges that I need to overcome but I'm physically strong and have the endurance. I just have to remind my head of that. Sometimes the hardest discipline is the mental exercise but one I'm certainly not afraid to face head on.

Just a brief overview to reach my real story. We did the duathlon at Papago Park. Run 4 laps, bike 2 laps then run 6 laps with a fast transition right. My first 4 laps I did really great and got faster with each and the bike was fine...nothing major. The last 6 laps end up being a mental struggle for me, which leads me to the end of my story. The last lap I'm moving pretty slow at this point. Dave's objective, or course, is to help me step up my pace so this lap he runs with me...without shoes!!!!! I'm trying to keep his pace thinking to myself now I have to blog about him kicking my butt without shoes on. PASS HIM!!!! I knew that he would "bring it" once we got off the dirt and onto the pavement so I waited and tried...really pulled out all the stops to pass him and as I gasp for air, he's still right next to me. It was so much fun - now that I'm home and rested :)

I was driving home and realized that I should have taken a picture of his "running socks" (instead of running shoes - get it ;) oh well...

What kinds of a....

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I had a lot of title choices for today's post....

What I was suppose to do, but what I did.... Peanut Butter Sickness.... Canal Crash oooorrrrr......... My Sunday (aka my period is coming) blues.....

So, after you read today's post go back and pick your own title for today....how's that?

Let's start with, What I was suppose to do, but what I did. The weekend plan was to go biking up in Prescott Saturday and out with my women's group on Sunday.. Neither happened. Instead, Rick and opted for a hike on Mtn Lemon. This was my first trip there and it turned out to be better then I expected. I'm not a huge fan of Tucson so my expectations were not very high....my mistake.

The hike started well, until my tummy starting feeling sick. As much as I love peanut butter I just cannot do any activity after I eat it or my stomach gets upset and I knew this. I didn't even think about it before though and had a peanut butter sandwich before we started. ugh... It all turned out fine and we enjoyed a nice trail for a couple of hours. Does anyone else get worried about bears when they hike or is it just me?

Sunday I woke up for my ride, sat down on the couch and fell back to sleep. ooppss...missed the whole thing. Now, I could have jumped on my bike and did a ride myself but it didn't happen. I was so tired and I've had some bloating so instead Rick and I took the scooters out looking for good garage sales and then home for some King's Hawaiian bread French toast....YUMMMYYYY... It was really nice reading the paper, eating and watching Sunday Morning on TV. Something we have not enjoyed in months.

The guilt of not getting a ride done did eat away at me all day and then Dave sent me an email, how was your ride?....dammmmit Dave!!!

That about sums up my weekend. I'm going to register for Saturday's Splash n Dash so come on out and cheer me on or better yet, swim with me!

See you outside peeps...

WTF

(who says inflatable kayaks are just for water:)




Seriously, Dave is freakin tough! He's so kickin my butt that I can't believe I can actually do some of the crazy things he comes up with. Take today for example. I did a road ride one leg at a time. Um...yeah....

Okay, seriously, it was kinda fun but here's what went down. We road a really nice trail over by Tempe Town Lake and as we are riding he says, unclip your right leg. Translation - pedal with only your left leg. WOW. We did this back and forth for what seemed like most of our ride. Has anyone reading this ever biked one legged up a hill? There was not one time during this adventure where I didn't think I couldn't do it and THAT felt pretty great to me. Though my legs where tired (I had also hiked Squaw Peak this morning) I never felt like I just needed a second rest like I often do with Dave. I felt like I had achieved a new level of training and endurance, which is pretty good news.

I also discovered that my recovery speed was faster then it use to be - YEAH!! I can feel a huge difference in my legs from just a month ago.

What I need to work on is riding a straight line....I like to take up as much space as available to me...but it's not always about me I guess :)

Okay folks - Ironman registration is coming up FAST so PLEASE....send in your donations. It's $525!!!!! If 20 readers send in $25 then I'm set so spread the word my blog readers...please...help me if you can.

Jack update. He's doing much better! For the first time in months he started to play with his brother last night and he's starting to eat on his own during the day again. YEAH. It's taken three different kinds of medication but I think we are starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. Stay strong my special dog Jack....XXOO

Blue Diamond Trail, Vegas

sRick and I just returned from an awesome mtn bike trip to Vegas's famous Blue Diamond Trail. If you want a fun but challenging ride, this is certainly it! Gradual climbs, minor sand, HUGE boulders on the some of the trail, awesome hard packed single track and not a lot of cactus makes this trail good for building self confidence on the bike and fun for any level rider.

Let's go back a couple of days to my Saturday ride with my friend L.J. and Rick. Talk about a BLAST!!! We took Rick's Extreme Heat bike course and did it backwards.... We practiced a lot of climbs using this route but man, it sure was FUN to see how much I've improved on my bike since I started. I LOVE IT! After that we enjoyed some really fun downhills that made the morning perfect.

Sunday I jumped on my road bike with my women's riding group and grabbed just over 30 miles. I was pretty happy to get some climbs in as well, though at the time thought I was going to have a heart attack. No more road rides until my bike gets fixed though. Our leader says something is wrong with my derailleur. It looks like it's just hanging I guess.

So Rick and I left for Vegas after my road ride on Sunday to see some friends, eat some awesome food and ride the Blue Diamond Trail. We woke up super early to gorgeous weather! In fact, I was cold when we left the house if you can believe it. Starting off we picked a route that ended up being mostly hike-a-bike, which was not too bad in retrospect but I was pretty frustrated at this point. Never being out there before I was afraid our entire ride would be on foot. Fortunately we made our way to a great trail and we finally got to ride. The climbing was gradual with some steep parts I had to walk and the downhill was freaken awesome! Some of the trail had pretty big size boulders so trying to dodge them and stay vertical was a fun exercise for me. I think I only had one fall and it was pretty minor.

If you get the opportunity to ride this trail I say take it! You can shorten the distance or go up to 30 miles...either way - do it!