The return of my triathlon mojo!

MOJO!!!
It's official.  My triathlon mojo has returned.  I pretty much lost it after Augusta 70.3 last year thanks to training and racing for two years NON-STOP (a typical newbie issue).  I was even going to skip my final tri of the season, MiamiMan, but decided to push through it anyway.  Late December brought on an ITB issue and hopes of running a February 1/2 marathon were dashed... and that was a GOOD thing!

I really needed all of this downtime to reevaluate fitness goals and determine exactly how much of myself I want to dedicate to the sport of triathlon.

At some point in time last Fall I had decided that 2010 was going to be very different for me.  While most triathletes around the country will be loading up on summer races, I will be in my off-season.  My focus will be on deepening my endurance base.  A by-product of being in a base phase at this time of the year is that I will be able to keep intensity low in the wretched summer heat & humidity. Yes!

I can pretty much plan out what three-quarters of 2010 will look like for me and it's so different than 2008/2009 that it nearly blows my mind.

Present to mid-May 2010: Race prep for Ironman FL 70.3 (no B races scheduled, just the one A race and one 5K).
June to mid-August 2010:  Easy, base building (with some local events for FUN)
Mid-August to Nov 2010:  Race prep for Beach 2 Battleship 1/2 Iron

After Beach 2 Battleship 1/2, I'm either going to focus on training for a marathon OR gearing up for a 2011 filled with Sprint & Oly distances.  I may do both, but I haven't quite decided on that yet.  I think I'm going to have to wait until IM FL 70.3 is over and done with before thinking about the possibility of a marathon.  After Augusta I said that I would never, ever do another HIM.  I am a short-course girl.  In hindsight, one can't fairly judge anything on one go-around.  So here I am with a year that basically revolves around two very different half-iron events.

TRAINING RECAP
Right now I have two more weeks of base building, reaching peak hours next week.  I then have a nice recovery week followed by two build weeks and two taper weeks.  I've got it all in iCal, all scheduled out... and I look at it about 5 times a day (like it's going to change, right?).  I'm just very motivated right now.  I want to get out there and do the work.  I look forward to finishing IMFL 70.3 and not ending up in the medical tent.

This past weekend was really full and although my legs were letting me know that I worked hard, I feel surprisingly well this morning.  Saturday was a 10 mile run followed immediately by an hour in the pool working on body rotation.  I felt as slow as a turtle, but dangit I was rotating!  Yesterday was a 2:30 bike (once again while a storm was brewing) followed by a 4 mile t-run on a combo of paved roads/grass/dirt trails (just like the FL 70.3 course).  I had some nutrition issues thanks to a pretty crappy breakfast and my quads let me know that I included the bridge in the long run the day before (my body hates running downhill), but my legs felt surprisingly spry on the t-run.  I'm really beginning to nail down my HIM bike + run pace.

I will admit that I wish I had another month for base training.  Due to injury I took a lot of time off from running and due to mojo-loss, my bike volume isn't where I would like it to be.  However, Florida 70.3 is not about setting a PR.  Normally I'm the kind of girl who cares about times and what-not, but this is totally not the case for this particular race.  I just want the hardware (and to survive the steam bath).  Now, B2B, well THAT race will be an entirely different story. :o)

I am also not using the HRM at all this year.  I'm totally going by RPE.  When I first started out in the sport, I detested RPE b/c I didn't really know what 'easy' was supposed to feel like and what 'hard' was supposed to feel like.  Now, I have a better understanding of these terms and have learned to use my breathing as a guide.  If I'm chugging along with my mouth closed and able to converse with another cyclist or runner, it's easy.  Moderate means that my mouth is parted a bit and my breathing has become a bit deeper and more rhythmic.  I can still answer someone if they say something to me, but I'm not overly eager to talk.  Hard means that there is a lot of air transfer going on and a very clean 'do not even speak to me' vibe.

NUTRITION RECAP
In a blog that I wrote back in January I had mentioned that I was really cleaning up my diet.  Well folks, I didn't throw in the towel on that one.  It's pretty much become a habit now.  I'm down over 8 pounds since late December (which is also the weight that I was for all of last year)!  It's been coming off slow and steady, but it's not stopping yet!  The great thing is that I don't feel like I've really given up all that much.  I've just cut out the crap (french fries, pizza, chinese food, cookies) and put in some goodness (salads with lots of nuts for crunch, quinoa for carbs, beans, Greek yogurt, tasty protein shakes for after really hard/long efforts, etc...).  That's not to say that I don't have pizza... actually we had it last night, but I made it here at home so I can control what's going on it.  :o)

BLOGGING
I've debated the whole blog thing for a while now.  I love to write, I love to keep track of what I do and I  originally created this blog to record my exercise experiences.  In the beginning, I pretty much jotted something down after every single C25K run.  Eventually I used this blog as a place to complain about the Florida heat and now, well, I'm just not blogging much at all.

So, do I keep the blog or let it go?  There was a point where I really wanted to let it go.  I figured that I would just put up race reports and that would be it.  Then something occurred to me.  When I was a newbie, I wanted to find a blog just like the one that I'm writing.  I wanted to read about the journey of someone who blogged from DAY ONE of their fitness pursuits.  I figure that if I was looking for a blog like that, then maybe there are folks out there looking for mine.  I actually began this blog at ground zero (meaning that I hadn't even started running) and I can't help but think that while there are 73 people who are connected to this blog, I imagine that many other lurking newbies have come across it in the past two years... and I hope that it has been an inspiration.

So, what I have decided to do is not just blog here and there, but blog MORE!  Like I used to.  I'm sure it's going to get monotonous from time to time, as I'm not a witty girl; but, if documenting my progression, my ups and downs, twists and turns in this sport helps someone else out there then it's 110% worth the effort!

VACATION PICS
As promised, here are a few pics from our Breckenridge, CO vacation!

Somewhere on Peak 9

A glorious snowy evening!

Crystal clear blue skies... just like FL, only all of that snow really highlights them!

Learning to snowboard for the first time and pretty much learning my place (the ground) quickly.

Above the tree line at the Continental divide (looking like a Michelin Man in a snowsuit large enough to stick 3 of me in).  The base camp for this ride was in Leadville.  I have no idea how people run up here.

Hands down... the most awesome day of the entire trip!  Dog sledding!!!