Time Flies

The last month was a whirlwind.  Snow, travel to New York and London, an important client visit and entertaining and attempts to keep training throughout.  By the end of last weekend, and in time for our second big snow storm, my body had enough, and I woke up Friday with a bout of the stomach flu.  It cleared by Saturday, in time for my long ride and some snow shoveling.

Here are some pictures from the month.

Me -- getting my award -- more gadgets at the Carnival of Misfit Triathletes:

Bart getting his award . . . several pairs of new gloves to wear during winter long runs . . .

A few shots from my trip to London for work.  Unfortunately, during the times I had free, it was dark outside so the pictures aren't plentiful or good quality.  My favorite British things?  The red phone booths scattered everywhere, their love of champagne cocktails, the theater, and my hotel's gluten free breakfast!

And finally, our house has been transported into the snow belt.  As I type this, we are in our third major snow storm of the winter.  Here are some pictures from last weekend's dump.

Happy New Year and Letterboxing

Happy New Year everyone!!!!

Yesterday Bart and I headed to the Outerbanks to spend New Year's Eve and the following weekend with friends.  It has been four years since Bart and I first traveled to Nags Head together for the New Year.   This story may embarrass him  a bit but. . . oh well.  

Bart and I had just started dating, but you could say were fairly smitten with each other early on.  The sponsored athlete and his wife SJG were gracious enough to invite us down for the holiday.  As we traveled out Route 168, we spied another friend of ours, slightly ahead of us in traffic.  And that's when my bike geekiness started.  Bart exclaimed. . . "no worries, we are in the peleton.  We will capture the breakaway car."

"What?"  I exclaimed?  At this point, I hadn't ridden a bike other than a beach cruiser since college and my bike racing vocabulary was non-existent.

Bart went on to exclaim the philosophy of the peleton and the break away as he continued to chase our friend down the road.

Needless to say, four years later, our cars license plates aptly are named "Brkway" and "Pelton" short hand of course for peleton and break away.  And I, am not only smitten with Bart, but am absolutely smitten by the sport of cycling.

As is normal for trips to the beach with the sponsored athlete and friends, they are fun filled with adventure.  Yesterday, after the rain clouds dispersed, we toured the sound side of the Nags Head, Kill Devil Hills and Kitty Hawk with a 30 mile bike ride.    After a little relaxation, and cocktails, it was on to  card games, champagne for the New Year and of course, some fierce competitions on the Wii.

Today's adventure, however, was a great start to the New Year.  As usual, my friends KB and SS were up to their usual mischief which is only heightened by adventures into the woods.  Today, they lured SG, TG 40 and I off to embark on a leisurely run.  After we got in the car, they revealed the true plan for the day. . . letterboxing.

It couldn't have been a better adventure for the first day of the 2010.  Our adventure took us to Nags Head Woods where there was a great 4 mile running/hiking trail.  As we jogged on the trails, KB read out running directions and clues to our first treasure. . . a Letter box - probably 3 miles into our trail run, hidden under a bark-less stump.   In letterboxing, someone leaves a rubbermaid box containing a log book, and a stamp.  On www.letterboxing.org they post directions and clues to its location.  When you find the box, you log the date, your name and, if you have your own stamp, your stamp.  Then, you return the box to its rightful place and move onto your next treasure hunt.

Our adventures today lead us on a fantastic trail run (sorry coach - I did run the whole thing), Starbucks (it was cold out), a treasure find at the welcome center and, a third letter box along the Virginia Dare Trail.  

My letter boxing adventure today pretty much summed up some of my "resolutions" for the New Year -- have more fun in sport, push myself to try new things and, on occasion push myself outside my comfort zone, spend time enjoying those around me - my family and friends, and be a little frugal (letterboxing is a ton of adventure and its FREE!)

So friends, here's to finding new treasures in your life in 2010!

Off-Season Progress

I'm sitting in the airport at St Louis with still another hour before my flight leaves (I've already been waiting 2) and figured I should use the time to update my blog since the last half hour was spent reading everyone elses' more diligently posted and colorful entries.  I really need to take more pictures.  Maybe my new Mac will inspire me.

Even though it is the off season, I have been making progress on some of my off season goals.  Priority number one is to get healthy again.  I saw Dr. Dec again this past Monday.  She is happy with my progress in PT and has officially released me to do 15 minutes of running, outside, on flat surfaces only sandwiched between walk sessions, a few times a week.  She also didn't scold me too badly for trying to run a few times for a limited number of minutes before I was officially released.  I still have 6 more sessions of PT to attend and then, if I feel good, I am released to my own plan and don't even have to come back in to see her.  So, even though PT has seemed slow and a little unstructured for my taste, I plan to stick with it and hopefully be back on the roads in January.

My post Ironman lbs are also slowly coming off and I'm continuing to reshape my body.  The pounds aren't falling off as fast as they do for those Biggest Loser contestants, but I have managed to lose 6 since October and my suits are baggy again.  My biggest challenge is still the glass or two of wine, particularly in the holiday season.  I know it is unrealistic to cut it out completely with the holiday party circuit starting in earnest, but I've at least vowed to cut all non-party wine.  For some reason, which Tina explains much better than I ever could, my body metabolizes wine like fat and I can't lose or get leaner while drinking wine.  So, the plan is to maintain or maybe even drop a pound or two more between now and the New Year and then come January, its time for some real focus and hopefully those last 9 lbs will disappear.  I wish Subway would pay me $1000 for every lb I would lose.

As for the bike, I'm spending lots of time with it and my new power meter.  I still haven't quite figured out training with it.  The first few rides, my HR zones and power meter zones didn't match up well so we've had to do a bit of adjusting.  And, unfortunately, or fortunately, my power zones have gone up which only means I have to work out harder.  Right when I was starting to get the hang of it, my Quark started acting a little crazy and sending out numbers that the pros generate.  While I would love to generate those numbers, they are no where in my repetoire and so it is back at the manufacturer this week getting a tune up.  This month's progression on the bike has had lots of threshold intervals  -- no fun, but hopefully they'll help me build some more speed for next Spring.

Finally tennis. . . I've been really enjoying spending a little time on the courts during this off season.  I pretty much stopped playing this summer while training for the Ironman for fear I'd injure myself.  Now that the off-season is here, and mixed doubles season starts in January, it was time for me to get back out there.  Bart and my ratings both got bumped up this year so we'll be playing on a higher level team this winter.  This means we both need to find our A games if we are to have any chance to win.  Bart's A game is at least close by.  Mine will take some work to find.  Thankfully all of the work with triathlon training has made me faster on the court and more aware of my surroundings.  So if I can get some timing back and learn a few new skills, I might be okay. The last few Monday night's I've skipped my cycling and instead opted for an intense set of drills and clinic with 3 other gals.  The change of pace has been great and I've realized I missed the sport.

Will have to get on the Christmas wagon this week and finish up some shopping.  That is, unless I decide to head to Philly on Friday to watch the Tribe play their nemisis Villanova in the semis of the FCS playoffs.  GO TRIBE!