Lions and Tigers and Bears

Have you ever fell asleep in the dentist chair? I have, on Friday and it was the best 2 minutes I have ever had between the hours of 8:00am-5:00pm on a Friday (besides the Fridays Ive had off from work). Ironically, my dentist office visits have been anything but relaxing up to now. I usually get anxious the day leading up to the appt, try to think of good reasons to cancel, then when I finally get there I have to remind myself to breathe and not hold onto the chair like I’m on some crazy rollercoaster ride. Friday morning I swam pretty hard, which was after a fast run and an hour weight training session on Thursday. I then had a fun filled day at work, meetings, meetings and more meetings, the kind of day where you strategize how to squeeze in 3 minutes to use the bathroom.
I had my usual pre dentist jitters all day but then when I sat in that dentist chair, felt the warm light on my face and reclined back, it was all over. My Dentist commented that she has never had to wake anyone up before; she must not have very many Ultraman Athlete patients.

Swim: I swam 3 times this week with Saturday’s workout the toughest and most fun. After a 2 hour trail run we headed to the pool and I swam a 500 warm up, then 40X 50 on the :50. Basically that means 2000 at tempo pace. I then had a nice cool down headed to the showers and found myself to be the only person eating in the locker room. I got some funny looks and some not so funny. Oh well, I was starving and I needed the fuel to get dressed.

Bike: I rode 3 times this week, twice on the rollers and once on the trails. I actually came close to riding on the road this week but it’s still just a little too cold. I’m ansy to get onto the road for the sake of my training but I will always love the woods more, so one more week of mountain biking was ok. When I shift my long rides to the road, one of my shorter (1- 1 ½ hour) weekday rides will become an after work- headlamp mountain bike ride. My long ride was 3:45, the woods were as beautiful as ever, but my legs were a bit tired towards the end. There is a lot of mud where we ride so it takes some extra effort to push those big mountain bike tires, lucky for me I packed extra snacks, and ate every last crumb.


Run: I ran 3 times. This was my best running week so far. I’m beginning to feel the affects of working my core, it’s amazing, when your core is strong, everything is just a bit easier. I had my first real tempo run this week, did I mention earlier that my weekday running bud Michelle is a super star runner? Yeah, she’s that person who runs on the balls of their feet, it’s like a car when it’s revving up, I know at any time she could take off, and leave me in the dust before I took 3 steps. I got through the run, and was thankful I didn’t opt for a bowl of cereal that morning.
My long trail run was a blast, Rob and Cadie led the way and I followed along thinking I was hearing bears and seeing weird tracks. When the sounds were loud enough I let out a scream (this happens more than Id like to admit). Rob would then circle back to listen to what I was hearing, tell me it sounds like a bird or squirrel and then run off mumbling, “Beth’s world”. We have established that since my world has bears, mountain lions and sharks and his only has birds, squirrels and salmon that my world is way more exciting.

I thought it would be cool to share some of the cool stuff I'm using and relying on! I will have a new thing to talk about each week, for this week its my new hydration gadget.

Gear Pick of the Week:
Amphipod Hydraform Handheld (http://www.amphipod.com/)
This thing was great. I have used many varieties of hydration systems in the past but I found this one to be the most user friendly on a long run. The bottle is this weird shape that fits right into the palm of your hand. Because of the fit, you don’t have to cinch the strap down tight to hold it in. Another cool thing is that I only needed to bend my top fingers to get the liquid out, because of the way the bottle lays in your hand, your fingers work with your palm so you don’t need to squeeze, the energy I saved there, went straight to my legs.

Next week should be another increase in miles and I'm looking forward to it. Have a great week, thanks for reading and if you have any good chicken recipes, please send them my way, I'm eating a ton these days :)!

Beth