It's a Fight: Iron Team vs. Marathon Team

It's only the end of the first month and I'm already noticing some differences between Marathon and Triathlon - besides the obvious two extra sports. At work we were prepping for the new summer season and discussing the differences between the sports and it came up that Marathons are the beginning point for new endurance athletes (yah, I chuckled inside too at the thought that a Marathon is what a beginner chooses to tackle - until I remembered that I'd done just that just a few years ago).

The Marathon team is a very social and supportive environment - you break into pace groups and at the big day you will probably run with your pace group. You get to know them over the course of the season and may even continue running with them after your event.

Triathlons, on the other hand, are more of an independent sport. The team practices together, and sure, we are getting to know each other as we keep passing each other in the pool or on the route - and a whole handful of us already knew each other coming in - but come race day, there is a good chance we'll all spread out and never see a teammate except at transition or at the end cheering each other in.

At first, I did a mini mental melt-down thinking, how am I going to get through this without my girls (and a few boys)?! Then I realized that being on the Iron Team means, I can't be a whiny wimp! Irongirls won't sit and whine that they can't do this without their friends - they'll find a way!

Then I remembered the strength that having a marathon under my belt carried. I felt like a superhero brandishing my bib if the occasion needed it. "You can't talk to me that way - I ran a marathon!" "I can't stop running after a mile, suck it up - I just did 26.2!" "I endured hours for the marathon, I can tolerate a 1-hour client meeting."

Now, since I joined Iron Team, there is a certain level I personally am trying to live up to (or certain boundaries I'm trying to push) to prove that underneath my exterior is an irongirl waiting to get out - that I'm not an accidental endurance athlete. So far, the results are positive. This week I actually missed working out - I got irritable and grouchy from not working out - ask my kids! When I got out for a run, I started out planning to do 3-4 miles, and 10:1 intervals (10 min running, 1 minute walk). I kept telling myself at every landmark: "Do I want to turn back, or keep going? An Irongirl will not stop here, she'll keep going!" I'm liking the fighting spirit that is emerging here! I also ran faster, with longer intervals - I only walked 4 minutes in a 80 minute run. OK, I can't take all the credit for that - I had to get back to my car before I got a ticket.

Then, because my mind won't just stop there, I remembered a saying that I read during my last Team In Training event: Not all heroes wear capes! Only 1% of the world's population will ever complete an endurance event. Only a fraction of those people will do it while raising money to fight blood cancers for Team In Training. To be surrounded by these heroes on the team is inspiring and humbling! Finding a cure is a really good reason to Fight On (Go Trojans!) and keep on swimming, biking, and running - One mile at a time!

That's not to say that I don't still fight with myself for the first 30 minutes of every run - although tonight, the battle didn't last as long. That's not to say I don't still fight with myself about whether or not to even go for a run when it's f-f-f-freezing windy cold outside (for us weather-wimp Californians). But it's a battle that I'm winning more often and easily.

It doesn't matter how we get there or what sport we choose. We're making the lives of others better, we're making our lives better through the physical and mental growth, and the people around us. I look forward to the path and the exercise! We're all on the same team! Go Team!

P.S. In an even bigger battle this past week: Our Iron team has a large number of Bruins and Trojans on the team! Now that the game is over, I can finally talk to my Bruin mentor - even though he may not want to talk to me due to the final score!

Time - Is it on my side?

So how is this work, life, workout balance going to mesh? This week is brutal and it's not over yet.
Monday - Soccer practice
Tuesday - Scout pack meeting
Wednesday - Scout den meeting
Thursday - Soccer practice
Friday - Soccer game - hopefully we'll win and go to playoffs (no pressure!)
Saturday - Hike, then Queen Mary for 9 year old's birthday
Sunday - Craft Fair
That's just the evenings! Not to mention that I had a sick child, the roll-over to a new season at work which requires a load of time-sensitive stuff. I'm not fitting in the workout yet this week. After staying up til 2am, I'm going to wake up at 6:30am to get in a run so I can say I did SOMETHING this week. I'll get a swim in there between now and Sunday but I will likely wind up avoiding my nemesis the bike til next week because it's just not fitting in.

Timing is one of the reasons for doing this race now, on both conscious and subconscious levels. I can't help but be reminded by the ringing of the bell today - I'm halfway around the year to my big round birthday. While I didn't come in saying that my birthday was a reason I'm doing the event now, I know it was one of the grains of rice (I'm asian) that tipped the scales. When I did my first marathon, I chose that one because it was on my birthday, the 10th year of the run, and in my home town, so I know I put significance on dates, round numbers, and proximity (although this race isn't really that close to home). On the conscious level, I know that I wanted to do a Tri event in the spring because I plan to do the Nike Women's Marathon again with my girlfriends as a celebration of that same round birthday and I didn't want to be training for a tri when I should be training for the marathon. Lastly, as some people know, I work for LLS and we are not allowed to train and fundraise for an event until we've been there for a year - which is a smart decision as the jobs can be complicated and take a while to learn well. So the timing of hitting my year mark helped push me forward to this event.

I'm not doing the event to try to meet any minimum time, purely to finish and have a great time doing it. I recently learned that once people put in 10,000 hours with something that they are an "expert" so I'm hoping after spending that many hours over a few years of doing events, that even if I'm not an "expert", I'll at least enjoy doing the activities just to do them and not have to sign up for events to push my butt out the door for a run.

I try to save time whenever I can too and multi-task when possible. I think my best example of that was a night when I was in Round Table Pizza and was there to buy pizza to take to my son's den meeting. We raised money for my son's school, fed the scouts at the same time, plus while I was there I asked if I could post Team In Training flyers, so I was canvassing at the same time. I'm still trying to figure out how to multi-task my training, but perhaps I'll just be satisfied when we start doing Bricks (I'm told they're called this because our legs will feel like bricks - swell!) and get to do 2 sports for the cost of one babysitter!

For now, after this week, time is on my side. I have from now until May 1st to prepare and we are taking little baby steps. The season is rolling now, though, and starting to pick up speed and I need to make sure to stay current and present so my teammates know who I am, and are beating my time on my bike!

You are now leaving your comfort zone - Part I

The first thing to say is Meghan is my favorite person EVER for making me sign up for this event! I have been obsessing over each sore muscle (which is due mostly to me not stretching properly after a workout) waiting to see if it leads to new definition in my physique!

The first few weeks have been fantastic, although I have to admit my attendance has been spotty. We have never ending (but always exciting) soccer going on, plus the holidays, and had a few sick children sprinkled in. So far I've run when I can, and dived back into a pool on regular Tuesday Team swim workouts!

As I mentioned before, I haven't been a swimmer in 20+ years. It hurts just to be able to say that and I was FREAKING OUT that my muscle memory would have alzheimer's. I swear I would have backed out of the first swim practice had I not arranged to carpool with Yvonne, a sentimental favorite because she was with me on my first marathon experience. She and I nervously chattered about the whole thing, our whole anticipated training, the event that will come at the end, and when we were pulling into the parking lot, I had a huge weight on my chest that I thought would make me sink to the bottom of the pool.

I decided to opt for the beginner lane at first because again, after 20+ years, I wasn't optimistic (which is so unlike me!). We spent the first day doing drills, working on form, kicking our butts off, and I LOVED being back in the water. Instantly I decided that when this ordeal, I mean event, is over and I've grown up to be an Irongirl, I will retire to being a swimmer who sometimes runs.

I did a few workouts in the beginner lane, then decided to try out Cam's Sunday SCAQ Practice. Cam is the husband of Debby, one of the crazy (but in the best way) full Ironman participants whom I've known since she danced her way into our hearts running her first marathon last year. I love Cam, but his workout was scary to me because well, he's hardcore! I was excited to find that although my arms felt like they were going to fall off, and I thought I'd die after my first 100m non-stop (4 lengths of the pool) I held my own and felt great! (I know, you're asking at this point why I consider this fun?!) So before I pulled my car out of the parking lot that day, I texted to ask Coach Paul if I could try out to move up to the faster lane in Tuesday workouts.

Tuesday came, I moved up into the faster lane - although I still have a little "cheat" that I swim behind a slower swimmer sometimes to allow me a few extra breaths before heading out for the next length of the pool. Turns out I am fast enough for the speedier lane, but I totally have to rework how I stroke, breathe, kick and hold my head to be able to be more aquadynamic for the event. I'm looking forward to the challenge and this week, my goal is to not breathe in any water when holding proper form. :)

I'm SO thankful too that Meghan's mom and dad offered to watch Carson and Lauren during the swim workouts that are so close to their house. The kids have taken to her folks after the initial visit and are looking forward to the next visit.

So far, I am a duathlete (biathlete?), continuing to run and picking up swimming (on that Sunday, I even did both - running 4 miles after the swim workout - and then had such a splitting headache I was convinced that I'd given myself an aneurysm by taking on too much too early but really it was that I hadn't had my normal dose of a Triple Skinny Latte by noon and my head was angry about that.

Speaking of headaches, let's talk bicycles. I'm trying to get a bicycle without spending too much money, but at the same time, it has to be comfortable enough for me and my shortness for 50+ miles - and apparently, I'm shorter than I've been boasting. It's partially finding a financially conservative investment of a bike, but partially it's the sport that scares me the most. I won't be at practice this coming Sat. because I'll be on a Team In Training HIKE! so that gives me 2 weeks to work this out in my head so that next Sat. the 12th, I can show up ready to ride!

Sarah signed up for what?!

It was a Monday like any other Monday. Meghan sweetly called me on the phone and asked if I'd be in the office so she could come in and sign up for an event. I'd been toying with the idea of signing up for Desert Tri - sprint (aka shorter) distance - but Meghan can be awfully sweet and persuasive and by the time she left, I was shaking, but smiling, and filling out the forms myself for Wildflower Triathlon - a half ironman triathlon.

The idea of a triathlon exhilarates me. I have done a couple of marathons, done many more half-marathons, but the idea of the halves just wasn't scaring me enough to train regularly. I needed to step up my game...

Wait, back it up... I'm talking like I'm an elite athlete, I barely call myself a runner, because although I've covered many miles through the last few years, I don't look like a runner, I don't even like running! I have a really loud internal (usually) fight with myself for at least the first 30 minutes of any run. While I do get the sense that if it's been a while since I've been out there pounding the pavement that I might pound something or someone else, we'll just say, running doesn't come naturally.

Now Team In Training is the most well-rounded training program and I highly recommend it on an athletic and philanthropic level. Still, I won't lie, when the training schedule said cross-training day, I'd cross my legs and catch up on facebook updates or episodes of Grey's Anatomy.

People always told me that if you really want to get in shape, try a Tri! So that was the start of my thought process. The rest is a blur, void of all logical thought, but here I am signed up to do 70.3 miles total in the water, on a bike and on my feet and damn, I am excited for the journey, the challenges, the victories, and the finish line!

...and then I remembered that the last thing that Meghan wanted me to sign up and train with her for I wound up running alone because she was busy being a rockstar paddler! Oh Crap, what have I done?!