IronMom

Next year, IM St. George is on Mother's Day weekend. Saturday is the race, Sunday is Mother's Day. That means next Mother's Day I'm gonna be an "IronMom" :-) I know, corny, but hey.

Now that the shock has worn off, finally. I find that my thoughts are pretty focused on the year ahead and what I'll be doing/need to be doing. I think about my current training efforts in a whole new way.

I think about my energy levels differently. I'm already looking at food differently and of course thinking about all of the equipment I'll need. Oh and finding a coach. What should I be registering for? What century rides are coming up? Hmm, there's a Half Ironman in Oct in AZ that might be a good thing to register/train for. I wonder if it's sold out. If it is sold out, do I know someone that could get me in? Can I outfit my current bike with aero bars? Can I borrow a tri bike instead? Something with a LOT more carbon than what I have now. Oh, my cyclometer needs a new battery, but hell even if I put a new battery in it I still need to figure out how to get it to work right. Crap, what did I do with the manual? I'm gonna need to get more sleep. How the hell do I try and date AND train at the same time? Either no dating or meet a guy that swims, bikes, or runs. If he does all three even better! Yeah, I'll have time to meet him during all this. Oh wait, kinda hard to have a conversation with a guy as he goes flying by you in the water or on the road. I'm gonna need new running shoes soon. Dang, I'm really gonna need to buy more sports bras. This working out every day thing equals a lot of laundry. I really need to start drinking more water. I wonder how fried my hair is going to get with all the salt water, chlorine, sweat and multiple washings. I could go on and on and on....

So, when I say my thoughts are "focused" what I REALLY mean is I'm thinking about ALL kinds of things... sometimes all at once. I figure that my thoughts will start to calm down once I lay out my goals and training plan for the upcoming year.

This weekend's training...
Saturday - ActiveX
4 mile run, followed by an ActiveX workout that Arch himself said, "That was a hard one!" Hey Arch - I forgot to say it at the time.... THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!

The run was great! Very scenic and I got to run with my AMAZING daughter. You have no idea how super freakin cool it is that we can actually be out on a run together. She's even thinking ahead about my training. "Hey Mom, when you start doing your long runs, I can ride my bike along side you." Uh yeah, she's that awesome!!!

After the run the lovely workout started with 70 "burpees" Don't know what a burpee is? Check it out here.
My response to Arch when he told me to do 70... are you SERIOUS??? (I honestly thought he was joking.) His response... you're training for an Ironman now. :-| Yep, I shut the hell up.
After that was 60 situps, followed by 50 kettle bell sumo squats thingys, 40 lunge thingys, then 30 turkish getups. I didn't get to the rest of the workout, we ran out of time. Ah well, I did 70 freakin burbees!!!! I call it a WIN!

Sunday - Brick
On the plan: Bike - 1 hour easy followed by 20 min run
Great ride with Jeremy and Kat. Felt like we were flying up the coast! Then we turned around. No more flying for us. Damn head wind. No wonder it felt like we were going so fast.

As I started to curse the "damn head wind" for making the ride so difficult, I quickly reminded myself... "You're now training for an Ironman. The wind is now your friend and will make you stronger." Honestly though, I still cursed at it.

After our ride we put our bikes away and started the run. Ah, the run. As Jeremy put it, the "after thought". Gonna swim a couple miles, then bike over a hundred miles and as an "after thought" I'm gonna run a marathon. Oh wait, I've never actually run a full marathon before. Shit, shit, shit... WTF was I thinking. Stop it Liz! You can do this!!!

There I go again being "focused". ;-p

How cool is this... My mother has pretty much read the entire IM St. George website and has recited to me the list of infractions that can cause me to get penalized or DQ'd. Already the women knows more about the rules of racing in an IM than I do. Now that's great example of a mother's love and devotion.

Happy Mother's Day to all the amazing women in our lives!!!