Life of Tri

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Sans Music

Early May I started running with a couple of my coworkers. I didn't listen to music during my runs with them because I was encouraging them, giving motivation, etc. I then made it a habit to not bring my ipod with me. So going on 2 months of no music during my lunchtime runs. It's been liberating, my pace has been the same, if not faster. I usually don't run races with my ipod. In fact my first race I ran with music was this last April during the Artichoke half, but that was weird circumstances and I NEEDED the music to even be out there running. Most of my races I have someone running with me so it's conversation getting me going. But now that I've been doing 3-4 mile runs w/o music, who knows, maybe my long runs will be in quiet.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Bike Speaker/Jog Stroller Speaker

During my training for my bike century ride, I wished several times on those long 5-8 hour rides that I had some music. I biked with friends so it wasn't so bad, we'd chat etc, but occasionally we'd lose each other due to hills or speed. Those were the times that I wanted music. My century ride was in 2008.
Fast forward to last summer, I had two kids and a jog stroller. Sometimes I'd use my iPod, but other times my daughter wanted to listen to music so last year I asked for this for my birthday.

It's awesome, it's the iHome Bike to Beach Speaker
It even comes with a remote! I'd put the speaker in my cupholder on the BOB jogger and hand my daughter the remote. She'd be content flipping through songs during my run. :) This last weekend I busted it out again during my jog stroller run, fortunately my 11 month old didn't have a choice of music and I was able to listen to my running playlist while he was content with his Cheerios.
I haven't had the opportunity to use it on my road bike yet, but I'm eagerly awaiting the day I get to use it.

Book List 2010

2010 Books:

1. The End (Series of Unfortunate Events #13) by Lemony Snicket
2. I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak
3. Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl
4. Toddlers Gone Wild! Rants from a Mommy Brain by Rebecca Eckler
5. Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
6. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
7. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
8. Switchcraft by Mary Castillo
9. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
10. Girl with The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
11. The Gift by Cecelia Ahern
12. Restoring Grace by Katie Fforde
13. The Importance of Being Married by Gemma Townley
14. My Life in France by Julia Child
15. A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
16. Made in the USA by Billie Letts
17. A Wild Affair by Gemma Townley
18. House Rules by Jodi Picoult
19. My Horizontal Live: A Collection of One Night Stands by Chelsea Handler
20. Through The Heart by Kate Morgenroth
21. As Nature Made Him: The boy who was raised as a girl by John Colapinto
(Insane story, true story! A little bit more technical than I liked, but I'm glad I read it.)
22. What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandel by Zoe Heller
Bit of a lackluster ending.
23. What The Dead Know by Laura Lippman
Book club book, enjoyed it.

Currently Reading:
Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin
I think I've predicted the ending, but we'll see. I enjoy Emily Giffin's books so I'm flying through it.

I'm so excited because I also have the new Jane Green book waiting at the library for me. "Promises to Keep" We'll see how that one goes, I've noticed that her books have converted from chick lit to hen lit. Meaning older women book.
I also have Jennifer Weiner on my waitlist at the library. Guess my favorite chick lit authors have once again all decided to release summer reads.

More songs on my playlist

I haven't made a new spin playlist in a month, but I have updated my running playlist.
Here are some songs I've recently added to my ipod.

Knock You Down-Keri Hilson
1901-Phoenix
Liztomania-Phoenix
In My Head-Jason Derulo
Replay-Iyaz
Do You Remember-Jay Sean
Bedrock-Young Money
Hotel Room Service-Pitbull
Good Girls Go Bad-Cobra Starship
OMG-Usher
All the Right Moves-One Republic
Solo-Iyaz
Rude Boy-Rihanna
Nothin' on you (B.o.B. feat. Bruno Mars)

Sunday, June 13, 2010

I've created a monster

Well, not a monster but a following.

A coworker of mine said her doc recommended more workouts. So in order to fit in a workout/work and school we decided to do lunchtime workouts. I had already been running 1-2x a week so she joined me on those runs, slowly working up her mileage. Well another coworker said she'd join us but walk instead. So now it's been an encouraging thing, we all try to go Tues and Thurs at lunch, if one of us can't make it we make sure the others go. And our group has increased in size, it now can range from 3-6 people going.

And then I found a bootcamp workout in Women's Health Magazine, you can see the details here.
We run 0.35 miles to a local park near our work, then do the workout and run 0.35 miles back. 3 of us do the workout, now grown to 4 (parttime).
The workout: Do each move in Round 1 30 sec each. Rest 10 sec between each. 1 min rest between Round 1 and 2 or 2 and 1. Do twice.

Round 1:
Squats
Pushups
Bicycle Cruches
Jumping Jacks
Regular crunches

Round 2:
Walking Lunges
Squat Jumps
Tricep dips
Standing High Knees
Mountain Climbers

We do this workout once a week and boy does it kick my butt. The first time I did it my chest hurt from pushups. Last week it was my quads. We figure we'll do this one for a month and then change it up for next month. Switch out some exercised to change things up a little.

Blog Haitus

I've been on a non-self imposed blog haitus. Work cut out my access to blogger so I cannot add little tidbits throughout my work day. And I've been super busy after work every day getting ready for my trip. (I'm currently in Puerto Vallarta!) This was the first trip in years that DH and I took just the two of us. Two years ago we spent our anniversary in Vegas, this being our 5 year anniversary and our kids being a decent age to leave with the grandparents we decided to head on a 4 night/5 day trip. I'm having the time of my life! I'm so relaxed, I've been skyping the kids every night, it's been so wonderful. I totally recommend parents to take some trips alone.
The couple of weeks prior to the trip was chaos, I had to get the house prepped for the grandparents to stay. I had to prepare a ton of baby frozen food and type up instructions for the kids schedule. Anyways, I'm hoping this is the end of my blog haitus for a while. My goal is to keep updating weekly.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Books Read 2010

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Triathlon Training

I'm switching gears...July 18th I have an Olympic Distance Triathlon. Which means my weekends have been filled with swimming and running. I need to incorporate more cycling, but because of my busy weekends it hasn't happened. After these next two weekends of weddings I will probably be able to do some.
I've missed swimming. It's so relaxing to me. I love the way I feel in the water.
I've attempted biking these past couple of weekends, but my kiddos haven't seemed to last long in the Burley trailer. Maybe I'll have to use the portable DVD player LOL.

The PR that wasn't

Work has blocked blogger from me which means I haven't been able to post about what happened.
After the Mermaid Half Marathon, I looked up my race time from the San Jose 1/2 Marathon, my previous PR and saw that the chip time was faster than what I had written in my race log. So my Mermaid Half PR was not a PR. I ran it in 2:06:24. A mere 41 seconds faster than Mermaid Half. Doh! I totally could of picked up my pace for that. :( Guess I gotta keep racing.