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Showing posts from January 27, 2008

Understanding food labels

I've been wanting to write an article about food labels for a while. Judy at Iron Girl finally gave me the avenue to get my thoughts on the computer in one of my best articles (in my opinion). When I say "best" I think it is the most informative article I have written because it applies to everyone. I spent time researching and when I wrote the article I wanted to think like the consumer...a misinformed, mislead and uneducated consumer. I hope you enjoy it! Let me know if you have any questions or comments. Feel free to write your thoughts in my comment section of my blog. Iron Girl Article - Click on Feature If you would like to read my other articles, click on TASTE

Saturday morning

Good morning! Did everyone sleep well last night? Sounds like I am writing a mass email! :) I am waiting for the coffee to get done...and it almost is! I'm heading out for a bike ride today. I hope to get in 50-55 miles since the past couple of saturday's have been around 45 miles. I rode yesterday morning and I felt great. It was super windy but I got in 22 miles to start my day. Karel decided to ride as well and I saw him in the opposite direction when I was riding. It's always nice to bump into him when we are on our bikes. I thought I would turn around (since I was heading home) to try to catch Karel but he was doing his standing starts so there was no way I would catch him. So, i turned around again and headed home. After studying for most of the day (w/ one nutrition consultation completed and a deadline for my GAOM triathlete mag article) I headed to the gym for an afternoon workout. I ran for 3 miles, walked 1 and then lifted. My arms are a bit sore but it is the go

What leg?

I just realized that I went a day and a half without noticing, feeling or even thinking about my leg pain. That makes me feel really good. Yesterday morning I joined the swim team for a nice practice. Lots of 50's since a lot of people where in the lanes but we still ended up with 2800 yards. After the swim I decided to walk on the treadmill (because of my blister) but after 10 minutes of walking, I was so over the blister. The speed increased and I ran for 20 minutes at 7.2 mph. At least I am getting up my speed and a little endurance as well. The last 10 minutes I did 3 x 2 minutes w/ 1 min rest in between and the 2 minutes I ran at 8 mph. That makes me feel so good to be able to run fast (and comfortably). After the run I squeezed in a few sets of abs on the stability ball and I was off to go personal train someone. After a day of studying, I decided to go for a short bike ride. At first I had trouble making myself want to get on my bike but I had been studying all day INSIDE an

Oh...I hurt!!

It's not what you think...I hurt NOT because of my leg. The leg is good and thankgoodness I can complain about something BESIDES my leg!! I have a blister. Yes, I am complaining about my blister. Out of all my endurance races (2 Ironmans, 2 70.3 racess, Boston marathon, Miami marathon) and all my sprint distance tri's I never forget the blisters. I just got new shoes so I had to break them in. I switch from Mizuno's and Brooks so I am on a new pair of Pink Mizuno Wave Riders. This morning after my spin class I jumped on the treadmill for some intervals. After a 10 min-warmup I did a set of 5 min hard, 5 min easy, 4 hard, 4 easy, etc. which gave me a total of 6.5 miles. The "hard" was only 7.5 but I am totally cool with that. I haven't been wearing my heart rate monitor because I need to judge my effort by how my leg feels. Right now my leg feels good so I just see what I can sustain without feeling the burn. Not quite ready to feel the lactate yet but I can te

For your viewing...

As mentioned in previous posts, Karel and I do plyometrics twice a week. Most of the exercises are on a BOSU or step bench but we also do plyo's in a gym (basketball court) with no equipment. I really believe in plyo's for improving power and there is nothing like a 30 min. high intensity workout of plyo sets to get your heart rate going. I came across this website which has great visual aids of plyo's. Karel and I mostly do exercises which involve jumping but you can check out all the different plyo's from lower body, to upper and medicine ball. Plyometric exercises After reading about plyo's also check out the links under "are plyo's really that effective?" to see the examples. We usually warm-up with a 10 min run on the treadmill and then do 2-3 sets of 2-3 plyo exercises. We do the 3 different plyo's which last 45 sec - 1 min (I do 45 min before I pass out and karel usually does 15 sec more than me) and rest about 1 minute. There are plenty

Monday morning and already tired...

The week has officially started and the weekend is officially over. After my BT.com chat last night (which was absolutely great...what wonderful questions people had!) I had trouble falling alseep. I was up pretty late (10:30) so I slept in a bit until 6:45am (no alarm). Ahhhh, monday's are so nice. Not sure when people take a day off from training but I call them recovery monday's and no alarm is set and I just do whatever my body feels like doing. Sometimes I don't need a full day off to recover (I'm not quite sure what I am recovering from right now with my training routine :) but it is nice to get a little extra sleep every now and then. Last monday Karel and I went for an evening jog (yes, Karel can run...fast!) so that was enjoyable. Sometimes we take a walk in the morning or I will go for an easy 1500-2000 swim at the Y. As for this morning, it was 45-degree's out and I went for a 30 min. walk. The walk lasted about 15 minutes since walking is a bit too slow

What a beautiful day!

The morning started out just wonderful. Dressed for a comfortable 50-degree morning run and not to my surprise, I should have dressed for the 65-degree temps when I returned home. Karel left early this morning for his hill ride in San Antonio and I was out the door soon after (around 7am). Feeling good when I wake up is a great thing and I can actually do the workout that I plan to do the night before. I ran 9.5 miles this morning at a slow 9 min/mile pace but that is ok. I am just fine with that. I think with my Ironman mentality, you can give me any destination to run to and with good running form, enough energy and no injuries I can keep running and running. The ironman really teaches you to "just make it" so you pick out light poles, streets or trees to run to and then you tell yourself it will be ok to stop or slow down. Do we ever stop or slow down??? Probably not, but the mental games really keep you going. This morning I didn't need any mental games. I had my radi