21st Century Mom

I woke up and started thinking about what day it is and that lead to the inevitable thoughts of New Years Resolutions. I'm not a fan of these things as it seems ridiculous to me. Don't we all need to start the year eating better and getting in a few more training hours after the oinkalicious and lazy Holidaze? But New Years Resolutions are as American as Apple Pie so there isn't much ignoring them.

I'm happy to announce that I have but one resolution for the year. I don't need to resolve to step up my training because with 1 Olympic distance triathlon registered for and at least one other planned and an unspecified number of sprints and a 1.5 mile swim in the murky, frightening and cold waters of the SF Bay and a 1/2 marathon (Nike) to run I will either step up the training or fall on my face gasping for air. What I am resolving to do is to stop trashing my own efforts and my abilities. I have a very strong tendency to focus on what I can't do (run an 8 minute mile, swim 100m in under 2 minutes, ride my bike at an average 20 mph) rather than what I can do and have done (cross the line on a marathon, ride a metric century, etc.). Those are good things at any speed and I deserve to pat my self on the head for even making an effort just the way other people do and to respect other people's head pats instead of deflecting them with a "but I'm really slow and have no athletic talent" which is my standard response.

This is my year to step up my ego an admit that I am an athlete and resolve to give myself some credit for the effort and for whatever successes I may achieve. According to Brad Kerns, a former pro-triathlete and current author, having the right attitude could dramatically improve my performance. I saw him speak and he said that once he let go of the idea that he would always come out of the water last and started really trying NOT to come out of the water last and believing that he was capable of not being the last out his swim times improved quite a bit.

If nothing else my one and only resolution will keep my spirits up and make me happier about all those training hours I'm about to put in. So in a way my dream must have been about helping someone with bad behavior problems learn how to be a better, stronger person. Now if I could just get my dance moves worked out.

Best Wishes for a Happy and Positive New Year for all!

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

My day started out with Pookie bringing me a latte and a scone from Peets (total caloric content = 11tybillion calories in fat and sugar). Now I have to do some work (boo!) but later today I will go get a pedicure with both of my daughters. This evening is Humbly Anne's bridal shower which is being thrown by her Aunt who was my traveling partner to Peru and who shares my birthday.

The word of the day is CELEBRATE!

Thanks to all of you for the birthday wishes. As I careen into 2007 I am very grateful for my blogging friends who run, race triathlons and/or just share themselves with the world at large and entertain us with their writing. I have met Jeanne and Juls in person and I look forward to meeting a whole host of folks at WildFlower in May including but not limited to FeLady, coach Bold, Tri-Mama, TriBoomer, Stronger, GreyHound and Wil and then racing again with FeLady in June at Sharkfest. I look forward to enjoying everyone's stories and benefiting from the camaraderie and support we all give and get through the year.

Happy New Year to All!

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 09:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

1). Christmas was awesome! I had all of my kids and my soon-t0-be Son in Law and my son's girlfriend here. We had breakfast with their Dad and his parents and then we made some food and waited for friends to show up and some did. A lovely day was had by all

2). I'm hoping I can finish up the cookies today because eating them is putting me in a sugar and fat induced state of mental slug-a-tude. Toss them out? Heresy!

3). I really need to start getting run and my bike on. I've been good about swimming but the rest? Not so much.

4). In anticipation of training season I have purchased a copy of Training Plans for Multisport Athletes by Gale Bernhardt. I'm thinking of taking on a half IM plan just to make sure I can finish Wildflower (Oly). Any feedback on that idea?

5). That thing about the 4 major food groups being chocolate, fat, sugar and wine? It's a lie. Don't you believe it!

6). Tomorrow I will use the strike out tag yet again as I advance from 51 to 52. At least something is on schedule.

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 07:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Time to Bake Cookies
I made cookie dough Sunday night and still haven't had time to roll it out, cut it and bake it into cookies. Once I get there the holiday season will be official.

I hope everyone is ready to engage in holiday goodness. Peace and love to you and yours.

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 08:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

I clipped out on the left and started turning on the right and found that every time the pedal got to about 11 o'clock it went 'thunk'. Clearly I have stroke issues. The only way I could make the thunking stop was to slow my speed down below 40 rpm.. At that point I could single leg pedal in silence.

Will just practicing this and then trying to speed up fix my (clearly crappy) stroke technique? How long will it take? What am I doing wrong? I have no idea what fixes it vs. what causes it. Is it my foot position?

I have read several pages that talk about how to pedal properly. None of them mention thunking, by the way. Some say think of a triangle, some say think of an ellipsis and crazy boy here says you need to make a perfect circle. I don't know what is right or how to do it but I do know that what I do is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Today was probably the single most frustrating workout I've ever done. I need help. Please!

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 02:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 05:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

You can watch it, though, condensed into a 6 minute long super amatuer video. You can either watch it in teeny, using the embedded player below or you can click on the picture to get a full screen version. Enjoy!

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 08:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

2). Training plans - any recommendations? There are a lot of them out there from Beginner Triathete and Tri-Newbies on line and other places.

3). Getting a coach - yes or no? There are real time coaches a plenty in this area as well as a lot of on-line coaching options. Are they that useful? Couldn't have done it without them?

4). Sports nutrition - does anyone have a book to recommend? I'm a vegetarian and I really need to pump up the amount of protein in my diet. I also almost always get leg cramps at the end of a swim workout so I think I need some help with my electrolyte consumption. If you know of a particularly helpful source of good information please let me know.

5). Ho Ho Ho! (or is that ha ha ha??!!)

I might just have to buy one of those photos!

New wish list!
I want one of these

to do my lap counting for me. I haven't started doing long, endurance sets because I just do the masters set but I have a hard time counting a 200 (was that 150 or is this the last one???!! I DON'T KNOW!) I am learning to focus and chant (50,50,50.....100,100,100.....150,150,150....) but I'm pretty sure I'd go nuts before I got to 3000,3000,3000..... I need one of those gadets.

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 03:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

That's me, sitting at my desk, freezing my buns off. I really wish my heater guy were not so irrepsonsible. I bought a second space heater but took it back because it didn't work that well and I didn't buy another one because I'm supposed to have heat today! I have no heat - and the temperature is dropping. Poor little me.

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 01:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Loved that OCD guy with his Forrest Gump/Rain Man thing.

Love, love, love Sister Madonna Buder. Love her.

Loved it all. Maybe some day. For now I need to make it through my first Oly then I'll think bigger thoughts.

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 03:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

I'm not sure what my "A" race is but I'm thinking that sprint distance Triathlon I've done twice is it. I would so love to come in under 2 hours on that thing and I think I can.

If I fully participate in my Race Club I will do 8 events this year but so far I have this:

1). WildFlower - Olympic Distance May 5-6
2). Sharkfest 1.5 mile swim - June 10th
3). Breath of Life Olympic Distance Tri - June 24th (I will be SO ready for the swim!)
4). Tri for Real - sprint distance Tri in mid-Sept
5). Nike Half marathon (possibly) in early October

I'm sure I will add lots of events in the summer as I find them. Right now it's all about WildFlower which will be my season opener. My.Season.Opener - I have a season!

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

2). I ran the race in a little Christmas outfit - a red skirt with white fake fur trim around the bottom and a Santa hat. And a white shirt. And red socks with Teddy Bears and gift wrapped packages on them. I'm hoping the photographer who was on the course will send me an email and try to get me to buy the pics.

3). I was listed in my new Run Club's newsletter! Wow - I belong. I'm so happy. I was listed both as a new member and as a participant in the race. When I went to the 5K I wore my team visor but I never said hello to people in the team shirt because I'm shy like that. I did watch them and it seems that there isn't a lot of team interaction per se. There were lots of team members there and they formed various clumps but no cohesive group. I'm going to another team event tonight but I think I'll have to reach out a lot more aggressively to find training partners. Just another challenge (only slightly more daunting than swimming SharkFest)

4). The most amazing thing about that race were some of the other times. The age groups went from 80 - 85 down to 1-4. The winner in the men's 80 - 85 group came in in 33:34. The winner in the women's 70 - 74 did it in 30:15 - she was right on my heels. This same woman was in my Triathlon this summer. I came in in 2:08, she came in in 2:15. More old lady inspiration coming your way. I can't help it, though. I really look forward to being a winner some day when I'm a grown up.

5). I said I would report on my increased swimming for November. If you recall I was going to try to swim 5 days a week. ha ha - didn't even come close. That was partly due to work travel and partly due to my unbelievably sore arms - ow. The good news is that today I was able to lead my lane so clearly it is has paid off. Plus I got this graph off of Breaking the Tape and I am definitely getting the desired result. The red line represents pace. Of course it is possible that I'm not very accurate in the way I report time but whatever. I'm getting stronger and that's what counts

6). My furnace has not worked all week. That might seem like a big yawn because I'm in Northern California but it is mighty cold in the morning so my house is at about 48 - 50 degrees for most of the day. Brrrrrrrrrrrr...... The part was supposed to be in today but no such luck. I hope it comes tomorrow.

And that about wraps it up which reminds me that it is time to go Christmas shopping! I love the holidays.

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 02:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

But wait, there's more. Ever since I got my spd pedals I've been even more afraid. Not only am I in danger of being hit by a car or attacked by a bear (because you know - those suburban bears are real killers), I might forget to clip out and just fall over. I have, in fact, done that 3 times. Of course it didn't really hurt but it could, you know - it could really hurt. Add to that the fear of climbing a hill and slowing down until I just fall over and I become apoplectic.

Then there's the issue of what has happened while I was training for a marathon and traveling to distant places (and YES - I am going to finish that travelogue soon). My friends B and C have been climbing mountains and learning how to draft and generally getting faster, and faster and faster. So in addition to the fear of cars and bears I have to grapple with the fear of B and C hating to ride with me because I'm so damned slow.

Today changed all of that. Today our other biking friend, E, asked if I wanted to go for a ride even though B and C were not available. I didn't hesitate to say "yes!" lest I never get on my bike again. Then she suggested we try to climb Mt. Diablo to the ranger station. Ow. So that's get on the bike at all AND climb a big hill. E is kind and forgiving and wanted a riding partner and she had done way more traveling than me in the last couple of months so I knew what we were doing - we were trying to catch up to B and C.

As FDR said, 'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself' and so I agreed to that plan. By thee time we met up I was already thinking of good excuses to back out. As we got closer and closer to the base of the mountain and my legs got a little sore (because I did just PR in a 5K yesterday) the excuse-o-meter ran to the red and my mind became a blinding blur of reasons I just couldn't go on. But I went on.

And here is our ride

We rode 1300 ft up the mountain! There were a million times when I wanted to turn back and didn't actually make it as far as we had wanted to but we did a lot and I feel cured! I also feel like maybe I CAN train for Wildflower. Maybe I really can.

Now I just need to learn to relax a little coming down. I mean really, who comes down a mountain at less than 20 mph?

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 04:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

In 1997 I ran the 'Run to the Far Side" 5K in 38:23 at a pace of 12:21 per mile. That was 9 years ago. Today I ran the Bah Humbug 5K in (according to the clock over the finish line and my Garmin) drumroll please......

29:32

That would be a 9 minute improvement. And lest a certain someone from Boulder Colorado think I haven't grasped the magnitude and importance of this event -
that would be a

proving yet again that I am not getting older - I'm getting better.

* I'm not sure what my official time will be becaue it was one of those races where you end up in a chute full of people waiting and waiting to hand them your slip. We'll see.

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

I won't be in any danger of staying up all night watching TV because I bought a camping pass. Me - camping. I am NOT a camper but as I understand it, camping is part of the WildFlower zeitgeist and I'm all about the zeitgeist at athletic events which is good because I'm not much of an athlete.

But I will be there - toeing the line. Oh yeah.

I'm extra excited because a lot of bloggers are going (Stronger, Bold, Wil, TriMama to name a few), a friend I used to work with is going and I joined a race club so I will have real world peeps to train with.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Are you going? Weigh in, please, and I can't wait to meet you!

Posted by 21st Century Mom at 09:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)