where am i?

the last 3 days i feel like i've been living in Seattle rather than Florida. raining, raining and raining. i hate it! puts a big damper (no pun intended) on my bike miles and you know i like getting in my bike miles. don't mess with that! i've had to get creative in order to squeeze in my training for week 2 of ironman Florida training. i think it was a very successful week despite the lower bike mileage which really isn't that big of a deal in the whole scheme of things. which brings me to my next topic regarding my mileage on the bike. a few people commented about how many miles i rode on the bike last week and it was only week 1 of IM training. here's the deal: i ride a lot! regardless of whether i'm training for an IM or nothing at all. so when you see the cycling mileage posted each week, it isn't that big a deal, it's just normal ...for me.  

i woke up on Saturday morning, checked the radar and made the decision to not go to the hills for our usual long ride. i didn't like what i saw and honestly, i don't enjoy riding in the rain or wet roads. it's gross! oh i hear you Target 11:15 (formerly known as 1 hour ironman Bob), "but what if race day is raining?" my answer is, i'll deal with it on race day because i have no other choice but i have the choice on training days and i rather get a quality workout in, rather than be miserable and have a crappy workout." make sense? also, i hate having to clean the bike after. what a waste of an hour i say. since the forecast was calling for rain, i had to resort to plan B which was to do my long run (12 miles and swim). i had a good laugh as i was swimming at the indoor pool when i looked outside and saw that it was pouring. 1 point for KC, 0 points for mother nature. although, she would even up that score the next day ...which brings me to Sunday. wake up, check the radar. yep, there's rain coming but we might be able to squeeze in a quick 60-90 minute ride. 60 minutes was it and then it started to pour so we made our way home, cleaned off the bikes and i immediately put the bike on the trainer and did another 20 miles. HOW BORING! the longest hour ever, even with all my gadgets (itouch, smart phone, music on) to keep me entertained. thankfully, the weather cleared up around 3:30pm and we went out for round 3 - 29 miles, so i ended up with a total of 71 miles for the day, albeit all chopped up but it got done. mother nature and i are even for now. i think she isn't done with me yet though because this week looks mighty rainy again. we shall see.

Ironman Florida training week 2 of 2o:

ran - 27.6 miles

biked - 179 miles

swam - 8100 meters

weight trained - 3 times

Ab ripper X - 1 time

i've been inspired by Beth, the discom-BoB-ulated running girl to do my own 100 things about me. i told her that i don't think that this is possible because i am not the most interesting girl in the world, nor do i think i could come up with that many things but i will try. i also told her that i think it would take me a year to come up with that many things. ok, so it may take me a few weeks but i'm going to do it. i think the timing couldn't be better as my 200th post is coming up right around the corner and wouldn't that be a fun post to celebrate with? i will warn you in advance ...there may some TMI in there. 

let the music play! i didn't like that playlist.com disabled the music auto start on the blog widget i had so i switched to mixpod.com instead and now the music is back on when you visit my blog. rock on!

happy monday to you all. congrats to a bunch of you that raced this weekend. as you can see, i'm slowly making my blog rounds. it may be sporadic but i'm slowly moving right along. thankfully, many of you are on dailymile, twitter and facebook so i can keep my fingers on the pulse of whats going on around me. 

much love and peace out! 

week 1 of IMFL training ...done!

i recently wrote out my 20 week ironman florida training plan. yes, that's right, i follow my own training plan cuz KC knows best. actually, i'm pretty much following what i did for my first 140.6 since that worked out as well as it did. i'm happy to report that week 1 of 20 is in the books, minus one swim but i have a really good excuse for why that last swim didn't happen. our refrigerator decided it had enough time on this Earth so we had to scramble to figure out what to do about it, so i simply ran out of time to fit it in today. no worries!

here is a breakdown of week 1:

ran: 23.1 miles
biked: 254.15 miles
swam: 3000 meters
weight trained: 3 times

not a bad week and i felt healthier than the last 8 crappy weeks with the glute/hammy issue lingering. it is still tight at times but not really an issue anymore and i hope it stays that way.
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in other news, i got to meet a fellow blogger, Beth B.o.B. from discom-bob-ulated-running blog who lives locally. that's a rare happening. i told her that i think most of my favorite bloggers all seem to live in O-H-I-O (you have to spell it out, right BDD?), Georgia and Texas.  this chic is funny as all hell and her blog rocks. i'm sorry i didn't stumble across her sooner but thanks to my buckeye outdoors training log catastrophe, we found each other on daily mile and that my friends is how it all began. i've said it before and it was confirmed today, my blogger friends are the bomb diggity. even though many of us have never met, you know if and when we do, it will be an instant connection ...as if we've known each other for years. today was a perfect example of that.

 me and the dicom-bob-ulated runner (triathlete too), Beth.

look how tan we are!

question for my friends: do i look like i could be her mom? do i look THAT old people? i knew all this sun from training for triathlons was going to come back and bite me in the ass but not this soon. anyway, here is the funny story ...the 7 foot tall giant that took our picture asked us after he took it if we were mom and daughter. yeah, can you believe that? Beth tried to make me feel better by saying she thought he may have had vision problems. i'm calling my favorite plastic surgeon tomorrow! anywho, we had a good time hanging and chatting at Panera's. seriously, we probably could have sat there all day and never run out of topics to talk about and the topics were not all triathlon or training related, really. we are way deeper than that. good times!!

i also got to meet up with Bob (aka: 1 hour ironman) on saturday. this was our pic from the last time we rode.

it was not our first time meeting of course ...we are old pals. every once in awhile i am blessed with his presence at out saturday long ride. good seeing you this weekend Bob! come back out soon and stay longer. 

so let's make a toast shall we (go ahead, grab your drink and i'll wait) ...

here's to another 19 weeks of healthy, smooth training. can i get an amen?!

much love and peace out!

scatter brain

urban dictionary's definition of scatter-brained - the inability to produce any coherant thought pattern. often a side effect of, but definitely not limited to, alcohol or drug consumption. my definition is slightly different and has nothing to do with alcohol or drugs and everything to do with training for an Ironman, never having enough time in the day or enough days in the week, yada, yada, yada. oh? you too? that's what i thought. i knew i wasn't alone.

as i noted in my last post, i am on the "blog once every 2 to 3 weeks plan." i swear not a day goes by that i don't think and say to myself, "KC, you really need to blog and stay on top of it. You love to blog and read other blogs too." honestly, since i got injured about 8 weeks ago, i lost some of my mojo and just felt like i had nothing really good or of any particular interest to blog about. a few friends even called me out in an emial or two asking when was i planning on blogging again.

since i have so many random thoughts in my head, i will bullet the rest of this post and catch you up on what has been going on.

• first things first. remember i thought the injury i had was my piriformis? come to find out, it was not that at all. it felt like it because the entire glute area hurt like hell but it was actually right where the butt and hamstring meet up (the ischial tuberosity). i actually found a 10 page forum thread about it on runners world and i feel very lucky to be on the road to recovery. many of the people who wrote about their issue, have not healed very well or have had pain for years with no relief. it scared me when i read it a couple of weeks ago.
• 4 ART sessions and i feel like a new person. i've been able to run for the last 3 weeks without too much pain and for the first time yesterday, i was able to match my "normal" everyday pace for 5 miles. i was starting to get discouraged ...not that a 9 minute mile is a bad thing but it really bothered me because i know that my body is capable of running 7:30-8/min miles for hours on end.
• part of the free time i normally would use to blog has been spent foam rolling, stretching, trying to fit in the ART sessions, doing strengthening exercises, etc...
• i had to bag another race this past weekend because i'm just not willing to risk pushing myself over the edge. i've taken a couple of steps forward with this crazy injury and will not take 2 or 3 steps back to do a race that ultimately means nothing to me.
• funny story ...while i was on the floor foam rolling my butt at work, one of my coworkers walked by and thought i had fallen. now they are all used to me sitting on the floor rolling on the roller, tennis ball, golf ball or just sitting on the huge physioball instead of my real chair.
• i did a back to back century in georgia over the memorial day weekend. it was so awesome. the first ride was actually 104 miles and it took us 5 hours and the second days ride had a lot more climbing and our legs were somewhat fried from the day before. we finished that in 5:40. that day turned out to be about 102 miles.
• georgia has a lot of irresponsible dog owners. i've never been chased by so many dogs. the scariest was day 2 with a doberman and a german shepard.
• i thought the world had ended recently when i lost 4 years worth of training data on buckeye outdoors training log but now i'm so glad that happened because i have met so many awesome people on dailymile. goes to show that things always happen for a reason.
• i have officially started my training this week for IMFL. that sounds funny b/c i feel like i've been training for it since january.
• i mapped out my IM training plan for the next 20 weeks. if it goes as planned, then i will be a happy camper come november.
• i have an ISM saddle on my tri bike and have ridden it 5 times so far. it is different and i'm still getting used to it. the jury is still out. a week is not enough time to make a decision on it. i will say that i am able to stay in an aero position much longer than with the other saddle so that is a positive. my bones just feel bruised and that is the part that i'm trying to get used to. i have felt it less and less with each ride thank goodness.
• i'm addicted to angry birds!
• i'm very, very, very behind on all things related to blogging. i have no idea where to begin reading. i'm 3 weeks behind and sporadically catch a blog or 2 during the day when on break at work but other than that, i'm pathetic, blah!
• my playlist recently changed. now the music won't start up automatically and scare you. i didn't change it, the powers that be at playlist did. so you have to hit the play button if you want to listen. i hate that!
• i'm wear testing these bad boys (Vivo Barefoot technology):

i think that is about all i've got to update on. see? not a whole lot of anything to rave about around here. just working hard to get healthy and in IM shape.

much love and peace out!