More or less. Fall in Portland has been fairly mild so far, which makes the transition from summer a bit easier. Finally finding time to blog! I was basically away from work and the computer for about 2 1/2 weeks in October. It was much needed. Though I have missed blogging, there is just too much else to do with my time.
After Grand Columbian I took 3 weeks off running and 2 1/2 weeks off workouts completely. Nice in a way, but not totally sure it did me much good. After basically going 3 years without injury, I came back into action with patellar tendonitis in both knees. Actually this has been an issue since my break after Ironman Coeur d'Alene. It was my right achilles that hurt on the bike first, then the tendonitis in both knees during running. I'm not sure what it was about my time off or coming back into workouts that caused these issues, but I'll definitely be thinking about that during future "recovery" periods. I spent most of that time on vacation in Montana, being lazy and reading books. That is one thing I miss when my training hours get longer- I don't have time to read. During this time I made it through 3 books, my 4th is in progress but going much slower due to actually having to work. Stupid work. Five days a week no less! I'm training on day shift for a few weeks but will go back to my shift 8 schedule after Thanksgiving.
Returned from Montana and unpacked/repacked for Hawaii! A few of my triathlon friends and I took a trip to the Big Island to train and watch the World Championships. The training was hot. Oh my was it hot. My reintoduction to training was a 2 hour ride out-and-back up a long-ass hill followed a 20 minute run that about killed me. I was so excited to run again; that lasted about 5 minutes and then I was sucking wind with my heart rate climbing to astronomical levels. That reminds me, we took a drive up Mauna Kea to the observatory one night. Had to wait out the rain but it was pretty cool to see some stars and planets through their telescopes.
Swimming in the ocean was unexpectedly fun! We went to the pier where the Ironman begins since they had the buoys out AND a floating coffee bar. Ha! We didn't get there until about 8:45 and they were closing at 9:00. Sue asked me if I could swim that far in 15 minutes, for coffee. Heck yeah! Unfortunately they were out of coffee by the time we got there and handing out GU2O instead. Probably a better choice and hey, I was there to see the mythical coffee bar in the sea that I've read about. I took a swim lesson in the endless pool from Eric Neilsen, Aquatic Edge. He and Karlyn were in Portland for a clinic years ago so I knew their technique was similar to the one my coach teaches. The lesson was fun- I had been assured by Charlie and Eileen that I wouldn't end up pinned to the back wall of the pool. They adjust the flow based on your speed, or lack of. The coolest thing was that improvements I made were immediately apparent because I would start bumping into the front. There are also mirrors on the front and bottom, which made it easy to see that I was fishtailing like crazy. He also took a video so I could see this action from the top. Yikes! No wonder swimming takes so much effort. By widening my arm entry I was able to get reduce the wiggle quite a bit. Anyway, definitely worth the time and money for this lesson.
Here are some more pictures from the trip. We rode the Ironman course, not all at once. Got some snorkeling and coffee tasting in as well.
Click here to view these pictures larger
Two weeks after the Hawaii trip, I took off for the mountain. This was the sixth annual Escape, aka Stamping Retreat, aka Girl's Weekend on Mt Hood!
Our mountain hideaway
Hard at work! Not me, but some other escapees.
Check out our backdrop! It was absolutely gorgeous up there.
There may have been some alcohol consumption as well. As Lisa told me every time I screwed up a card, "drink more, care less". It worked!
There is already talk of reviving our spring retreat, hope that works out. I may have my Christmas cards done by then!
And now, I have to decide on some races for next year. I'm really not ready to decide this early! I am really just planning to get back to pain-free running and go from there. I think it's coming around based on my run this morning, limited to 20 minutes at a time which is just fine with me right now. But there are a couple races opening for registration this weekend that I was considering: the Vancouver Lake 1/2 marathon in January and Vineman 70.3 in July.
My only definites for next year:
Cascade Lakes Relay in late July as part of the Sick Sisters ultra team :)
Ironman Arizona in November
Looking for a spring triathlon since Ralph's is full. Recommendations?
