Yeah, I'm nuts

Remember when I posted a few weeks ago about how I was thinking about running a 5K on top of my Century Training?

Yeah, well I'm pretty sure I also posted that I decided to run it. I can't find it right now.  But I wanted to tell you all that I have confirmation that I'm nuts.

Today, after doing our century training, I waited about an hour.  Ate some watermelon, drank some chocolate milk and watched some M*A*S*H while I waited. Then I got back up and went out to run TWO days worth of training.

That's right. TWO DAYS.  I ran the third day of Week 5, and the first day of Week 6 back to back.  55 minutes.

And I'm going to do it again tomorrow, and finish the last two days of Week 6.

Then I will be caught up and only running 3 days a week.

So maybe I'm only partially whacko.

But the great thing is, is that I felt great.  I rode hard, ran so long and worked my legs to the bone.  But after both, and in between, my legs felt great.  Sure now, my knees are a little swollen and sore, but my muscles feel fine.  Adam is still recovering from our long ride on Sunday, which is crazy! I'm usually the one who is still lagging a day or two after.

This is wonderful!  I hope that this continues and I keep getting stronger and stronger.

WOO!!

Shut up, Legs!

We are into Week 3 of our Century Training and we have two of our longer Saturday rides behind us.  To the more seasoned cyclists 30 and 36 mile long rides are not long at all, but to me, my longest ride being just under 60 miles and that was a year ago, the work that goes into these longer rides are killer.  Our first ride was way worse because, being from Michigan, riding in 90 degree sun for 3 hours on hills my legs were not conditioned for, was a b*^&#.  Compounded by the fact that we were on roads I was not familiar with, riding with Adam, who is so much more in shape than I am (jerk) and that we ran out of water 10 miles from home made me into a whiny and very tired person who could not sustain what we wanted to be a pace of 17-20 mph.

I was miserable and it is so unbelievably frustrating to know you are gutting yourself trying to keep up with someone and they are still pulling away from you! I wanted to kill him, but I didn't have the strength.  So we spent a significant amount of time going much slower (12-14 mph, and 7-9 mph on some of those g*& d@!#$ hills).

But there was hope!

There was an MS fundraising century ride that was going on whilst we were pounding out our pitiful 30 miles and the organizers were kind enough to let us refill our water bottles so we wouldn't keel over on our way home.  If I hadn't been so sweaty and gross I would have hugged her.  Thank you so very much!

Side note: it probably would have helped if I wasn't wearing my pink and black Fat Cyclist jersey.  Black material and sun are bad choices.  But I was stylin'.

Anyway, we managed to drag my sorry carcass home and continue on with our lives and training for another week.

This past weekend we had our 36 mile ride planned for Saturday, but we weren't going to be in Lansing, we were going to be in Petoskey to go camping with the best people in the world and we weren't comfortable trying to come up with a 36 mile trek in a place neither of us were familiar with.  We felt it would be a poor life decision.  So, we did our ride on Friday riding from my in-laws house in Big Rapids to my parents' house in Reed City to Hersey and back to Big Rapids.  This one was much better.  I was about to sustain our pace much better, in part because a) it wasn't a billion degrees, b) it was cloudy, c) it was mostly flat and d) I am very familiar with the trails we were riding on.

But then! (dun dun dun!)

I rode over something bad on our way back and got a flat. Frick!  But fortunately my handy-dandy patch kit was able to save the day and we didn't have to change the whole tube!  I had never been so glad I had a patch kit in my whole life.  It was annoying to have to stop for a half hour to fix it, but all in all this ride was much more successful than the previous week's.  I only had to tell my legs to shut up 4 times instead of 20!  So glad I had Jens Voigt humor to pull me through.

Even though we have 6 more weeks before we ride our century for the Michigan Pink Tour, I am finally, for the first time, feeling like a century is something I am capable of.  During the first two weeks of training I was rather, shall we say, unsure of my ability to condition myself to do this ride.  But today, after 2 unplanned rest days because of camping and my exhaustion from Friday's ride, we went out for an at pace ride for 14 miles.  And it felt easy! 17 mph? Puh, nothing!  I felt great! I even felt great riding at 17 mph after going up a steep hill at 20 mph from base to summit.  I know that sounds like nothing, I did it.  And I am so freaking proud. I can't believe after 2 weeks of training how much my body has changed and I am really looking forward to where I will be in 6 weeks.

So if you're in Michigan and feel like riding for Breast Cancer Research, I'll be there, with my husband and wearing my 'Fight Like Susan' Fat Cyclist kit.

Come ride with us!

I am crazy. Absolutely insane.

Recently (3 days ago) I set a goal for myself to walk at least 5K (3.1 miles) every day.  And I am proud to say that I have managed to do that every day since I started.  Yay!  I also am training to ride a century and I go to yoga twice a week.  But, today a new challenge arose when a friend asked me if I was planning on running any 5K races soon.

I told her I wasn't planning on doing more running until after cycling season was over, but if she found a 5K to run together before that, I would start earlier.

This begs the question: what the hell is the matter with me?!

With everything I'm doing otherwise, how can I do 5K training too?

But I am considering it, I even have the Couch to 5K Program page open right now and my calendar to add the training in as a separate calendar so I'd have it for reference on my phone.  And, conveniently enough, the week after we do our century ride in which entrance fees go to breast cancer research and League of Michigan Bicyclists, is the Capitol City River Run Half Marathon and CCRR Cooley Law School 5K for Education.  We have to drive a bit to get to the century ride and the 5K is right here in Lansing, so, I'd like to do it, even though my friend is already signed up to do the half marathon section of the race.

I've participated in the Weight Watchers Walk-it 5K day in the past (twice, this year and last), but I'd like to do an "official" race where I get a number an everything.

Again, what is the matter with me?!  I'm actually thinking about doing a 5K, where I would have to train 3 days a week, on top of the 6 days a week I'm training for the century?  And yoga.  But it certainly would push me to the 5K every day faster.

I am nuts. Crazy. Whacko.

There is a reason professional athletes are professional athletes, training is so time consuming!

And I have a lot of thinking, deciding and planning to do... yeesh.

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