Journal of Pier Luck

Thursday night, we went to a "marathon spin class" for 2 hours and 10 minutes on a bike going nowhere under the instruction of Bob and his great CD's of music. I won't lie, it was hard. I burned 1160 calories and sweated my *** off! Dustin and Megan also did it and we will definitely do it again for sure! I hope that while I'm biking the 112 miles of the Ironman, I will be able to think of that great music from spin class pushing me up those awful hills in Wisconsin! (Dustin and I also swam 1200 meters afterwards while Megan started her drive to Savannah, crazy girl!) Friday, we were off, but we took our bikes in to have some minor tuneups and then went to PF Changs for dinner! Saturday, we went for a 25 mile bike with Nate downtown over the Acosta Bridge and down San Jose; it was a nice ride and nicer weather than we expected (in the low 60's). We averaged about 17 mph and burned 896 calories. Then, we were supposed to run for 15 minutes right afterwards, but...

This morning, I ran 7 miles and Dustin ran 4 (he ran 3 yesterday with his ROTC unit). It took me 56:21 which is right at an 8 minute mile! Yeah! I'm proud that I'm running that fast still. I don't think I have mentioned that we got our heart rate moniters either! What a dimention that has added to our training! It's fun to see heart rate, pace and distance (with a foot pod), calories burned, etc. and then it stores it in files that we can download to the polar website. My average heart rate for the run was 161 (a bit high, but I was working hard) and I burned 646 calories. When we biked on Saturday, I burned 1277 calories. What sucks is that Dustin is always burning more calories than me because of his height and weight, so of course he's gonna lose more weight! Unfortunately, we couldn't get the heart rate monitors to work in the pool, even though they claim they are able to. It's nice to get the workout done in the morning like today so I can ge...

It's already Monday night again! Time flies! We tried to do some catching up last week, but with me not feeling well, Dustin was easily talked out of some of the workouts too! Last Tuesday morning, we ran 7 miles down to Girvin and back down Kernan with a stop at our house in between for Gatorade/Water. We ran at an 8:40 pace and felt pretty good. Wednesday, we slacked off and Thursday, we went to Bob's spin class and then swam 1500 meters. Friday, we were off and Saturday, we went to Baldwin Trail and rode 35 miles at an average of 17.3 mph, taking us 2 hours and 1 minute! That's our longest ride yet, and it wasn't that bad, my butt is finally getting used to my new seat! It was pretty darn windy and a little cold, but not bad. We celebrated a little that night with Dave and Erin, and didn't feel too great the next morning, but I talked us into running out at the beach by Sneakers for a five mile run at a 9:30 pace. Then, tonight, we swam another 1200 mete...

I've been bad.....not about training, but about keeping my blog updated. So, I'll give ya basic info on what we have done for the last week. Last Thursday, we did go to the spin class. We got there a little "early" for the 6:45 class, and come to find out, they were doing a "marathon" class that started at 5:30 and went to 7:45, so we came in about 6:30 and spun for 1 hour, 15 minutes of intense sweating!! Then, we went to the pool and swam 1200 meters. Megan joined us for the whole workout and hopefully she will be another training partner on Thursdays at least! We swam it in about 27 minutes and felt good, but tired afterwards! Friday was our well needed rest day, and then Saturday we ran 4 miles near our house down Girvin at just over an 8 minute mile pace; it didn't feel that fast and we weren't too tired afterwards either. Of course, we had to relax on the couch and watch football and basketball though. We switched our Sat and Sun workou...

Yesterday morning, we got up just before 7 to run. It was pretty cold for Florida, 41 degrees, and we are wimps, so we ran over to our community gym and ran on the treadmill for 5.5 miles. That was boring, but we watched the morning show and ran for about 50 minutes, about a 9 minute mile with no incline. We should start adding inclines every now and then if we are gonna run more on the treadmill, but I really don't prefer to. I also did abs and low back. Then I went to work and Dustin went to school. When I got home about 4:30, Dustin quickly fixed Bertoli pasta for dinner and then he went to his night class and I went to a Yoga class. I would really like to incorporate Yoga and/or Pilates into our training for flexibility. Many training experts for Ironman training say that is a good idea. By the way, we are following a training plan that one of the coaches for the San Diego Triathlon club formed. Kendra used this last year and then she tweeked it a bit and shared it with us! Tha...

Yesterday morning, we got up just before 7 to run. It was pretty cold for Florida, 41 degrees, and we are wimps, so we ran over to our community gym and ran on the treadmill for 5.5 miles. That was boring, but we watched the morning show and ran for about 50 minutes, about a 9 minute mile with no incline. We should start adding inclines every now and then if we are gonna run more on the treadmill, but I really don't prefer to. I also did abs and low back. Then I went to work and Dustin went to school. When I got home about 4:30, Dustin quickly fixed Bertoli pasta for dinner and then he went to his night class and I went to a Yoga class. I would really like to incorporate Yoga and/or Pilates into our training for flexibility. Many training experts for Ironman training say that is a good idea. By the way, we are following a training plan that one of the coaches for the San Diego Triathlon club formed. Kendra used this last year and then she tweeked it a bit and shared it with us! Tha...

Tonight, we went to the Yates Y to swim again. This time, 1550 meters in the pool, pretty much just a constant swim, with a few laps concentrating on arms, using a flotation device between our legs that prevents them from kicking so you work on your arms more. Rebecca (a new friend we met in spin class) also was there and gave us some helpful pointers. Now, we are watching the Gator game and getting some stuff done. We will run tomorrow morning.

Friday was our rest day and we enjoyed it. Dustin made me a spaghetti dinner with vodka sauce! Yum! Saturday morning, we woke up at 5:45 AM to meet up with our "old group". Harold organized it and it was Toni, Chris, Rebecca, Cyndie, Kathryn, Joe, and our new running friend, Lauren too! It was good to see everyone! We were supposed to bike and then run, but we sacrificed for company of our running friends. We ran 4 miles (42:31-definitely conversation pace), (others ran 6) and then we jumped on the bike for 20 miles. (Lauren immediately went to a spinning class with her DAD, good job guys!) We biked down to Mandarin Road and then back onto San Jose for awhile. It is a pretty flat course, but had more ups and downs than I anticipated. I wasn't having the best day when biking; my feet were hurting and I was just tired. (During the run, I felt good). I took a gu and felt a little bit more energy. It took us 1 hour, 14 minutes for our 20 miles and averaged 16.3 mph...

Tonight, we went to the Yates YMCA again for a spin class at 5:30 with Bob who we liked a lot. I have been to many different classes with different instructors and his was the best. We sweat a hell of a lot for an hour and then ran down to the pool. We were supposed to be meeting this "masters swim team" for a guided workout, but no one showed, so we did our own 1200 yard workout of ten 50's with every other one fast or easy. Then we did a 300 fast, a 200 easy, and then a 100 fast, with a 100 cool down. I think we will probably mix it up like that and do a long swim one night like we did on Tuesday, and then a workout similar to that on Thursday or whatever nights we end up swimming for sure. Tomorrow is our rest day, and I'm gonna love it. I'm not really that sore, just tired and ready for rest and this is only the first week! Yikes!

It's been awhile and I won't bore you with too much catching up. We started our official Ironman training plan yesterday! When I got home from work, we rushed off to try to get in a 15 mile bike ride, but only got in 11 miles on a hilly and WINDY Wonderwood expressway in 43 minutes (it gets dark so early!). This was my first ride on my new bike. Because of the wind, I couldn't get a real feel for it, but I think I'm gonna love my aero bars (where I can put my forearms down instead of putting all the weight through my hands, which get really sore very easily). I also got new shoes which are TONS better; my old ones were too big and my feet moved around too much, making me inefficient in my pedal stroke! Later at 8:30 PM, we swam at the Yates YMCA pool 1200 meters (I swam it in 27:11 and Dustin swam it in 24:58). That was the longest swim we had done in awhile, and we both did well and felt pretty good afterwards. Today, after I saw a couple patients, we drove to Me...