16 days until duathlon! OH NO I DIDN'T!!!! Endurance Training Run Next Saturday!

You know my long-suffering trainer Rick Lucero whom I've been talking about since my first tri last September?

Ever the torture master, the sadistic m-f'er texts me late in the work day when I'm not thinking straight and my blood sugar is low and invites (word used extremely loosely) me to join his team ( a bunch of skinny, fast runners) in next Saturday's Camp Pendleton Mud Run. Sounds like harmless fun on a summer morning doesn't it? Perhaps a good training exercise for the following week's duathlon?

About that . . . 1/3 of the course (of a total of 6.2 miles - you do the math!) is a steep hill; there are 2 USMC wall climbs (ummm, Full Metal Jacket and Jarhead come to mind); a steeple jump and other obstacles for clods like me to negotiate; hay bales and a slippery hill and a sand crawl . . . and running in mud! I can't even run fast on a treadmill right now! WTF?!? I haven't run more than 2.5 miles straight on a treadmill since more than a year ago before I decided to train for a tri!

I do my level best to not commit, but that man can smell my bull crap from Uranus! And ever the Jedi-Mind-Tricker that he is (he told me it was about a 5-mile run - Arizona school system math? ) , I find myself committing about 5 text messages later.

And then I take a good hard look at the course map, the rules and the completion time limit . . . guess who feels like the slow, fat kid in the group? HELL NO!

But here's the thing about awesome trainers like Rick (and my sweet husband Gary who goes along with this as long as he doesn't have to do it himself) - they CHALLENGE you and INSPIRE you. He has this insane way of making you believe that you can do this crap and do it really freakin' well. He makes me feel like I'm a female Usain Bolt . . . yeah, and I drink Rick's cyanide-laced Kool-Aid at least twice a week! So I don't say no to the crap he throws at me . . . ever. And it's worked for me for more than the last two years . . .

I'm actually looking forward to this in a sick and twisted way. And you're all invited to witness the spectacle! Please bring lots of soap, water, towels and dry clothes! And lots of champagne and martinis!

Just Du It! 19 Days Until Duathlon: There Will Be Pain

I'll admit it. I was feeling macho after yesterday's 15 mile bike ride and 1 mile run....
Up until around 8 p.m. last night when those trouble-making quads of mine (whom you met in the previous blog) started to scream, burn and generally remind me that I was no Lance Armstrong. Really?!? Without futher delay, let me present to you more lessons from my quads:

1. 40 is the new 80 . . . when you foolishly zip off on your MOUNTAIN BIKE (not one of these thousand dollar 2-lb. carbon fiber deals) after a 3-month outdoor cycling lay-off! My wonderful husband had to interrupt his Angel game viewing to point and laugh as I crawled up the stairs like an 80-year old crypt keeper.

2. Muscle memory is a myth! If my muscles (to use that term very lighlty) had any memory whatsoever, then they'd remember that a 15-mile bike ride is a cake walk (did someone say cake?!?!). But MY muscles suffer from dementia - and don't remember that the things I did with ease in September 2008 should be just as easy if not easier 7 months later with all this flippin' training! Just ask my long-suffering strength and conditioning trainer Rick Lucero (you know, the cat I never listen to?) - who still can't get me to competently perform certain relatively simple exercises. We still haven't mastered that whole walking and chewing gum thing...

3. The elevators in the St. Joseph Outpatient Pavillion parking structure are there for a reason! No, they're not just there for those poor patients who suffer the indignities of defos and other rectal indignities. They're there for idiot weekend warrior employees like me who can't negotiate the stairs either upstairs or downstairs after spending the evening admiring their rock hard (but extremely sore) quads!

Just Du It! Duathlon Training Advice From a Working Woman Wanna Be Athlete

Considering that I will be racing on my bike in 20 days, I decided it would be wise to dust the thing off and take it for a spin...since it hadn't been out of my garage since February...

Here are some lessons learned on the bike trail:

1. Carbs in alcohol are not useful carbs for your body. I've been working really hard to disprove this over the last few years, but my quads would not cooperate.

2. Don't ever listen to your quads when they ask for a break. They sucker you into thinking you'll be treating them so well with a little rest stop. Ignore them! They go on break and stay on break. They don't care that you still have 5 miles to ride and 1 mile to run.

3. Bicycle bells are for douchebags!

4. My people are very resourceful. If the price of nopales at Superior Market is not to their liking, they gather the whole familia together and pick them off the side of the bike trail.

5. Efusjon Edge takes the edge off that nasty dehydration thing you get from exerting yourself in the sun after a night of wine and champagne...and pizza...and tiramasu...