NO PAIN, NO GAIN...

My training this weekend was pretty hard. It tested my endurance, my strength, my commitment, and most of all my mental toughness. My weekend training started on Friday afternoon with 2 spin classes back to back. I actually only did about one and a half classes. I caught the tail end of the first class and stayed for the second. If you know Coach Elaine, you know taking one of her classes is already brutal! To top off the 2 spin classes, at the end of the second class, she had us do walking lunges.

Needless to say, my legs and butt were on fire on Saturday morning. But, we are now in "Race Phase" and I'm only about 3 months away from race day, so missing training is not an option. Saturday's training called for a 10 mile run. Coach Elaine and Coach Mike had us meet in Oakland for a trail run. The trail had some pretty tough hills so I jogged/walked, and the hills of course added to my legs and butt that were already on fire. Woo hoo for pain! =P

Needless to say, I needed some coercing to get to training on Sunday. Sunday called for a swim and a 90 mile bike ride. With my legs about to fall off, I didn't know how I was going to handle this. Thank Lord I have Phil to kick me out of bed and remind me about how close my actual race day is, anddddd cook me breakfast. =) So my training started at 8am with a swim in a lagoon in Redwood City. I swam only for a little while as I wanted to save my legs for the 90 mile ride. Although I only finished 60 miles of the 90, this ride was the toughest ride I've done BY FAR! In my estimation at least 80% of this ride was climbing. =O With my legs already feeling the pain which was even worse by now, I already was feeling defeat at the start of the ride. But, I rode through the pain and got through some of the toughest hills of my riding life. The hardest hill had a 6 mile climb. Can you imagine riding a bike on a STEEP incline for 6 miles? I'll admit I had to get off and walk a couple of times and I even cried b/c this hill had really killed my spirits. But, we got to the top of the hill finally got to the turn we were looking for b/c this hill really seemed like it had NO END!!! We had to get home so we kept going, Coach Mike and Coach Pete picked me up about mile 60 since it was getting cold and about to be dark. I got back to my car at almost 7pm. So I trained from 8am to 7pm, rode from Redwood City to Saratoga and almost back! Although, I've done more miles than this before, like I said, THIS HAS BEEN THE TOUGHEST RIDE BY FARRR!

Although this ride had me thinking some really negative thoughts, I know all this pain will ultimately help me in the end. All the pain I'm suffering from now will only help me on race day. Phil, thank you for being my annoying reminder b/c my lazy ass definitely needs a kick from time to time. And, mostly thank you for supporting me with all the talks when I start to second guess myself and knowing what do to get me where I need to be. Elaine, thank you for the talk this morning. I definitly needed the support and the encouragement after yesterday's training. And it means a lot b/c you know where I'm coming from. And, I'm glad you all can see that I'm definitely pushing myself past limits I've never thought I had. I never would have imagined doing any of this and to know all that I've accomplished already makes me feel even more determined to finish my IRONMAN!

Thank you everyone for understanding why I'm so M.I.A. and supporting me with all your encouragement.