Random Five Friday 5-11-12

1. Busy, busy week! It started off last weekend with Liam's 2nd birthday celebration.  My parents live here in town, but Dave's family is 5 hours away, so we celebrated a few days late.  Liam's only two...he doesn't really know or care at this age.
Of course he got a whole pile of new toys.  Some of them were even on his cake!  I set the bar high with last year's cake (homemade fondant jungle animals).  This year I just wasn't sure what I was going to to do and suddenly it was the day before!  Thank goodness for Pinterest!  I didn't take me long to find inspiration and this is what Liam ended up with:

They tell me it tasted good.  I'm too new to gluten-free to try experimenting with a gluten free cake at this point.  So I just trusted Betty Crocker for the cake and I ate ice cream instead. I don't consider myself a loser in that situation.

2. I got to hang with my triathlon friends TWICE this week! First we went out for drinks after master swim Tuesday night. Wednesday night we met up again at a triathlon clinic at which our fearless leader and master swim coach Jose was one of the main speakers.

Tri clinic hosted by Fairmont Multisport Club. Speakers were nutritionist Jessi Rezac,  pro triathlete Jose Rosales-Yepes, and co-owner of Nicollet Bike Justin Rinehart.  (Photo: Mike O'Rourke)

3.  Thursday, in lieu of an organized workout, I chose to garden and take advantage of the nice weather.  Seems like it has been raining all the time here lately and it's been too wet to weed (um, yeah...see all the little teeny-tiny green things in the picture below).
I spent a little over an hour weeding with this old-style cultivator.  That really is one heck of a workout and I am totally counting it as crosstraining!
Good news is now that the plants are all up and the weeds are gone, we can mulch and I hopefully won't have this much weeding to do again this year (fingers crossed!!!)

4.  I'm going to try running again tomorrow with my Couch-to-5K group.  I took the week off again after having some pain during last week's attempt.  I sure would like to get back to running...

5. I can't think of anything for number five so instead I'm leaving you with a picture of my kid helping in the garden, tiny little garden gloves and all  :)

Have a great weekend!  Good luck to anyone who is racing!

Training Log April 30-May 6

AKA
"My First Week With A Coach"
OR
"How To Be A Bad Athlete By Not Following Directions"

Monday:  This week started off with my birthday (and my son's- we share a birthday) on Monday the 30th.  It was a rest day (thanks, Coach!)
It was an awesome unintentionally multisport-themed birthday!
Hubby hired me a coach:  Wendy Mader at T2 Coaching.
Mom & Dad got me Sparkly Soul Headbands:

and Chrissie Wellington's autobiography "A Life Without Limits"

My in-laws gave me some money which is currently being used (along with some other $) to bid on a lot of goodies Tanya at GOTRIbal is auctioning off to raise money for CAF (Challenged Athletes Foundation).  Bidding is happening here until June 1st 2012.  Go check it out and place your own bid!  

Yep, that visor and water bottle are both signed by Chrissie.  Go. Bid. Now.  Let's raise some dough for CAF!

Since we were planning Liam's big party for the following weekend, we didn't do anything big.  Instead, Liam and I enjoyed some Ben & Jerry's after supper followed by snuggling up on the couch to watch "Winnie The Pooh".  An enjoyable way to spend a birthday for both of us!  

Tuesday:  Tuesday was supposed to be a double.  P90X2 session and master swim.  Well, apparently Liam decided now that he is 2, he no longer needs regular afternoon naps (a trend that has unfortunately continued all week).  I got the master swim in because I had a sitter, but by the time I got home from that at 9:15PM, I was beat and had no energy left for the second workout.  Half successful today.  

Pre-masters warmup +masters= 1800yds

Wednesday:  Drills on the bike means a trainer workout.  Not as fun as riding outside, but it means I can do it while Liam is napping rather than having to find a sitter.  Of course, since he has decided he no longer needs naps, I had to spend the morning wearing him out with an extra large helping of outdoor play to get him to nap.

Mercifully, this session was only 51 minutes long, as it was the first workout that I have ever wanted to puke and cry within the same workout (thankfully, not at the same time!)  It was a good workout, though, and I didn't feel that bad after I was done or the next day.  I'm just not used to pushing outside my comfort zone on the bike.  

Thursday:   500yd swim time trial.  12:50.  15 seconds slower than 5 weeks ago, but different pool, different day.  That was the best I had that day.  1300yds total in the pool counting warmup and cooldown. 

Second session of the day was P90X2 Yoga.  After my swim, I spent all day trying to get rid of a headache.   After I finally got it down to a dull roar and Liam went to bed, I decided yoga was in order.  It was a good choice.  It got rid of my headache!  

Friday:  Coach Wendy had another trainer session scheduled for me today.  Again, Liam didn't want to nap.  Thunderstorms and lots of rain meant no outdoor play to wear out the child today, plus I was trying to get ready for a weekend of houseguests.  The rain also meant nowhere to ride my trainer.  We got enough rain that we got moisture in the basement for the weekend.  Since we have mold/mildew issues in the basement I won't spend any time down there when it's damp.  The rain meant I couldn't set up outside like I had earlier in the week.  New plan was to do Friday's workout on Saturday and Saturday's workout on Sunday.  I did a lot of housecleaning, menu-planning, and toddler-entertaining instead.  

Saturday:  It rained again all Saturday morning.  No trainer ride.  I was allowed to run/walk with my C25K group (first run in 2 weeks, yay!).  Only got drizzled on there.  Finished housecleaning, went to the grocery store in the middle of the downpour and came home looking like a drowned rat.  Shortly after that, our guests arrived and Liam's birthday festivities began.  So much for that plan adjustment.  Plan C?  

Sunday:  Sunday morning and early afternoon were gorgeous and sunny and would have been great for riding.  But we had church and potluck.  After coming home from church, we all took a walk and enjoyed the last of the sunshine before the clouds took over for the day.  Our guests left shortly thereafter.  Liam finally took a nap.  And so did I.  I hadn't done my workouts, but I'd stayed up late and woken up early cleaning and getting random things done for the past few days so I was pooped.  

Dave woke me up just before my alarm was set to go off and helped me get motivated to get moving and out the door.  It was 59 degrees, cloudy, and windy.  Not terrible conditions, but not super enjoyable either.    

I was scheduled to do 90 minutes at RPE 5-6.  Going out against the wind, I had to keep reminding myself that it was only supposed to be RPE 5-6 and dial it back a couple times.  It was tempting to try to fight the wind with all I had, especially when I would look at the speed and see how slow I was going!  

It ended up being a good ride and I was glad I went.  24 miles in 90 minutes.  

Goal for this week:

Dave has started a new position at work and will be home more!  This will hopefully make fitting in my workouts easier.  Especially now that a certain toddler has decided that naps are no longer necessary.  My goal for this week is to complete all workouts AS WRITTEN by Coach Wendy.