February 9, 2013
Well, that was interesting!
I just ran 21km. Unplanned. My last longish run was 15km 2 weeks ago and then nothing much in between.
Unless you count the 8km that i ran yesterday.
How did that happen?
I hardly ever run 2 days in a row and if i have a big run i try to make sure that i prepare for it (eating and drinking right, getting enough sleep, actually signing up for the race).
But yesterday i met with some people from Etgarim for a morning run and Hila who’s signed up for a full marathon in March asked if i wanted to join her and her fiance for their long run of the week. I said sure but i was actually planning on just biking the distance. But after speaking with her last night i realized that i couldn’t really bike in a running race but still wanted to see them so i said i would do it anyway. (After a full day of crap eating and not hydrating properly.) Also i have (had?) plans to run a 21km next week with Etgarim so even though my training hasn’t been the greatest, i just sort of figured that if i was ready for next week, i’ll be ready today. Makes sense right?
So, yes, it was pretty stupid but i actually feel ok now. Of course it will be even more interesting to see how i feel tomorrow.
What’s even more interesting was that i was able to do it. Ok, slowly, but 21km is now locked in the garmin! I think i should take that as confirmation that i’m capable of a lot more. A lot more!
Not sure what to do next week. I think i will drop down to the 10km. Better to be safe than sorry. Or maybe not. 🙂
In any event, I’m thinking it’s going to be a very early night!
December 6, 2012
On my way
Well, to nowhere too adventerous – just to Eilat for the weekend (taking the train to the plane). There’s a big triathlon taking place there this weekend. I’m not competing – i’m going to help with the refereeing, undoubtedly one of the most hated professions out there. I personally love it :-).
I don’t really know how much of any workout i’ll be able to do down there so i did a run yesterday morning.
I got to work early (courtesy of the parking gods and having to move my car by 06:30) so took off for a run on the beach in Herzliya. It was great – i would have gone further but i had a lot to get done before taking today off.
Anyway, i do have my running and swimming stuff with me so if there’s enough of a window i’ll see what i can accomplish.
Train is here (early!) so i gotta run. Later!
November 30, 2012
Decisions
So yesterday i had another swim workout in the morning. As per usual, before getting into the pool, i checked out the other swimmers to see what would be the best lane for me. No one pays any attention to the lane labels as there was a slowish swimmer in the “fast” lane but no matter, as the “medium” lane to the right of her was empty so i claimed it.
Now i know that i am slow but i was floored (not literally because in the pool i guess that would mean drowning) to see that it took me almost the entire length of the pool to catch this woman! I am as slow as she was! Oy!
There’s no reason for this – i need to get faster, if only to be able to swim longer distances in less than half a day. So i made a decision to take a series of swimming lessons.
I priced them (the pool i swim at is owned by the municipality and is actually a “teaching” pool and you have to use their instructors). In any event, the lessons are exorbinant. And it got me thinking about how ridiculously expensive this triathon sport is. I mean any one sport can cost a lot if you get into it. But triathlon is 3 sports! And all with their own specific expenses.
So that led me to my second decision. I’m open for sponsorships! Now i’m a loyal saucony sneaker wearer (have 3 pairs lying around my apt. And 2 waiting for me at my parents that i snagged at a great price on amazon). I even featured a pair on my blog a few weeks ago (any suggestions as to how to get a half pound of dried mud off them would be welcome! 😉 )
Therefore i think this would be an ideal partnership. I’ll be happy to include a good word on saucony in every blog post, wear their shirts during every run and write disparaging stories about nike.
Unless nike wants to sponsor me. Who knows? Maybe they’re tired of paying successful basketball players to wear their sneakers and baseball caps. Maybe they’re looking to work with a slow runner who’s an even slower biker and swimmer who consistently finishes in the back half of competitions (ok, back quarter) (on good days!). If so, then i’d be perfect for them!
I would definitely be up for any deal. And if i have to give up my beloved kinvaras, i will be happy to settle for the same running shoes that usain bolt has. I’m sure that will make all the difference!
November 24, 2012
Getting my run on!
Had a great weekend, training wise. After my swim yesterday, i wavered back and forth about getting my run due to the weather in the morning. Then i wasn’t sure about having enough time to finish and still have time to shower before going to friends for dinner.
I decided to go for it and ran 12km in awesome conditions – still sunny but rain clouds were rolling in so it was starting to get a little windy. It was actually beautiful down by the water with the sun setting and all the contrasts in color.
Unfortunately no pic because my battery died.
However i didn’t make that mistake today! After a three hour indoor bike session i wanted to run 20 minutes to get used to the feeling of doing a long bike ride followed by a run.
I’m going to consider the below just another karma reward.
That view’s about a 9 minute run from my apt. Definitely worth it!
November 23, 2012
The Theory of Relativity
My pool has about four lanes – the first one is marked “slow”, the middle two are marked “fast” and the last one, well I have no idea what that is marked as I’ve never been in it. It’s actually much wider than the other three lanes but there always tend to be 4-5 “swimmers” who are doing some kind of floating/jumping/walking kind of stuff and I don’t really want to get into that mess.
So when I arrive, I focus on the other three lanes, looking to see which has the least number of swimmers. I feel like a fraud if I get into one of the “fast” lanes but it must be the times that I am there because inevitably, I’m the fastest swimmer there. But that’s such a joke because I’m an incredibly slow swimmer (in more than one triathlon I’ve been the last person out of the water, and I’ve never had more than 10 people coming out of the water after me).
So I have this illusion that I’m speedy gonzalez in my swims, until one person shows up with actual skill and puts me back in my place! I got in 1,550 meters today and was pretty proud of myself until I checked my watch – so slow… too slow! I might start a series of swimming lessons to see what I could do to speed up my time. Swimming is all about technique and I’m sure I don’t have it!
Anyway, the swim is done and now it’s pouring rain (crazy thunder and lightning storm actually) so I put my run off. I might just ride my bike on my indoor trainer in the house today and try to run tomorrow. And for those who are wondering (since it wouldn’t be my blog if I didn’t have a parking reference), I got a spot right around the corner from my house, without having to drive around even once – good exercise karma! That’s a great reward for getting my workout in early!
Early bird
So i got home late last night after a goodbye dinner with Corinne and her family (her plane to South Africa took off about an hour ago) and, per usual, i had to find a spot. At midnight. In the heart of Tel Aviv. Eventually snagged one (legal for a change!) but it was on Ibn Gvirol so there are all these parking restrictions that would have me moving the car by 06:30am.
Or so i thought.
Turns out that there is no longer the need to move the car on friday mornings. I could have sleeped a bit longer but it’s ok. I had this elaborate plan to go to the pool and then if it stops raining to run in the park. Then i could still get back home and look for a spot before everybody else actually wakes up and comes into TA for shopping and/or brunch.
Still gonna go for it and keep my fingers crossed that karma rewards me with an easily found spot, for making the efforts to get my workouts in!
Why does it seem that this blog is more about parking than anything else now?
October 12, 2012
By the numbers
50 kilometers; 2 hours, 7 minutes and 30 seconds; 24km/hr and 27 laps around Rosh Tzipor. All done by 09:00am this morning.
Yay for me! I wasn’t really looking forward to this bike ride but I’ve got to start getting some real bike experience, as opposed to my leisurely daily commutes.
Biking is not a reality for me without having either a closed road or an escort car – it’s just not safe enough for me to even bother. So if I don’t want to pack up the bike in the car and try to find another route, I have to stay in Tel Aviv and bike in the park. There are 2 loops – one is about 1.4km around and the other is Rosh Tzipor – 1.89km. That’s a lot of circles if you want to do any kind of distance but since there’s no way I’m giving up my parking spot for this, I didn’t have much of a choice. (I actually prefer the 1.4km loop more but knowing that 50km was the plan, that would have been an exceptionally masochistic thing to do.)
Therefore I joined all the other lycra-clad bikers this morning (although most of them were much faster than me, and on bikes that probably did cost as much as my car.)
I didn’t get out as early as I would have liked. On one hand that’s good – the amount of time that I spent on the path with the so-called “professionals” was at a minimum since they all were probably there at the crack of dawn (as opposed to me who took the time to eat breakfast, throw in a load of laundry and watch the end of Great British Bake-Off). I’m actually nervous about the fast bikers who somehow are always passing me at the narrowest parts of the path, during a curved section. However, they do serve their purpose. They speed around the track scaring all the walkers, dogs, and crows (who are surprisingly aggressive and don’t really move that fast when I’m riding towards them) out of the way. Once they start heading home, along come more dog walkers (who always feel it’s ok to let their dogs off their leashes), various strollers who never seem to pay attention to what’s happening around them and have no qualms about crossing into the paths of others without looking once, let alone twice and the bikers who seem to have just learned to bike last week, as far as I can tell, due to all the weaving they do..
Never mind, I did my ride and had a good time doing it (although an even better time once I saw that “5” turn up and knew it was my last lap).
And the ultimate bonus? 1,353 calories burned! Nice!!
(Did you have to tilt your head to see this? If so, sorry – the file looks fine to me but when I insert the photo it’s off. But I’ve spent enough time trying to fix it. And who knows, it might be fine and just how it looks to me in this edit mode.)
On another note, have you read Elaine’s most recent post? Definitely worth it if you’ve ever sat next to some screaming kids in a restaurant – it explains everything! http://houseofbedlam.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/eating-out-bedlam-style/
July 14, 2011
Starting Over
Wow, has it really been over a month since my last post? I’m such a lazy blogger!
I don’t really have too much to say but I thought I’d try to get back into writing, just because.
I had been keeping up with my weekly swims in the sea but due to the yearly (massive!) jelly fish invasion, I’ve opted out and have started swimming at a pool by work. So far it’s been pretty good – I’m amazed at how slow I am (really. It’s quite pathetic how slow.) but I’m trying to just build up some endurance and then I’ll start working on intervals and drills to get some speed. That would be amazing because although though it’s the shortest part of any triathlon, my finish placements would be so much better with even just a 5 minute improvement (and it would be so much more motivating to get out of the water with other people and not feel that I’m always trying to catch up!)
Biking has been off and on – in general I’ve been trying to get in at least 2 long spinning sessions a week at the gym just to keep up my fitness but I do have a long ride planned tomorrow which should be fun. A course that I’ve been wanting to do for awhile but for whatever reason just hasn’t happened (like the last time I tried but for some reason I thought I was supposed to be on road 444, but I was supposed to be on 44 – I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t find the various landmarks I was looking for! Well, duh, it’s about 50km south of where I actually was. And in that ride yet another fall off my bike (and 2 more lovely scars to add to my left knee collection.) Hopefully tomorrow will be better!
My running has been my real weak link – I haven’t run in about 3-4 weeks. My foot had just been bothering me a lot and I was at a loss to figure out what my problem was. I’ve decided to start from scratch and work on my biomechanics and technique now, before I rebuild my distance. It’s been frustrating but I’m convinced that I can get there.
Anyway, that’s it for me. Nothing too exciting but all’s good! I’ll be back with a summary of tomorrow’s bike ride – hopefully I’ll be all smiles and not have yet another bloody fall to write about!
April 8, 2011
42km? Done and Dusted!
I’m going to keep this short because I can’t believe it’s almost 5pm – I’ve been up since 3:45am and am exhausted!
So short version and tomorrow I’ll have time to search some sites to find pictures, etc. to post – hopefully one or two will be ok!
I crossed the finish line at 4:57:56. My goal was to better my previous time (4:59) so despite being really, really tired, I’m very happy!
Thanks to all for your good wishes and support! It means a lot to me and helped get me to the finish!
More to come tomorrow… I’m off to bed!
April 6, 2011
Final Countdown
Just a really quick update on the last few days leading up to the marathon. This is turning into a huge event in Tel Aviv – more than 18,000 people are participating in one of the 6 available races (full marathon, half marathon, 10k, 4.2k, 21k for handbikes, and 21k for rollerblades). It should be an amazing day.
I, of course, am swinging back and forth between feelings of excitement and terror. I’m really nervous because I just don’t think that my training was on point. But I’m determined to finish and do my best to better my time of 4:59. Maybe by keeping an eye out for dogs and keeping the pit stops to a minimum, I’ll be able to do it.
I’ve written out my pre- and post-race lists and finalized my running gear, down to the exact pair of underwear I’ll have on. As for the food, I’ll be shlepping a few cut-up bananas and managed to blackmail Tamar to wait for me at kilometer 30 with an extra bottle of Gatorade. Hopefully the nutrition will be ok.
I’ve got to give credit where credit is due. Lior convinced me to go on a diet and really watch what I eat for the past 21 days. I’ve been off sugar and finally seem to have “detoxed”. I’m feeling good and lost a whopping 600 grams! I just read a blog the other day that one of the most important aspects of race nutrition is eating right in general so hopefully everything will go ok from that point.
I’m planning to get up at 4am and be at the site by 5. The race starts at 6:30, hopefully I’ll be finished before 11:30 and I’ve already got my 3pm appointment lined up with my Chinese guy for a massage!
I’ll post my race report and times as soon as I can crawl up the stairs to my computer! Wish me luck!!
And We're Off! 