Lifetime Fitness Triathlon

This weekend I volunteered at the Lifetime Fitness Triathlon. A very big event in the world of Tri’s, drawing the top of the sport athletes due to the $60K that goes to the men and women’s winner and due to it being part of a series, which the male winner of this race won on Saturday, netting him $120K total for winning Saturday and the series. It’s a huge event. They have Olympic distance for the pros and elite amateurs, along with anyone else that wants to attempt that distance (1.5K swim, 40K bike and 10K run) and there is an option of a sprint distance (.5 mile swim, 12 mile bike ride and 5K run). It drew around 3200 athletes, and 1000 volunteers. I volunteered to help out at the finish line, which was actually nice in many ways because I didn’t have to be there at 4:30 in the morning the way the body marking people did, we didn’t have to do anything at the beginning so that left for being able to go watch the start and the transition from swim to bike and again from bike to run. Our job was to collect the timing chips. Easy enough, they are velcroed onto the athletes ankle, just have to grab it and pull….pay attention to if anyone needed medical and just enjoy the day. I had good conversations with a number of people, found jealousy in looking at some of the women athletes there (and it made me regret the bagel and doughnuts I had eaten from the volunteers tent, along with some of the candy, but not enough to regret the beer I had when I was given an access pass to the hospitality tent) and just in general enjoyed being able to be part of an event. I have trouble volunteering at running races, because I always feel like I need to be there running it, so this is a good option, helping at races that aren’t something I intend on doing (although I guess I haven’t fully ruled it out, but tris are so expensive, you might need a wet suit, you need access to a pool to be able to swim, road bikes are so expensive…).

Anyway, I managed to even take some pictures…you can see it was early, with the sun rising over the crowd when I pulled up, and some had been there as early as 5 am. Pro start time was 7, the pro women 3 minutes behind, the elite amateurs were 10 minutes behind the women and then heats from there of the rest of the field. I didn’t get to see much of the swim, but I got a few snaps of athletes running up the beach, then getting to the bike area. Then again when they changed from the bike back to run…and finally of the winner. I would’ve taken more but unfortunately I hadn’t checked my camera battery before leaving home and it was dying…so this was all I managed.

I got a few runs in over the weekend…nothing fantastic, but nothing hurting either. My mileage was lower last week than I had thought I had been at, somehow I was adding wrong while I was doing some of the runs…I managed 33, I want to get back up to regularly in the 40s, but I just can’t seem to get motivated. And with things not feeling great…if it’s really a sacro problem I’m having, which is what L has been thinking, I think I need to work more on that without a chiro at least at first (partly due to my health insurance isn't so great anymore on the coverage of chiro, I have a deductible and not just co-pay, stupid health insurance), so I’m back to using my sacro wedgie to see if that helps me at all. I haven’t been using it at all lately and maybe between that, some good massages, and yoga maybe I can work it all out and start feeling better. I’m hoping to get 17 miles in this weekend…I want to go out on Friday night, Saturday night I’m going out as well, so I might be trying to force my butt out of bed really early on Friday (or running after work before going out) and see if I can get it in…maybe I can get up and run 7 and then work and then come home and run another 10 as an option too…we’ll see.

Friday the 13th

Oh, another busy week…and apparently I’m feeling exhausted. Last night I got home from work, went for a run, started out around 5:15, was done just before 6:30, I went 8 miles…I got home, I did a couple small things around the house, tried to get some GMAT studying in and was asleep by 8:30…umm…yeah…

My running has been lackluster lately. I’ve been very frustrated by it and I don’t know what to do about it. Justrun summed it up in her blog today pretty much exactly the way I feel. I have been able to get out and plod along, I sometimes wear a watch, but most times lately haven’t. Regardless, the run almost never feels ‘great’ and sometimes I think “why am I doing this” other than the obvious one of wanting to still lose a couple of pounds and not gain back where I’ve made the headway. The main thing is, I’m not doing it because I want to run some races and/or because I’m training for something. And I really don’t care and/or don’t feel like I want to train for anything either. I have been considering a fall marathon, it’s still been on my radar, but man, now I just don’t know. I don’t have the energy/motivation to run hard. And to get my goal time I have to run hard. Every run goes out about the same time frame…anywhere in the 8:45-9:15 (9:30 for my 15 miler on Saturday, but that was a longer run and it was hot and if I took into account full running time, it would be much slower than that as I had a few stop points for water and discussions on where I was running next). I hate this feeling of not even being out enjoying it. I don’t HAVE to run and I still just don’t seem to care and/or like what I’m doing and I hate that. It’s in part due to the glute/hamstring issue I’ve been dealing with, oh, probably close to a year now. It’s tight, it never feels 100%, runs never feel “great” (although that run in the rain last week was nice), and I just don’t know what to do about it. I feel, at least partly sometimes, like I’m not fueled enough. I know my eating has been bad and I haven’t been as diligent about eating a nice afternoon snack to get energy going. I also haven’t been eating the same time frame and same types of things I used to eat when at my last job. I’m still working on getting a new schedule going, but not having my eggs and toast everyday that I was used to, and then a later lunch, has caused problems that I know I need to remedy either by getting up and running in the morning, or eating something in the afternoon to fuel for that time. I just want to feel good about running again. I want to enjoy it and not do it cause I “have to”…I want back the feelings I had last spring when every run felt great, I enjoyed training, I was nailing the tempos, had great times on my intervals and the long runs were almost always great too (OK, a few were bad, but not many). I maintained that for almost 6 months and I ran my 3:42:54 that June…I just don’t know what is different now, what I had then that I’m lacking…I actually am less busy too. I don’t have a 2nd job now, I had more free time…


Just so it’s not such a downer post, I’m including some pics and a few fun things from the last two weeks. Lack Harriet bandshell, where I watched the guitar players with a friend and then had ice cream after. A sunset over Lake of the Isles (one of the chain of lakes that are a great place to run in the metro), downtown from Lake of the Isles and finally this license plate that I found hysterical for whatever reason and since I had my camera…

Tomorrow I'm up early as I'm helping out with the Lifetime Fitness Triathlon, a really big Tri that goes on not far from home. I'm volunteering at the finish line so that should be fun. It's even broadcast on NBC, so watch Saturday night, you might see me out there among the volunteers, although I have been informed we are not allowed anywhere near certain areas when the pros are finishing...and I'm not one holding the tape, darnit...it should be exciting though and I haven't volunteered for a while so helping L at the one a couple weeks ago and doing this one this week, I'm giving back. Even if it's not actually at a road race, but hey, tris aren't something I do, so I don't feel the "why am I not running this race since I'm here" thing that I sometimes feel at road races.