Proud Momma

First off, a huge congratulations to everyone who raced the Boston marathon! My friend and training buddy Colleen did amazing. I can't wait to hear her stories.

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All this training is catching up to me. Something had to give and unfortunately it was the blog. I can't even remember the last time I did a post but honestly you haven't missed out on too much, I promise. 

However, if you do feel you are missing out you can follow me on my Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/TriMomsLife

or Instagram:

srapamum

I strongly encourage you to also follow my team I'm racing for this year:

soas_racing

Steph posts some pretty fantastic photos.

So what has been happening? Well I have been on the bike so much that I had to get a new saddle. Seriously, I did a 3 1/2 hour ride that was so painful I could barely sit on anything. I really loved my Adamo saddle to begin with but as time went on it got more and more uncomfortable and apparently I'm not the only one with this issue. I think I may have found the right saddle. 

I went with the Bontrager hilo RXL. I really liked how I could adjust the nose of the saddle so I get the benefits of the split seat and the back part doesn't torture my sit bones like the Adamo did. I've got a 100km ride coming up next weekend and then the following weekend I have an 8 hour ride so I'm thinking those will be a good test for my bum comfort.

We've been quite lucky out on the west coast with mild and sunny weather. I have been out on the bike way more than usual.

We had a pit stop at the top of the Malahat a few weeks back. Not my favourite ride due to heavy, crazy fast traffic but the scenery is amazing.

Last weekend I got out with another fabulous friend to ride part of the Ironman Victoria 70.3 bike course. Unfortunately I had a tough track workout first and the legs were not happy so I had to cut the ride short. But again, gorgeous weather and I got to show off my Team Soas jersey.

So needless to say training is going pretty good. I am definitely enjoying it, getting out a lot. I have a confession to make though, I am not in the pool nearly as much as I would like to be. Lately I seem to make it twice a week. I probably should be going 3 but I'm really struggling to fit it in. Work has been very busy, kids have been sick and need extra momma time. I'm doing volunteering whenever I get the chance. Life is just busy and really, swimming is my strongest so I'm okay with 2 days for now.

So onto some bragging. My awesome girls did a Splash n' Dash this past weekend. They were so excited. Big sis has ben training with the school triathlon club (which I love helping out with). She is hoping to do a triathlon in June or July this year.

Little sis just loves being in the water and has made it very clear she does not want to do a triathlon this year. 

This year they started with the little kids which was great. They love all of the cheering.

Little sis was the second group to go. Her swim coach was there cheering her on.

I was volunteering at the finish line so I got to give her the medal. 

Next up was big sis. She had 50m to do and she did great! 

After her 250m run she cam across the line happy and wanting to run some more. I might have a future Ironman on my hands.

And no race is complete without snacks.

We are so lucky with the swim club coaches we have. They are so good to the kids.

Big shout out to our swim club CV Breakers and the volunteers who made the event so great!

This weekend the kids will be doing the TC 10k kids race.

I will be racing the half. I have to say I'm a little nervous. This will be my first race of the year and first race in over 6 months. I think it's safe to say this will be my kick off for race season.

I wasn't going to write it down because now there will be pressure but my coach is electing a PB from me. I've been working very hard on my running and all of my target workouts I have hit my pace bang on. So wish me luck that I achieve my goal and the weather isn't like it was at Boston on Monday.

As I end todays post I want to remind everyone to take time for yourself. Away from training, away from work, away from kids, away from spouses. Spend a little time on yourself. Do something that you wouldn't normally do. Last week I had luck with a great friend and as we finished our lunch she suggested we go get a pedi. At first I thought I don't have time for that, I've got to get kids from school, make dinner and whatever else was on my list. Then I thought, I could really use one. so I called my husband to see if he could grab the kids so I could enjoy a little extra time with my girlfriend. It was seriously the best thing I could have done for myself. We had a great time and it felt so amazing. 

My toes even match my bike and Soas team kit.

So thank you Dr. R for making my day super special, I really enjoyed our afternoon together.

To count or not to count

On Vancouver Island it seems the summer came a little early. I don't mind one bit though, it's making those long training hours totally worthwhile. 

So after this week I will have finished 2 cycles of Base 1 training. My training load is still fairly light in comparison to what it will be come June/July but I am still working hard. With all of this training I thought I would feel fantastic, but sadly no. I have struggled with some health issues over the course of the years but I've been working hard alongside my ND to figure out what is going on. I'm feeling better than I was 2 years ago and I do have great days but occasionally I still feel exhausted and not due to training. So I decided to look a little deeper.

I've never really worried about my calorie intake since I'm a plant based athlete. I eat good, whole, clean foods. We rarely eat out. I make all of our meals from scratch. I don't eat any meat, I don't consume any dairy. I even make my own home made vegan cheeses. So what am I doing wrong?

A few weeks ago I decided to check and see exactly how many calories I need a day without exercise. I figured I should at least have a benchmark of what my regular day to day should be. Keep in mind I have a fairly physical job that has me on my feet for up to 12 hours. I plugged in my hight, weight, age, sex, general activeness. Turns out I need about 1700 calories a day. Not bad, but that is without doing any exercise at all. Now that I've figured out one piece of the nutritional puzzle I thought I better take it a step further and track my daily calorie intake. Maybe I do over eat?

So I downloaded the App Fitnesspal.

It's a free App and the best part is it connects to Strava and I'll explain later why this is so awesome.

So after a day of tracking my food I was bang on. Definitely consuming the right amount of calories. So where was I going wrong? This is where connecting the Strava App to the Fitnesspal App is game changing.

After doing my workout for the day I connected my Strava info to the Fitnesspal App. Sure enough I had burned way more calories than I ever imagined. So here I am at 4pm and I have another 1500 to consume. Seriously. I have been under eating for who knows how long. The lightbulb went off and it all came crashing down. I was tired all of the time because I was lacking so many calories. I felt ridiculous for not looking into this sooner. I should have know better. Above all though, I was glad to solve my mystery. To celebrate and get more calories I decided to make my self an iced almond latte.

Unfortunately it only has 50 calories so I had to eat a lot more food. 

After my realization of lacking major calories I have began tracking my food and training daily. I'm now 2 weeks in and I have to tell you I am feeling amazing. I have way more energy, I'm sleeping so well and my workouts are also going well. I now plan my food around the workouts for that day. So for days like Mondays where I only swim and do weights I don't need as many calories verses the days like Saturday or Sundays when I am running and cycling therefore needing substantially more calories. 

I cannot emphasize enough at how easy it is to track food and calories through these combined apps. Every time I load my garmin onto my computer Strava automatically loads it (I do have it set up that way). The food tracking is also pretty easy and straight forward. It even has a barcode scanner for packaged foods. 

So now that I am back on track and feeling fine I got out for a fabulous 2 1/2 hour ride with my very good buddy. I love spending time with this hard core chick.

We road all around Victoria and it was fabulous. 

So now I take advantage of my rest week and heal up my poor torn calf muscle so I can get back to my hard running efforts.

And so it begins...

It's official I have now begun my Ironman training. I'm not going to lie, I'm feeling like I bit off more then I can chew. The only thing that is keeping me from totally freaking out is the great support team I've got going. I am into my third week which is also a rest week for me and I'm feeling not too bad. If you had asked me how I was feeling last week I probably wouldn't be sounding so chipper about the whole process.

So week 1 started off pretty easy. I actually held off on the swim for this week since I seem to get sick 2 days after being in the pool. Since I still am not quite 100% healthy from this crazy nasty flu/chest cold/bronchitis/maybe it was pneumonia kind of sickness I opted on staying out of the pool for another few weeks.

So week 1:

Lots of strength training. I am doing weights 3x's a week, 45min each session. I'm working on everything: Glutes/core, legs, arms. Each days has a lovely surprise for me. 

Bike is being done 3x's a week as well. I've got 1 day that is intervals, 1 day hill repeats, 1 day of easy steady state. Now all of these workouts aren't necessarily balls to the walls. I have to stay within a specific heat rate zone depending on the workout.

My interval session was attempted on the rollers. New experience for me. A lot harder than I anticipated too. At least I don't have to hold onto the wall anymore.

I'll spare you the ugly hill repeats picture. It was very wet, I was very cranky (probably because I was also very wet) and I was tired. So we'll skip ahead to my easy steady state which ended up being a lovely mountain bike ride with one of my besties!!!

I don't get out on the mountain bike very often but I sure had some fun.

Next up is the run. My hardest sport to train for. I never really loved running up until last summer. Now I enjoy it quite a bit especially when the weather is like this:

What's not to like? Unfortunately, first week the weather wasn't so nice. To top it off we had a tough workout in the pouring rain. But we were so enthusiastic!

Nice warm up to start then right into 1 km race pace intervals. I was thrilled when I got home and loaded up my stats to find I hit every interval bang on my goal pace. It's amazing how a good tough workout that goes well can just top off your day/week/month!

I was so fast the picture is blurry ; )

There is nothing more rewarding than completing a tough workout!

So week 1 done! Both coaches were happy with my first week of training YAY!

This is where things don't go so well. The high's and low's of training for a big event. My right hip has been causing me grief on and off for a few months. I'm lucky enough that my very good friend is also my physiotherapist and takes excellent care of me. Unfortunately she is away for 5 weeks (which sucks super bad because she is also one of my main training buddies). Well, week 2 of training my hip starts bugging me a bit. I seriously have been looking like an old lady when I start my run. So my yogi husband suggested that maybe I should start incorporating some yoga into my training schedule (because I have so much free time *did you note the sarcasm?)

I really do like doing yoga but I am really terrible at it and I really don't have any spare time so I have to be choosy about my workouts. I decided maybe husband was right so I started doing it and even got the kids to join me.

Let's just say they are a little more natural at it than I am.

Needless to say, I think the yoga is actually working. After 3 sessions of yoga my hip is feeling so much better. So much better that I am back to enjoying my runs.

Week 2 running: a few nice easy runs in the cold mornings (at least it isn't raining). A nice hilly route to get me warmed up. By then end of the week I was exhausted that I had to skip my Saturday group run. Gotta get on top of that. I can't me missing those runs.

Bike got a missed session too. Started out and by 20min in I could barely hold myself up on the bike.

Still no swimming either but I was so tired I probably would have drowned.

This might be a good time to remind athletes how important it is to listen to your body. I'm guilty of not listening to how I feel and I'm guessing if you go back a ways in my blog you might even find a confession or two. Seriously though, with the health issues and injuries I have had over the last few years this couldn't be any more important. If you are in the middle of the workout and you absolutely can not give it 100% it is perfectly okay to pull the plug. In fact it would be very wise. 

Needless to say I was looking forward to my rest week. Now a lot of people have the misconception that a rest week is a week where you lay on the couch and do nothing. Even a few of my training buddies weren't quite sure what a rest week actually meant. 

For me, I'm still training but the load is a bit lighter, no weight training for the week and lots of recovery runs/rides. 

So Sunday I got out to enjoy a leisurely 2 hour ride with another fabulous friend.

The weather was amazing! 

We kept a super easy pace. Even stopped a few times. I couldn't have been any happier to be out there. Then I followed up with a 60min run.

Who gets to run in t shirts during February? This weather is crazing awesome. 

So now I am finishing up my recovery week. I had some hill repeats on my run today which wasn't quite as warm as Sundays run but equally amazing to be outside.

Now if only it stayed light out just a bit longer I wouldn't have to pack my training in so tightly. 

I've been feeling slightly overwhelmed trying to keep the balance. 

I've been needed at my kids school to help volunteer, I've had a few extra work days I've needed to go in for and I'm still trying to get out to see friends. Life is definitely busy and I know it's going to get a lot busier. I'm just glad I got though my first 3 weeks of base training without any major melt downs.

If this weather continues I have a feeling training won't be difficult to get in.

Sometimes things just don't work out.

Well some days the universe has a weird way of telling you things...

Today was one of those days.

On Vancouver Island we have a great winter race series. From January to April there are 8 running races from Sidney to Comox. Every single race has their special something and I love participating. Last year due to pneumonia I missed out so I was very excited to plan my race season with VIRA in mind.

So the first race was Jan 11 down in Saanich (greater part of Victoria) and my run coach thought it would be a great race for me to do... then I got sick. So no race for me. Fast forward to this weekend where the second race is happening right in my back yard. The Cobble Hill 10km. This was the race I was most excited about. It's my area, I know the race route, and I know I was capable of a PR. Well after being off from training for 4 weeks I figured I still could pull off a good race, then this week I woke up with nerve pain shooting down my leg. So I had to skip one of my runs and go see "my guy" to get things sorted out. Got out for my other runs and things felt better. So I thought yes, I can race this. Well, as I'm getting ready for the race I get a text from my coach asking how things are feeling. I tell her I'm feeling pretty much back on track and what pace should I run this race. She tells me not to run it. Too much has gone on that she didn't think it was wise. So I'm bummed. I decided what the heck, I've already paid for the race. I'll go run it and just run it as an easy training pace. Not easy to do in a race because it means practicing an immense sense of self control. I have done it before so what the heck. So I'm all ready to head over to the race, get into my truck and...

IT WILL NOT START. It won't do anything. No battery, no nothing. 

I have to tell you I am a huge believer in that things happen for a reason. My coach did not want me racing, she did say if I really wanted to I could but she did not recommend it. The fact that my truck all of a sudden decided today was the day it decided not to start I find absolutely crazy. 

So I have taken today as a great opportunity to remind me to trust. Trust in my coach. Trust in my training. Trust in myself that everything will work out. Life will lead me in the right direction and I just have to trust.

I am hopeful that this is the last of my hiccups for training as I officially start Ironman training a week today. The plan is in place and I will be on my rigid schedule. Things are going to work out just fine, as long as I just trust.

Sunshine and health = Happy days

ah, a big sigh of relief to see that beautiful sunshine out there. I am 3 weeks from when I first got sick and I am finally on the mend. Boy does it ever feel good to get outside and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine. I can't believe what a downer being sick is and then to be in a deep fog during that time didn't help. I am so thrilled to get back to life!

This week I was allowed to slowly get back to training. I had to maintain a very, very, very easy pace.  This meant I was almost walking. I was more then okay with that. I was just happy to get out of the house and get my blood flowing. 

So my first day out was only 20 minutes. Since it was a very short run I asked my oldest if she would wanted to join me (she's 7). I never thought a kid could be so excited to run with their mom. Normally I take the kids with me but they ride their bikes. She was excited to run with me and I was too.

It was a pretty foggy morning so we played it safe with safety and I made her wear my high vis vest.

It almost fits her!!!

She did awesome. She ran 3km's and kept a nice easy pace with me. She wanted a little head start on the way back.

This was my super proud mom moment. During our run we ran into a lady who was out for a walk and she couldn't commend my little girl enough. She complimented on how well she ran and what an inspiration she was. I couldn't be more proud. I sure hope she wants to continue our nice little runs. It was definitely a great way to bond.

After our mother/daughter bonding run it got me excited to get back to training. So I got a few more slow easy runs in this week and todays run with the sun shinning and our super warm day I just couldn't be happier. To top it off I got mail...

Finally my ugly tri Christmas sweater arrived. A little late for Christmas but now I am ready for next year. 

This shirt is so fun. It's a little on the big side. I tried it on over top of my running clothes.

Regardless, it will be perfect for the next holiday season. I'm not sure if they still sell them but I got this shirt through Teespring. A few of my Soas racing buddies got them as well so you might see a few of these "ugly tri Christmas sweaters around.

I also bought myself a little get well gift...

Soas just added running tights to their already fabulous collection of running gear. I would like 1 of everything but I had to refrain myself and just buy 1 pair for now. I bought the far right pair "Sunset Cliffs".  I can't wait to try them. You can find a pair for yourself HERE.

So there you have it. A great week ending with a super sunny great day. Here's to a fun filled and relaxing weekend.

Happy New Years

A few days late but Happy New Year friends! I am so excited to embrace 2015. As most of my followers know 2014 brought me a lot of hiccups. It was a very challenging year for me in all aspects of my life... family, friends, work, triathlon. You name it we probably went through it. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger right? So when I say bring on 2015 I truly mean it. 

So far it hasn't started out great triathlon wise. December 30th I came down with the flu but decided to still go ahead with our annual New Years Party. 

I probably should have cancelled and went to bed at 8pm but I didn't and now I am suffering. I'm completely off all workouts until it clears out of my chest. Needless to say I'm a bit grumpy. 

I have been sipping on natural remedies since the Benelyn made me feel like a recovering drug addict.

Honestly, my lemon, ginger beet juice made me feel way better then those pseudoephedrines. I am trying to be positive but it is hard when you have great expectations. So on that note...

So onward and upward I say! So many other positive things. I've been off during the Christmas break which means lots of fun times with my family.

We did the fantastic Christmas skate at our local skating rink.

A little bowling with our friends. Just a little side note... Bowling is not my sport. All of the kids beat me. Seriously I suck at bowling. My friend even told me how bad I suck. She reminded me I can't be good at all sports and of all the sports to suck at bowling is a good. She's so positive ; )

We also got a little climbing in. Climbing will always have a special place in my heart, that's how my husband and I met so to take the kids is the ultimate fun thing for us to do.

We had a wonderful Christmas as usual. It was just us this year. We had no company for Christmas and it was lovely. We took our time opening presents, had a wonderful vegan Christmas dinner and even played with some of our new toys...

Speaking of new toys I got a few of my favourite things!

Playing on my new rollers!!! I also got my Adamo saddle!

So with Santa being overly kind to me this year got me excited for the 2015 race season. I don't have a lot of triathlon races this year. Because I am focussed on my main goal of completing my first full distance (Ironman distance) race I decided to only commit to 2 other races. So first up will be the Ironman Victoria 70.3

Next up I think I will do a short little Olympic close to home as well.

The Langford Triathlon will be it's first year hosting this Olympic and Sprint race. I'm very excited for a new course to try.

Then last but not least, my biggest goal of my life August 30 2015:

I'm going to be honest, I am terrified of this. It's the unknown. I've never done these distances before. I've never ran a marathon, I've never biked over 120km so those two together scares me immensely, but this is a dream I've had for a while. 

So February 1st I embark on my training. I've been doing a bit of pre-season training. I've hit the pool a few times, I try to get on the bike twice a week, and I'm hammering out some good runs. I have no idea how this journey will end but I have a good feeling that it will be one of the greatest adventures of my life. I have a great running coach who will keep the reins very tight on me, I have a cycling coach who will definitely steer me on the right direction. I can do this and I will do it as best as I can. 

I don't really do New Years resolutions but during my Ironman training each month I have a new resolve. Some of the resolves I have for myself is to be positive no matter what gets thrown my way. Start meditating daily. Be thankful for all opportunities. 

So Happy New Year to you and yours. I hope 2015 brings you joy, happiness, excitement and adventure.