France

We just returned from a two week vacation in France. Our youngest daughter, Laura, studied in Paris this last semester and we decided to visit her and bring her home!

We took our workout stuff with us and managed to get one swim and a few runs in. We walked for miles each day and ate wonderful French food. It wasn't quite an equal amount of calories burned for the amount ingested but it was all worth it.

Here are some pictures from the trip with as few words as I can manage :)

This is looking onto the Place de Clichy from Laura's apartment.

Notre Dame

The Lock Bridge. It was only rainy our first day and our last day.

Le Arc de Triomphe

Montmarte

Laura, Dave and I on top of the steps leading to Montmartre.

I love you in many, many languages.

We went to a fondue restaurant that served wine in baby bottles.

Lunch in Giverny.

Monet's Gardens in Giverny.

The flowers were absolutely beautiful!

Monet's Garden

Laura was trying to teach Dave how to sit on a bench and relax like the French do :)

Versailles

Inside Versailles

We are so cultured.

Looking down into the gardens of Versailles.

Lunch at Versailles.

It is art!

We went to a restaurant where they only asked you how you wanted your steak cooked. Simple menu of steak and fries and it was incredibly good.

One of our favorite desserts. Little cream puff shells filled with ice cream and covered in chocolate.

Chateau Fountainbleau.

Cool door knocker.

Breakfast in old Lyon.

Yes, a pastry shop!

Looking over the river in Lyon.

Notre Dame in Lyon. I think there is a Notre Dame in every city.

Old ruins dating to 13BC.

Lunch in old Lyon.

The French countryside.

Bad girls.

Les Baux de Provance. A hilltop village you have to walk up. No cars!

Ruins of the old castle in Les Baux.

Neat walkway.

Street in Avignon.

Another favorite dessert. I think we liked them all!

Le Pont d'Avignon. There is a French song about dancing on this bridge.

The Pope's Palace.

Crypt of a couple that obviously liked their dog.

Beautiful old, old carved door.

Fountain in Aix en Provence.

My cousins Beatrice, Helene and Brunella.

We climbed up the Sainte Victoire mountain to reach the cross on the top.

Part of our climb.

We had to follow trail signs. See the red dots?

We made it to the monastery.

Some other hiker left a box of wine, glasses and cheese. So french!

Standing on the cross. We made it!

The views were amazing.

The wind was blowing like crazy and I could hardly look at them standing so close to the edge.

Another meal, another feast. In Aix.

Every meal had to include good french wine.

Great salmon!

My partner in crime.

Oh look, it's another dessert.

Road trip from Aix to Paris has to include some reading time. 

We stopped in this cute village for lunch.

Back in Paris for dinner.

Another great meal.

More great desserts.

Laura's roundabout at the Place de Clichy.

The street door to Laura's apartment.

Laura's apartments tiny elevator we used to haul the luggage up to the 4th floor.

The Seine on our last day. 

Lunch in a park :)

Laura has become her father and loves her some maps!

The Pantheon. We climbed up to the upper dome.

View from the top. The church was in the movie, Midnight in Paris.

Our Paris girl.

I'm not a big fan of heights but this was worth it.

Venders along the Seine.

Laura's living room.

Her kitchen.

Sad face because we're on our way home.

First American meal request? In n Out!

We had a great trip with lots of adventures and good memories. Now, back to our regularly scheduled training.

Los Osos & the Diva 1/2 Marathon

This past Wednesday I took my horse M down to Los Osos for an annual ladies & horses weekend. When we started going on this trip, we went camping locally. Then we went to Pt Reyes for a few years and stayed in this great Bed & Breakfast that has a stable. Last year we decided to go down to the central coast of California to explore the trails there. This year, we had 5 ladies and horses going on the trip. It's always a great time that I look forward to. I love being able to take my horse somewhere new and having him show me by his behavior what a great horse he is!

Hooked up, loaded up and ready to go!

When we get there we like to take the horses out on a short ride to stretch their legs. We can ride from the hotel where we stay, right down the street to a dune trail and over to the beach.

There are also some beverages consumed. Nunzilla, in the middle, comes to all of our ladies trips ;)

My horse gal pals!

Good food is always part of our trips.

Nunzilla approved dessert.

Can't beat this view. We rode in Montana del Oro State Park. There are some great climbs and beautiful views.

I drove home Saturday morning so I could go to the race expo for the Diva 1/2 marathon I was racing on Sunday. My friend Barb was also racing and this was her first 1/2. This race was a woman's race with all sorts of girlie stuff. Lots and lots of pink, boas and princess crowns at the finish, shirtless firefighters handing out medals and champagne. A little too girlie for me but it was all in good fun. I didn't really have a plan for this race other then to enjoy it. There were other people I knew racing too including my niece, Molly and friends Mary and Meredith.

The course was an out and back along the San Francisco Bay. It wasn't nearly as scenic as I was expecting but I liked the flatness of it. The worst part of the day was the bay was in a low tide and it was really smelly. 

I went out at an easy 10:45-11:00 pace for the first couple of miles to warm up. About 45 min. in I took a walk break to take a Gu. After that I decided to take a minute walk break every 15 min. After a couple of those, the breaks were every 10 min. until the finish. 

There were a couple of skinny girls and another girl that was wearing a shirt that said she was 25 years old that I ran with most of the race. Not with but they would pass me and then I would pass them. When we got close to the finish line I decided I had to beat them :) Mary's husband Gerard took this picture of my final sprint. I won! Well, I beat those 3 anyway!

Barb and I after the race. She did so great and despite cursing my name at different points during the day, I'm sure she'll sign up for another 1/2. 

Mary is second from the left, I'm in the middle, Meredith is to my left and Molly is on the far right. Fun group of girls!

I finished with a time of 2:19:59. I took 1:15 off my best time so a PR!

Overall place: 920/3558

Age group: 48/247

Fun race and I was happy to get a PR without having that as a goal for this race!

Trust the plan.....

Everyone I know that has trained for an Ironman has told me you have to trust the plan. Week one of Ironman training is done. I had a plan. I did the plan. I might as well trust the plan.

The first 10 weeks of the plan is base building. I worked hard over the winter to build a strong base because I wanted to start in fairly good shape. Week one was pretty easy as far as length of the workouts. I focused on each one individually and worked on maintaining good form and not slacking. I moved a few of them around due to my schedule but I got them all in!

I didn't plan last week to be so busy but things just came up. I've pretty much adjusted to my new job. Ten hours a week isn't so bad ;) I'm really liking it too. Just enough challenge to make it fun.

I took my friend Diana out for a birthday ride. She has celebrated more for this birthday then anyone I know. I told her a month was long enough! I guess if she can pull off, go for it!

I went with another friend, Barb to go look at a horse in Stockton. She liked him well enough that the next day we went back and met him and the owner in Turlock for a vet check. Here is Brady getting checked out by the vet. We brought my trailer with us in case the sale went through and we didn't come back empty. She is going to have lots of fun with him. He's a nice boy.

Buddy had to catch naps in the truck whenever he could because his life is so busy.

Scene from one of my bike workouts.  I am so lucky to live minutes from here.

I think this is a King snake. He was sunning himself on my hike with my Hiker Chick friends.

I broke down and bought The Feedzone Cookbook that Molly and Mary have been raving about. I love a good cookbook with new ideas. I made the Grilled Chicken with Summer Orzo. Yum!

It's nice to finally get started on my Ironman training. It's going to be a fun year and every time I get overwhelmed, I'm going to tell myself, trust in the plan or maybe TRUST IN THE PLAN!

Metro Olympic Duathlon

When I signed up for the Metro Tri, I was planning for it to be my first olympic tri of the season and using it as a baseline for my next tri on the same course in June. Last Friday night we got an email from the race director letting us know that we were now going to be racing a duathlon. After multiple testing, the water at Almaden Lake was not safe to swim in. It's usually kind of nasty anyway but I really wanted another open water swim. I got over the disappointment fairly quickly!

Who knew that such a tranquil body of water would have nasty bacteria festering in it :)........well most of us locals think it always does!

One of the best things about a local race is we just rode our bike down. The park is only about 4 miles away.

One of the other great things is meeting up with friends. This is Joe with Dave and me. He is signed up for IMAZ too so we'll be doing a few races together this year.

Two of my Wednesday Women Cycling group raced too. Siobhan and Amy also did the olympic. This was Siobhan's first tri/du and she did great despite spending about 30 min with bike issues on the course. At one point, she said she had a police escort :) Amy got 2nd in her AG and 7th woman overall. There was a lot of competition and she rocked it! 

My niece Molly had a great race, 4th in her AG and she was looking pretty fast in her new Training Peaks race kit she gets to race in this year as one of their ambassadors.

My partner in crime, Dave! 

My sister, Evelyne came out early and spent the morning taking lots of pictures. 

Now for the race itself:

A week ago we had rain and hail, yesterday it was 92 degrees. With no chance to train in the heat, I was glad this was only an olympic distance race. The race organizers changed the 1500 meter swim to a 1500 meter run. I was in the last wave to start, all women 40 and over and relay runners. One problem with aging is most races let us go off last and it's annoying!

1st run: 1500 meters in 8:50 which was a 9:08 pace. I was surprised with that speed because I intentionally held back and I was in the last group to come in.

T-1: 1:29

Bike: 40K in 1:28:47 which was a 16.2 mph average. My goal for the bike was to stay in aero as much as possible, keep a steady cadence, push a little more than usual (trust that the legs would be ready for the run) and ride the course like I knew it. All successfully completed! I ride this course all the time so I knew where to conserve and where to push. Fun ride!

T-2: 1:34

2nd run: 10K in 1:01:34 which was a 9:50 pace. I thought I was going slower so I was pretty happy with my time. By the time I started the run, it was hot! Before the race, my only goal for the run was to just try to run well :) As I started I added more goals. It gave me something to do! I decided I wanted to run the whole time and I wanted to pass someone (anyone!). I got into a steady, little pace that I felt I could maintain. The heat was getting to me and I told myself I couldn't take a walk break until everyone I knew (this was an out and back run course) passed me or I passed them. I have to play these little mind games to keep me busy :) By the time everyone passed I told myself to buck up and just keep running. I did and I even passed a few people!

Overall time: 2:42:05, 6/8 in AG, 69/91 of women, 323/365 overall

Even without the swim, this gives me a good base for future training and races.

Tomorrow, IMAZ training officially begins. Woohoo!

Tierra Bella 2012 & Long Run Sunday

I meant to write about last weekend, last weekend.....and then I didn't!

I rode the Tierra Bella 100K ride. This was my 3rd Tierra Bella. The first year I rode the 60K route, last year I rode the 100K route (by myself when Dave broke his bike a few miles in) and this year I rode the whole route with Dave. Much more fun!

The great part about this year was the climb was not nearly as hard as it was last year. I think I've made some good progress. The only bad part of the ride was as we were going down the descent, a woman crashed right in front of Dave. Her husband and I were right behind and had to brake hard to not run into her and her bike. We waited with them for about 20 minutes until we made sure their bikes would get on a SAG vehicle and the ambulance was on it's way up the hill. She, I'm sure, had a concussion (her helmet was cracked front to back in 3 different places) and probably broke/messed up her shoulder as well as lots of road rash. It was a little scary. I took the rest of the downhill pretty slowly :(

Sunday, I went out for my long run. I decided 13 miles on tired legs did not feel very good. I got it done but my scheduled massage Sunday afternoon felt really good even though it hurt like crazy!

March Numbers

After the Surf City marathon in early February I took a week to recover and then I put together kind of a loose plan to follow until my official Ironman training starts the last week of April. Starting with a  good solid base would make me feel a lot more confident about starting my 'big' training. I tried to schedule in 3 swims, 3 bikes and 3 runs a week. Each workout had a different emphasis and I added in some core/strength training.

Here are my numbers for March:
Swim: 39,950 yards
Bike: 375.14 miles
Run: 56.65 miles

March was a fun month because I didn't have any upcoming big races and I didn't feel any pressure to be 'ready' for anything. Training was just fun!

I had a big swim number (for me) because along with rededicating myself to swimming 3 times a week, I also took a weekly swim technique lesson. My speed hasn't increased dramatically but my technique and comfort level is so much better. I had decent bike miles getting a long ride in on the weekends with Dave and I was able to get in most of my Wednesday rides with my Wednesday Women group. My run miles were not too big but they were quality miles :) I think I made a great run breakthrough this month both in gaining some speed and starting to actually feel like a runner now and then.

Overall a good solid month. I'm looking forward to 3 more weeks of base training and then Ironman training begins!!!