Endurance Turtle A journey through this turtles triathlon adventures

June was sort of a crappy month for Los Angeles, seeing as every day consisted of dark clouds lurking over each city with a slight glimmer of light attempting to make its way through. It was also a crappy month for me because out of the 30 days of the month, I was sick for 26 of them! But alas, July has been here for no more than 2 days and the mucus that once had plagued me is gone and the sun has come back to the stage again. This makes me happy And ready to workout!

Last night was my first brick with the club since probably May. They were doing this really intense ride which I didn’t feel up for so I just did a few laps around the bowl in case I needed to stop. I did the first lap with them, had my heart rate up over 200 and never really got it down after that when I was on the bike.

Here is a picture overlooking the golf course and the San Gabriel mountains, so beautiful! I am also wearing my new PTC jersey that I picked up too!

I rode around for about 45 minutes and then decided it was time to run. So I cheated a little and actually drove to the start of the trail instead of running it because I really shouldn’t be running that far ANYWAY… I start out on the trail and it was really nice. I am really starting to enjoy running on trails because it is just so nice! This is me at a little clearing, through the trail:

Just a bunch of wilderness! And a freeway to the left….

As I was running, this guy passed me and he wasn’t wearing a shirt, and I thought to myself…hmmmm…I bet that is really nice! (in the sense that it was nice and cool, not that I was checking him out as I do not check out men anymore because I have mine!) So anyway…I was basically all by myself and I knew I had NO business running in just my sports bra…but it was hot…and I was all alone…so I did it!

AND IT WAS SO LIBERATING!

Having the little breeze from running cooled me off and it was so comfortable! But as soon as I got close to civilization…the shirt went back on.

At some point on the run, I got to this little fork and I wasn’t sure which way to go. I saw the shirtless guy go up this one little trail so I decided to go the same way, well turns out Mr. Shirtless must be a great runner because this is what I ended up running on for a while:

It’s like an animal trail!

But it was nice, I just walked the parts that had a lot of rocks.

While on my run I also took this picture:

That is the JPL campus in the middle with the little valley below it. It was so pretty out yesterday evening and it wasn’t too hot…

Overall I ended up running for 40 minutes and really only going 2.5 miles. I attribute the long time due to the frequent walking breaks, the frequent picture breaks and me being slow.

After my run I met up with George and we went and had tortas over at King Taco! YUM!

Tomorrow George and I are heading out to Santa Monica to do an ocean swim and maybe a little run afterwards on the beach..thats right…ON the beach. I have never done it before and I think it would be nice.

In other news….I have somewhat big news…I am being SPONSORED! Back in May I received an e-mail from Active.com that they were looking for ambassadors for Team GO Smart. Each ambassador will take 5 people and get them to walk a 5k with an Omoron Pedometer. I have most of my team together and I am really looking forward to it.

Here is the link to the webpage if you are curious: http://www.gosmartpedometers.com/

I will have more info to come, especially when I start getting my gear. Click on the picture below if you want to know what Team Go Smart is all about!

What a weekend!

Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?

So Friday night George and I went to see  THE Aretha Franklin at the Hollywood Bowl! I love the Hollywood Bowl, they always have great artists and you can still get seats for a somewhat reasonable price. I also like that we can bring our own food and wine and just relax! I really feel like that is what the bowl is all about.

Here I am before the show, just got done with our entree that George made and moving on to cheese and crackers!

And here is one with Aretha on stage and the bowl in all its glory:

Overall the concert was good, the first half was the best because we heard all of the classics, the second half slowed down a bit, but it was still cool seeing her and just being at the bowl…although it was a tad chilly.

Then on Saturday, George and I headed out to Venice beach so that I could be a ride leader for the Urban Expeditions ride lead by C.I.C.L.E. We got there promptly at 10:15 and finally found where we needed to be. However, the ride didn’t actually get started till 11:40 so we sort of had to stand around a while in our cleats and that was a bit uncomfortable. A group of people finally showed up and we started out on the ride. I shadowed another ride leader, Shay, and she talked me through some of the protocol for being a ride leader. Pretty simple stuff, cork an intersection, move up, cork another one, repeat. And oh ya, don’t get hit by cars…well that was a bit of a fail for me. We got to one intersection and I was trying to cork it for the next group. It was very busy and they did not want to let the cyclists through. So as I was standing there this asshole guy in a Scion hit my back tire and really pissed me off! He didn’t damage my wheel, but I sure as hell hope that my tire damaged his stupid ass car (sorry for those who drive Scion boxes, this guys car was stupid because he was stupid). I just don’t understand why people have to be so aggresive and also why they cannot be patient. Breath people…deep breaths…its not that important that you get to your destination that fast.

Here is a pic of a part of the group, I believe this was before the bike car incident:

I also got to wear a cool bright yellow jersey that said “C.I.C.L.E.ista”, that was cool

After the ride we hung out at the Venice Ecofest for a bit and checked out some of the booths. When I got home, I realized that I had forgotten to put on sunscreen and I got a nice little burn going. However, it wasn’t like a lobster burn…more of an Indian red burn. You can also see my SWEET watch tan line! I also have a nice tan line on the upper part of my arm from the jersey.

Then Sunday came around and we went to go see the Gay Men’s Chorus in “Broadway!” It was at the Alex Theater in Glendale and the show was fantastic! Later that evening we went over to the Yard House and had a “few” drinks with a tri club pal, Lenny. He is moving back to Pittsburgh and leaving us so bye Lenny, we will miss you!

So that was George and I’s busy weekend. I am looking forward to this long weekend coming up, I could sure use the time off!

Last night I went for another little run. Even though I was SUPER tired, I just got my ass out there because I knew it wasn’t a huge time investment. So I started running and was feeling really good and ended up running more than my 15 minute allotment and actually went 25 minutes and ran almost 2.5 miles…sorry Dr. Rupp! But I was feeling GREAT! My heart rate was super low (I attribute that to taking my asthma medicine before the run…who knew?) my feet felt great! And I was listening to this mix called “PodRunner” which is great because the stuff just puts you in a trance. Here I am a little bit on my run, there is this little trail and it was really nice. I wouldn’t mind finding more of these near me because it was really nice.

Also, if you have noticed an increase in pictures…it is because I got a new phone and it has this really nice camera on it (3 megapixals). It is also really easy to upload them so I have just gone picture crazy! So get used to it

That’s all…just ran. One foot in front of the other in a semi rapid succession. I did about 1.44 miles in 18 minutes, which is all I am allowed to do until my foot gets stronger. The good news is that my foot felt fine, I almost think I don’t need the ankle brace. The bad part was my lungs are SO jacked up from my cold that I had a very hard time breathing the entire time. But I didn’t push too hard and just wanted to get out there and run, which I did, so yay me!

I think I will take the plunge today and sign up for Strawberry Fields, although I don’t think that I will really think about my time on this one. I am too out of shape and I just want to do it for fun. Tomorrow I will be training a little bit, going to go out to do an ocean swim, then ride down to Venice to take part in the C.I.C.L.E ride then go to the Venice Eco Fest. It should prove to be a very action packed Saturday morning.

Not sure if I mentioned it, but on Tuesday the Disney Tri Team did an fund raising event, it was wine tasting. For $30 you got in and part of your entry fee went to the Disney tri Team member of your choice…of course mine was George! He also got 2 other people to come for him so he was able to get a little money toward his fund raising goal for the Nautica Malibu Tri. We tasted this wines from the Tommy Lasorta winery and yes….to put it frankly…they all sucked. I enjoy my wine, I am not too picky nor do I have an advanced degree in it. But to be perfectly honest, there was not ONE wine there that I walked away completely impressed. So I didn’t buy any of it. However, they did have a silent auction and I did partake in that! My strategy for these things is similar to eBay, cruise around and check out what you want, then at the last minute you put in your bid. So that is what I did At the last minute I was walking around to confirm if there was anything else I wanted to bid on. Then at the edge of the table I see this lonely paper. It says “A.Franklin – Terrace Box”, the gears start to turn in my head and I think, hmmmm A. Franklin…well that probably is Aretha Franklin. Terrace Box seats, well…that is the Hollywood Bowl, minimum bid is $50. No one has bid on it, so I go for it and put my name down! Turns out I win the dang thing! Along with 2 tickets to see the Gay Mens Chorus perform Broadway. So I got the 2 tickets for $50 and normally they cost $125 PER TICKET! I sort of felt bad because whoever donates an item to the silent auction, the money goes to them. But hey…I got a great deal…then George pointed out that they are for this Friday (whoops). So guess what we are doing tonight???? That’s right!

Ms. Aretha Franklin

I wonder if she will wear her very popular hat…

Hope you have a great weekend, I will make sure to take plenty of pictures to share.

After a month of no high heels and no running my foot is all better!

It is sort of hard to see, but in the bones closest to the ankle, all the spaces are where they should be. In my last x-ray, they where not even and everything was out of whack. Dr.Rupp said I could start running, but for the first 10 days I should only do about 15 minutes and on flat terrain while wearing an ankle brace just to help stabilize my foot. Then after all that I can start increasing my distance and eventually take the brace off. I am not sure if I will be able to fully train for a half marathon…so I may put that on the back burner, but I will start training for all my tri’s coming up in the fall and I think I will sign up for the Strawberry Fields Sprint, because I can!

Hope everyone is having a good week, tonight George and I are going to a fund raising event for the Disney Tri Team. It is a wine tasting event and 2/3rds of what I am paying to get in will go to George’s fund raising goal!

So on Saturday morning, George and I went out to Santa Monica so that he could do his first ocean swim with the Disney tri team. I would have done it with him, but I am still getting over my cold and I didn’t want to get even more sick by getting in the cold water…Anyway, we got out there with plenty of time to park and George to get in his wetsuit. We headed over to the group and I could barely get through the sand because my breathing was so bad, so I was going really slow  

Here is George putting his swim cap on while Nabil was talking to the group:

And here is everyone walking in the water:

I sat on the sand and watched everyones gear, it was thrilling…I am hoping that next week I will be in better form and I will be able to do the swim as well. It would be really good to practice more in the ocean, being that I really have one swam in the ocean twice and I already know that Zuma is going to be rough because that is where I go every year to boogie board. 

Also next week I will be a ride leader for C.I.C.L.E event. The group helps people get out on their bikes who may be scared or who have never ridden on the street. I will be the sweep to make sure that no one falls behind, and since I am used to being in the back of the group…I think I should be good at this job!

Hope everyone had a good weekend! On Tuesday I go to see my podiatrist to get the verdict on my foot. If all goes well he will say that it is fully healed. If the shit hits the fan, something would have not fused right and I might have to have surgery…so lets hope for the first outcome!

Sorry the title sucks, couldn’t think of anything to title the following randomness…

First of all, I love shoes and a blog I read is having a contest for a $75 gift certificate to OnlineShoes.com. If I post a link to his blog, I get another entry…so here is the link-

Click Here to go to his site!

I will start the next part with a story….

George and I went to The Habit and had dinner. Since a burger, fries and a salad just wasn’t enough, I proceeded to order a soft serve:

This is obviously part of my new diet plan…

Then George and I went to Petco because I had to get Toto, my dog, a new collar and ID tag. While we were there we spent a good 5 minutes watching a hamster.

He was running in his little cage and I thought to myself, how sad…he just keeps running and isn’t going anywhere but he thinks he is…

So then i proceeded to go home and spend 15 minutes on the trainer…going no where…but it was a hard 15 minutes because I am still having trouble breathing and I was sweating like a piggy!

George did it too-

So I am not sure what to think of that whole turn of events, I guess I could say the same about people that go to the gym and run miles upon miles on tread-mils…What is the point if you can’t actually GO anywhere? I guess for the sake of training it is good, but shouldn’t we be doing all this for the sake of  fun?

All I have to say is that I will use the trainer only when I need to and to build my base, otherwise, I want to be out there on the road!

It has been a slow process, but my cold is starting to go away now. I am still very congested, but I feel like my stregth is coming back. This cold hit me particulary hard and was out of the office for practically the whole week last week and not really doing anything fun…which sucks…

But here I am, I can’t remember the last time I worked out and I have had a very steady diet of bagels and Italian food. I have spent some time on the trainer but not enough. Everytime I would get on I would have some trouble breathing and really only made it 10 to 15 minutes. But this could be a good thing…Once I can breath normally again I can start building my base up which I really feel like I have never done. This means I will spend some time on the trainer as well as doing some lonely rides since I am probably too slow to keep up with the group.

On the other hand, George is out there rockin it! He has been swimming, running, and cycling way more than me! We are doing the Nautica Tri in September and I already know he is going to kick my behind! I wish I had his motivation right now….I am however winning in the cookie eating competition.

On Thursday night I felt a bit of a sore throat and by Friday I was in bed with the full force of the cold in my throat. Saturday was about the same and it really hasn’t gotten better. Needless to say, I can’t even remember the last time I did any sort of workout…not good.

So, what does that mean? Well, it probably means that I am going to need to gain some fitness back before I think I can attack a hill with the group. The good news is that George and I got some trainers so I will be able to build a little bit with that. I haven’t set anything up yet, but once I am ready I will start out nice and easy and build a nice base. George gave his a test drive and said he was sweating like crazy! I like that and I plan to set mine up right in front of the TV so that I have something to watch because I can get a little bored…actually with my ADD…I would be off the thing in 5 minutes.

So for now I just try to get better, get some rest and try not to think too much about working out and training. I don’t have anything coming up, so I can relax a little and focus on getting healthy again!