Virtual Training Partners via Chicago

Bike Trainer

Trish18 — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 00:00:12 GMT

Hey friend,

I set up my indoor bike trainer for the winter and took it for a spin. I did a quick 20-minute workout and happened to catch the end of the Mizzou/Purdue men's basketball game (Mizzou pulled away within the last two minutes to win over the young Boilermakers).

I am going to hunt through my old softball lifting and conditioning programs because our trainer, who now trains the Minnesota Timberwolves, had an amazing bike workout in there somewhere--it packs a powerful punch in to 20 or 25 minutes of cardio. If I find it, I'll post it.

I think I'm going to head downtown tomorrow with MB to check out Christkindlmarket. This is the 12th year for the German holiday fest (side note: I saw on Yahoo's homepage yesterday that the price of German beer could double worldwide! Yikes.)

We are getting sleet at the moment in addition to the 4+ inches of snow from the other day. Good luck on your final!

< 20 minute bike >

Cheering on the Chicago Marathoners

Trish18 — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 04:49:00 GMT

Today marked one of my favorite days of the year in Chicago--the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon. After playing in the Loyola Softball Alumni game and catching up with many former teammates from near and far (one of who ran the marathon today) well into the night... it was an early morning (and a beautiful sunrise!) as I rose to drive a teammate to the airport.

And then it was time to get serious about being a spectator. And I mean that seriously. With 45,000 runners and 1.2 million spectators moving around a compact metropolis--you have to have a solid game plan. I signed up to track our former teammate Andrea, printed off course maps, calculated her approximate location, and another former teammate of mine and I were off on our bikes to cheer her on as much as possible. We biked down the path to the South Side and made our way to Chinatown which, while I have never run the course myself, I have heard is one of the coolest parts of the race.

I never received the notification text messages, so we were a little uncertain about how the first half of the race had gone. But, if all was going according to plan, Andrea was scheduled to be coming through shortly after we arrived. Well... we waited for an hour, sifting through the athletes with our eyes, to no avail. We finally figured that she must have been having a great race-day performance and was better off than she guessed she would be. Sadly, we decided to grab some food and then make our way to the finish line to meet up with her. As we sat down to eat our Chinese food, I got a text that Andrea had just ran by. We packed it up and booked it out of there. Flying around the city on our bikes, we were able to catch her in the last stretch.

This is where the twist comes in. The race directors called the race off. It was in the high 80s with high humidity. The Sun-Times reported 250 people went to local hospitals and one man died. If you hadn't hit the halfway point by 11:45am you were diverted to the finish area immediately via cutting across downtown. Anyone who was in a 4:00 finishing group or behind them were told by police to walk the rest of the way. In addition to the heat, that was why everyone's times were so far behind the predictions.

We spotted our friend and ran out on the course to offer our support for a bit. She was in pain, from the heat and her knee, and asked us to walk her in the rest of the way. The last mile seemed to be about half marathoners and half supporters as everyone walked it in to finish the 30th LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon--hottest race day in history and a unique second half.

I've gone down and cheered on friends in the marathon for a few years now. It is unfailingly inspiring. I'm always happy to go down and experience part of the excitement. Maybe one of these years I'll complete it myself. But for today--with the bike down to Chinatown and back to my apartment--I coincidentally biked almost exactly 26.2 miles

< 26 mile bike >

via Chicago

Trish18 — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 05:53:00 GMT

I, too, have taken a break from posting my active endeavors here. I've been active--a few nice bike rides, a swim, and even a solid session of wallyball (if you've never played, check it out...so much fun!)--I just haven't been documenting it as closely. I think it's because my activity shifted from training for an event to more general stuff. Sadly, our beach volleyball season is over. But, the soccer team I play on is finally getting ready to start up a new outdoor session. I'm pumped, we've gone almost half of summer it seems without a game.

I rode my bike 20 miles tonight. I logged the mileage on the good old lakefront trail like always, but this time was notable because I rode downtown to a Wilco concert in Millennium Park. Fortunately and randomly, a friend of mine knows someone who grew up with Jeff Tweedy so I found out about the tickets this morning. Hearing "via Chicago" in the shadows of Chicago's skyline was a very cool thing. Anthony, I would have given you my ticket if you could have been there; Chicago definitely missed you tonight.

Next up for me is the century ride on Sunday. I busted my camera tonight--I dropped the bag it was in while locking my bike. Boo. I'll see if I can borrow a camera to take some cool pics and video of the 100 mile journey to post up later.

Goodnight!

My First Tri

Trish18 — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 20:07:00 GMT

The activity I've been posting about thus far in this virtual training blog was leading me up to the Chicago Accenture Triathlon. After having registered for the race almost a year ago, once the day was here it came and went on Sunday so quickly! Here's a little bit more about how race day went if you are interested.

I've been taking it easy the last couple days. But I wanted to report the activeness that took place on Sunday. I've found that I really enjoy open water swimming and would like to keep at until the weather gets too cold. And in the post-race depression of not having an event to train for anymore I found a triathlon in Lake Geneva in about two weeks... we'll see.

< .47 mile swim, 13.64 mile bike, 3.1 mile run >

T minus 4 days

Trish18 — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 04:28:00 GMT

Buuut Anthony dominates me in fitness level. Enough said.

I'm sleepy so I will keep this one short.

Rode down the 8 miles down to Ohio St again after work today. The lake was much calmer than it was on Saturday morning! So that was good. I got in approximately a .8 mile swim and then biked 8 miles north to my apartment.

I tried to imagine starting the swim portion with 100+ other bodies in the water scrambling out of the start. That makes me a little nervous, but I'm going to stick to the back and take it easy. With four days until the tri, I'm also trying to eat a little better (minus that Chipotle...) and get some extra sleep.

With that said, I bid you goodnight!

< 16 mile bike / .8 mile swim >

Catching some waves

Trish18 — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 00:35:00 GMT

Saturday morning I woke up at 6:30am on not a whole lot of sleep. Another cool (about 65 degrees) and windy morning compounded my desire to not jump in the lake and go back to bed. I think the only reason I got up was the thought that the tri was just over a week away!

So I biked down to Ohio Street again. However, I would like to note, it was into an outrageous, direct head wind. I'm not sure how high the winds there on the lakefront were gusting--but it was discouraging how much it was affecting my speed.

But not as discouraging as the view when I turned the corner around Oak Street and saw Ohio Street Beach--the waves were insane!! Because that swim area is inset a little bit from the break water and tucked in just north of Navy Pier, the waves have no pattern or rhythm. Just random, large waves would pop up seeming out of now where... and it made for a very interesting swim. I don't have a picture of the water from yesterday morning, but here is a cool shot of Ohio Street anyway.

The lake owned me--I was trying to find a rhythm the whole time. Then I was just thinking about getting home and taking a warm shower. I had a busy day ahead of me. After I cleaned up and warmed up I went to breakfast with my dad who was in town visiting. Both being nerdily fascinated by planes, we then went to check out the 49th Chicago Air and Water show. Our day continued with a 2:55pm Cubs versus Cardinals game at Wrigley. Due to two rain delays, we got home at 7pm.

I fell asleep at 7:30pm while watching tv. I slept until 7:30am this morning. Whoa!

< 16 mile bike / .5 mile swim >

Little Victories

Trish18 — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 04:28:00 GMT

My alarm went off this morning to another gray sky morning. Lake Michigan was strangely still and it was right around 70 degrees--a stark contrast to St. Louis' and Oklahoma City's 102 and 105 temperatures! Just as I clipped in, the sky opened up to let a little rain fall. As made my way down my street and towards the lakefront path on the wet pavement I thought, "this will be fun." I really like running and biking in the rain--but I haven't swam in the rain in a long time.

By the time I hit the path I was feeling fully awake and warmed-up. Pedaled 8 miles down to Ohio Street Beach to where they have the partial lane markers set up just north of Navy Pier in Lake Michigan in a one mile, out-and-back set up. I swam .5 mile and then hopped back on my bike to bike the 8 miles back home to get ready for work. (Side note: the bike path was altered at North Ave Beach because they are almost all set up for the Air & Water show this weekend. Looks as if it's shaping up to be a pretty cool show.)

As Anthony mentioned, running isn't my strongest discipline. Well, swimming isn't much better (yet)! But with getting more training sessions in and checking out , this was my best open water swim outing yet and I'm definitely feeling more comfortable swimming in the lake.

So--why am I doing the Accenture Chicago Triathlon?...you might be asking yourself right now. It presents a fun challenge. And I think that challenge falls into the category of looking for something new to push myself post-collegiate athletics. Toby said to me this morning that it's all about embracing your weaknesses with open arms. I'm going to keep that in mind in the short time between now and the race.

I was also active in my favorite way this evening: participating in team sports (weird, huh? ). My beach volleyball team won our intermediate 4's match tonight at Montrose Beach. We played well tonight but are about .500 on the season. I often wish that volleyball and softball had not both been fall sports at my high school in St. Louis.

Time to get some rest now. Goodnight!

< 16 mile bike / .5 mile swim / 1 hour of volleyball >

Aaaand they're off!

Trish18 — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 22:10:00 GMT

I woke up this morning to a 65-degree and windy Chicago morning that had just seen the passing of a thunderstorm. After snoozing a time or two, I rolled out of bed and was rolling down the lakefront path shortly thereafter.

I biked around 7 miles down to North Avenue Beach into a serious head wind. Locked my bike up and ran down to Oak Street Beach and back for a nice, easy 2-mile run. The 7 miles back up north was significantly faster on account of the wind.

During the run I told MB of his experience on completing his 50-miler. Before I knew it, the run was over and I could not help but try to imagine running for 48 more miles!

It was no 50-mile run, but I felt good after completing this workout to start my day off.

<14 mile bike, 2 mile run>