Virtual Training Partners via Chicago

Fleet Feet

Trish18 — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 22:49:21 GMT

Yesterday I went to Fleet Feet in Lincoln Square to buy a much overdue pair of running shoes. I went for a little run in the afternoon to take advantage of the 60-degree weather we were having.

Heading north from my apartment, I ran along the beach to Loyola park and then cut over to Sheridan. I kept running northward until I hit Sherwin, and then I headed back towards my apartment staying on Sheridan the rest of the way back.

I didn't feel great--but it was nice to get out there, get moving and enjoy the beautiful weather! Looking forward to starting a structured program tomorrow with you.

< 1.5 miles >

Wallyball

Trish18 — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:52:00 GMT

Wallyball is one of my favorite ways to be active-ever! Not many people are familiar with the sport, so I decided to take a little bit of video to share. It is very similar to volleyball and is played in a racquetball court. When we play, this leads to crazy rallies and some pretty funny stuff.

While it may seem chaotic, there are rules that govern play. The most important to remember are:

You may only hit one side wall during the serve. It cannot hit the back wall or two walls.
The ball may never hit the ceiling when it crosses the net. However, the ball can hit any number of walls, including the back wall and ceiling during the course of your three hits on your side.

I love volleyball and racquetball, so it makes sense that I enjoy this action-packed combined version of the two. But I think the best part is how much it makes me laugh; even the most serious rally sometimes ends in a humorous way. You can expect everyone to laugh when the ball gets wedged between the wall and someone's arm and squeaks to a stop. But check out when my teammate in the black shirt completely misses the set because he runs into the wall, and then comes back by spiking it on our side...

< 2 hours of wallyball >

Soccer: Same night, different team

Trish18 — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:11:00 GMT

Fortunately for me, when I'm home in St. Louis I am able to continue my weekly routine of soccer on Monday nights because one of my best friends has a team in a women's league here. Unfortunately for her, the team they were playing against didn't have enough players to start the game. Since I was a guest player anyway, I volunteered to play on the opposing team so we could have a game.

I got to take a few shots off of my friend who playes goalie, which I've never had a chance to do in a game. But "my" team ended up winning 3-2. We all thought they officially lost and we were just playing the game off the record... but it turns out the loss counted for my friends team. Oops.

Here's some footage of the game. I thought maybe I could catch a goal on video while I was on the bench--it didn't work out, but I thought I'd share anyway.

I'm playing wallyball tonight. I'll take some video of it and include it in next post--it's intense! Crossing my fingers that it doesn't sleet on your run this evening.

< 1 hour of soccer >

Tennis, anyone?

Trish18 — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 23:38:00 GMT

Hey, it's been a while since I've posted updates on my activities. I've been slacking on posting about the routine soccer game (we're into playoffs already for this session!) and the occasional yoga class or racquetball match. But I've also been slacking a little bit in keeping my activity level up as high as I'd like it.

I plan to start spinning and swimming regularly this winter at Halas. But before the Chicago winter puts a major damper on outdoor activities, I was determined to play tennis one more time. I knew I was running out of days until the next best time to get out and play would be April, so this morning I got up to play before work. The temperature was hovering right around 40 degrees at the end of Pratt Blvd/on the lakefront. Yikes!

Hope it's warmer in OKC and that you're able to find some time to start training.

< 1 hour of tennis >

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 >

Fall has Fallen

Trish18 — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 02:42:00 GMT

The first full day of fall was a beautiful day to get outside and be active (although I really hate to see summer go). I decided to ride my bike to my soccer game. This session we are playing in Lincoln Park just south of the zoo--the fields are in pretty terrible shape, but the location is amazing!

Because it's on the lakefront it's convenient to hop on the path and cruise down there on the Trek instead of driving. I left a little bit late so I got a good warm up in hammering out the 7 miles trying to get there by game time.

We won the game 5-1 to remain undefeated in the young season.

We had one of our best finishers go down just before half time with a pretty serious 50/50 collision with the keeper who had come way out of the box to clear the ball. They were both on a 45 degree collision course and Ryan was on the wrong end of an inadvertent head butt. He had to go to the hospital to get stitches. It's a good thing we have an ER doctor on our team--we've had a severely sprained ankle and a broken nose that happened to our opponents while playing us and on our team we've had a guy experience temporary loss of vision in one eye for a while after taking a shot to the eye at really close range, and now stitches. It's a pretty serious co-ed "rec" league!

< one hour of soccer / 14 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 >

Rain, rain go away

Trish18 — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 03:33:00 GMT

I don't have much to report this evening. It rained again for most of the day and I went out for a 3-mile run. Heading north on Sheridan, I came to where the City of Chicago meets its northern suburb of Evanston. My route included many puddles and took me by a Chicago Historical Landmark of a Frank Lloyd Wright house. I felt pretty good. Back in the water tomorrow after work.

< 3 mile run >

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 >