More Tofu, Please!

Tonight we went out on a family date. Mostly b/c we couldn't find a babysitter but we were tired of sitting around at home on Saturday nights so we figured what the heck. Maybe Moana will like Thai food? So we brought her with us. And... Indeed! She is a fan of Thai. She ate green papaya salad and tofu/vegetables... she was insistent on using her chopsticks and we just let her try. I think she liked the tofu because she could successfully stab it with a chopstick and then pretend it was a popsicle to eat. It just kinda cracked me up though when she was all Can I have more tofu please? I wonder how many two years olds ask that? Lol.

Moana is starting a new pre-school next week. I told her it was Flying Fairy School so obviously she is PUMPED about going and tonight after dinner we went to gather the list of supplies the school requested. (Don't be too jealous of my very glamorous life.) Moana couldn't wait to get her new "School Surprise". She kept asking about when she was going to get her new wings. I wonder how she'll feel about this new school when she finally figures out that they're not actually going to teach her how to fly?

This morning was another ocean swim race. Moana loves ocean swim races. It means she gets to play in the sand all morning! Scott dug her a private little pool to jump in.

The race was something like 1.6 miles along the north shore from Chun's Reef to Waimea Bay. This one might be my favorite of the four races in the series... maybe because it tends to be a bit choppier than the others and sometimes there's a good current against us and it requires some ocean navigation skills to make sure you don't swim like 2+ miles. The picture below makes it look a lot more simple than it actually is.

Here's a photo of some people trying to get out to the start. This actually makes me laugh a bit... all these people trying to get out to the start buoy via the most direct line, which also happens to be right over the shallowest part of the reef. All they had to do was go right or left and the water was deep enough to swim in without getting cut on the reef. This is kind of like the first piece of the puzzle when it comes to ocean navigation skills...

Anyway, not much newsworthy about the race itself. I felt a little lost because I was never swimming around people I knew. It was weird. I kept looking around at the people I was swimming with but it seemed like everyone I saw was a teenage boy. Where were my people?? Anyway, I swam hard, think I took a decent line, felt pretty good, and came out of the water ahead of everyone else in my age group. So that was cool. It's been a while since I've won my age group at one of these races... like a couple years I think? Gosh... now that I think about it, maybe even 4 years?? Last year I was 2nd-4th every time, the year before I was 2nd at all four swims to Miki, and the year before that I was pregnant... so yeah, it's been since 2007 that I've won here. I just talked (wrote?) myself into feeling better about this race. Lol.

Of course, a 13 yo girl came and whooped us all and won for the women. Damn kids. Of course, 11 years from now when that is Moana I'll be like super proud mama!

How I Want To Feel On Oct 8

So we're in the time frame where coach is trying to kill me again. It might be time for me to dig out my cat suit.

I just had a rather ridiculous 3 days of training and I'm trying to remember if I've backed up long rides before the way I just did? I don't think I have? Maybe once... but all this training is killing off my brain cells so I can't be sure. It was interesting though b/c yesterday I really struggled and couldn't get my HR up (and swore a lot)... that had me rather worried about how I was going to get through another 90+ miles today... but as they say, today was a new day and I felt like a freakin' machine on that bike. (Nailed it!) I kept a mental imagine of Ange's new blog picture in my head on all my intervals today as a reminder that THAT is how I want to feel when I finish Kona. I know Ange worked her ass off this year in prep for Lake Placid and it paid off for her (clearly!). I love seeing that- when people are consistent and diligent and focused in their training and then BAM! Awesome race when it matters. Very motivating for work horse athletes like me. :)

Anyway, ~70 miles into my ride today I was stopped at Turtle Bay to refill my bottles one last time... Turtle Bay is a nice resort on the North Shore and it was almost lunchtime and I could smell the burgers grilling and the place was full of rather overweight pasty white tourists lounging by the ocean and relaxing on vacation and I just had this thought... No thanks, I'll just have another GU and go bust my ass into that nasty headwind one more time... Because I want to feel like Ange on October 8... But ya'll enjoy yourselves.

Sharks On The Big Island

Call me a romantic, but I always assumed the waters off the coast of the Big Island were free from sharks. For whatever reason, even when I might have a bit of fear of swimming alone in ocean water elsewhere, swimming at the pier or at Hapuna always seemed totally benign (like a giant aquarium, right??) and I wouldn't hesitate to jump right in. And I probably I still won't when I am there next week, even though the shark sitings in both places have come one after another this year...

Sunday night bullet point style..

~Last night we had a party b/c it was Scott's birthday. Normally I wouldn't drink margaritas the night before a race but I was just trying to be a good supportive wife and then suddenly somehow the entire bottle of Tequila (the huge one- from Costco) was *gone*. There were only 6 of us drinking margaritas so you do the math.

~Some of the margs were blended with lilikoi and some were blended with lime. The lilikoi was totally better, but all the lilikoi and limes came right off our trees which I thought was pretty cool.

~I spent much of the day yesterday making carrot cake from scratch for Scott (cream cheese icing too). I finished it up, put it in the fridge, then about an hour later opened the fridge and watched that cake fall right off the shelf and splat onto the floor. Unfortunately Moana learned a new word and then we went to the bakery and bought a new cake for Scott.

~When Scott got home from surfing Moana greeted him at the door and said, "I didn't do it. Mommy did it."

~I got a message from Nalani this morning telling me that lilikoi and lime are good luck the night before a bike race. I think what might have been even luckier was if I would have done any threshold hill repeats in training lately. Turns out, the fitness required for a fast hilly bike race is different from the fitness required to put together a decent Ironman, and I'm not as good at faking the threshold stuff as I hoped I'd be. It was fun though and even though I humbly got my ass handed to me, I'm glad I went. Those people who just ride bikes are very fast. And big congrats to my athlete Teri who flew over from Maui and won!

~This afternoon we took Moana to see Sesame Street LIVE. Imagine a concert hall full of kids ages 2-6ish and a bunch of adults dancing and singing in large furry animal costumes... Moana was enthralled and just enjoyed every second of that show. Especially the audience participation part... She was happy and she knew it! :)

Just Freakin' Rise To The Occasion

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. And some of my athletes are going to call me a complete hypocrite because I just wrote a piece for them on setting appropriate goals and ended that post by saying that you simply have to earn yourself a level of fitness to support your goals. And I still believe that whole heartedly.

But then there's Thomas Voekler.

Not saying he's not fit enough to achieve his goals- just saying that in the past that guy has not shown that he has the physical capability to do what he is doing this month in France. But he's doing it. So what's the deal with that?

And this is a total aside, but I have to say, I do wonder if he is a master player in the psychological game... Every day he says that he doesn't expect to keep the jersey tomorrow but then he goes and fights like hell for it all day... and then keeps it. We all know athletes who do this to some degree (and btw I hate it when athletes do this)... they say, "Oh I can't go as fast as you..." blah blah blah and then you're training/racing together and they totally do go as fast as you and becomes this psychological blow... b/c you're killing yourself going as hard as you can and that sandbagger athlete is still riding right on your wheel or running shoulder to shoulder with you uphill and the obvious implication in your own mind at that point is I am not as fast as I thought if I can't drop this guy/gal who told me he/she couldn't go this fast... So I do wonder if Voekler is getting under the skin of the other contenders when they attack on a climb and can't shake him. It must be a bit of a blow to their confidence when they see that guy hanging on like such a sticky booger. Maybe that's why they only attack for like a second and then sit up? Anyway. That was a complete aside.

Back to Voekler. My thought there is that he actually really does truly believe in himself. He must truly believe that he is as good as those other climbers. So if day after day we hear all the commentators say that he doesn't have the physical capacity to climb with them, but yet, he is climbing with them, then it must all be in his head, right? So maybe there IS such a thing as Race Day Magic? Or in his case, Race Month Magic... where you have a good deal of baseline fitness but then race day comes and you just freakin' rise to the occasion. Previous ceilings you may have put on yourself... break through them! To hell with your heart rate monitor and power meter on race day. Just go race.

Now I may have completely jinxed Voekler here and he might just get dropped like a bad habit tomorrow when they climb those huge Alps... but even if he does, well, he still showed me something this last week about what we can all be physically capable of if we just believe ourselves to be.

Gutting It Out

So yesterday I was at the pool and chatting with two guys I see there a lot... recreational swimmers. Sam said, "Michelle I see you running all the time and all over the place! Kualoa, Kaneohe, Kailua..." Then Steve piped in with, "And biking too! I see you biking all the time!" Such is life when you live in a small town... can't hide when you're out training I guess! Then Steve asked me if I was going to be at the Waimea Bay Swim race today... Indeed, I would be... then he asked me if I ever rest/taper. I told him that I do, for some races, but not for these summer swims... (I was trying to picture the look on coach's face if I asked him to rest me for these swims... lol.) Anyway, I told Steve that while I was planning on racing to the very best of my ability today, that I would not cut any other training to try to make my time any faster. I said, "Well, let's put it this way... tomorrow I'm going to ride up to the start (34 miles) then do the swim race, then bike another 60 miles." Steve laughed and said Ok got it. I felt like the crazy gal in that I Am Training For Ironman video.

Anyway, the race was super fun this morning! Waimea Bay is beautiful in the summer (in the winter the waves here can be HUGE and crazy... but summer it's calm like a lake up there.) I was walking down the beach to the start with Nalani this morning and I made a comment about how I needed to get my brain into RACE mode... I just didn't feel like I was there mentally... I told her I needed Jana (my old swimming rival) to get really pumped up for these races. Unfortunately Jana moved away this spring... Anyway, we swam out to the start line and I heard a gal say, "Is that Michelle?" I said yes and looked at the gal who I could not really see b/c of the sun glare... She said, "It's Robin!" I laughed. Perfect! Race mode ON. Robin is an excellent swimmer and in my age group... an old friend of mine from my AZ days... she came to Hawaii to visit last summer and beat me in a couple of these swims so I knew I was going to have to really be on my game if I wanted a shot at the age group win today.

The women swimming out to the start line while the men wait on the beach... Stole this off Miki's FB page. :)

So the horn went off and we all started sprinting (see my FB page for a video of the women's start if you are so inclined!) I was out at the far buoy with the majority of the fast gals all right around me... went HARD for the first ~300M or so and then looked around me and saw that I had Nalani to my left and Lectie to my right... nice. Nalani and Lectie both beat me by ~a minute at Honu so I knew I was in good company if I was with them... Then I started channeling my inner Thomas Voekler (sorry, Cat- I know you hate him but you have to admit it's impressive what he has done the last few days) and decided that just b/c I cannot normally swim with these gals does NOT mean I couldn't today! So I made the decision to buck up and grit my teeth and gut it out and battle for position (And we did battle! That Lectie is aggressive! And I was aggressive right back! Love you, Lectie!) and I hung right in there as long as I could. Right around the last turn buoy I saw Robin come up on my right and I was like shit Michelle GO GO GO and I dug and I dug and I tried to get her back...

So ok, I lost. She got me by 5 seconds! BUT, I am happy with this race b/c for once I felt like I really tried and I did not give up mentally like I have a tendency to do sometimes when the going gets tough. And to be only 20 seconds back from Nalani, well, that's the closest I've been to her in years! We were talking about this race afterward while we were riding... I told her that I got exactly what I wanted out of it... a solid hard effort where I stayed mentally engaged and in it the whole time. The place matters less to me than the effort I gave... I did not back off when it got uncomfortable like I sometimes do. (I did not 'give' Robin that win today- she earned it!  Fair enough.) And now that I know Robin is back for the summer, well, now maybe I'll have some fire in my belly in the days leading up to the next race in the series. Stay tuned. :)

And for those of you coming out to race Kona in October, I hope you are practicing riding in the wind. Because, well, it's been freakin' W-I-N-D-Y here. Riding home was brutal. At one point I wondered if we were riding into a hurricane? That's all I'll say about that.

My New Love

Some good stuff going on! Bullet point style:

~Our pool was open today! Happy! Yesterday I swam in a grossly hot and cloudy pool (YUCK) in the neighboring town. At noon, because that's when its set up longcourse. I blanked out on the sunscreen which was BAD. Totally sunburnt back and shoulders last night. :( Normally we swim at 7AM so I don't worry about sunscreen... but if our pool had continued to be closed (and the noon swims would have therefore been more regular) I would have had to start worrying about it for sure! 

~My biking is coming right back. Every time I go out on my bike the numbers I see get better and better. Makes it quite motivating to go ride my bike! :)

~My swim and run are coming along more slowly. They are coming along for sure... a little better each day... but not quite as quickly as the bike. Regardless, it feels good to be back on a set schedule again and just doing my thing. I still really like training for Ironman.

~My conversation with coach yesterday went something like this:

Me: Are you going to kill me in the next few months?

Coach: I'm going to try!

Perfect. I wonder if I'll still like training for Ironman come September? I bet I will.

~I took Moana to the playground this afternoon. It's been forever (maybe a year??) since I've tried to do a pull up. I remember I used to do them all the time when I was at the playground with her... I knocked out 6 today without a ton of effort and called it good. I might have been able to squeak out 1 or 2 more if it would have mattered... But I'll never know b/c in my head it did not matter.

~I have a new love. My Blendtec blender. Bought it at Costco last week after the guy demo-ing it told me it was better than a Vitamix (I've always wanted a Vitamix!) Anyway, I saw how the thing worked and just forked over my credit card and now we all drink smoothies several times/day. I went through a whole big bag of spinach in like 5 days b/c I'm experimenting and I put spinach in everything I blend. Seems like it's really easy to eat raw/paleo with this thing. I'm not totally raw nor am I paleo but I'm trending in those directions more and more and this thing is making is eeeeasy. I bet I'm getting 10 servings of fruits and vegetables these days, which really is quite satisfying. That smoothie I took a picture of (below) is guava juice, lilikoi (from the tree across the street), kiwi, strawberries, spinach, Udo's Oil, and some whey protein. I'm pretty sure I could live on smoothies like this but Scott tends to give himself ice cream headaches b/c he drinks them too fast so he prefers solid food. So I still have to cook some meals. But I kid you not, Moana ate green 'ice cream' the other night and asked for it again tonight... I called it Popeye's Ice Cream b/c of all the spinach! She just remembered it was green and said, Can I have the green one?

~Nalani claims that the Vitamix makes a mean margarita so we're going to have a margarita face off next weekend... her Vitamix vs my Blendtec... and we'll use the lilikois from the tree across the street to make them even better! It's Scott's birthday next week so that should be a fun theme for his party. :)