Bobbers

Bobbers!

This is what I call the people that show up for lap swim, climb into the pool and float in one place.  These guys dont seem to get what lap swim is and sometimes they float around the pool to aggravate the lap swimmers.  I think it is funny and made up this nickname for them years ago....bobbers.  You have got to give them credit they are trying but I hate to say they really are not working out if they just float and talk.  There were several of them at the ywca today.

Swimming-  well I am back on a schedule for working out.  I only swam today and it was a short one.  I got to the pool and there was not much room for me to squeeze in. I was putting my goggles on and I noticed that someone jumped in my lane at the other end.  It was this little old man that was trying to be sneaky.  It was my spot and he was stealing it. I could only smile at him doing this. I did get into the pool anyway and stay in the lane.  It was a squeeze but there was room. I think the old man was thinking I would wait but I did not see any need.  We have 5 lanes to swim in and you should be able to fit 2 per lane.  There were only 7 of us in the pool so there was plenty of room.  Most of the people that go to the YWCA are cranky and do not like to share.  They like to hog up a while lane and swim crooked.  I dare not get beside some of them since they have some weird kick going on.  We have several wars at the YWCA and it is really funny.  I still had a great swim but I can tell that I have lost some strengh. The little old man that was trying to steel my lane got out in about 10 minutes.  I only had to lap him 5 times before he decided he did not like swimming next to me.

The Season-  I have a rough draft of what I plan to do.  The first big race that I have is Badwater.  I will mostly focus on my running but I still plan to bike 3x a week and swim 2x a week.  The biking will be on the mountain bike when possible but I will be on the road bike for some 300k and 400k rides once a month.  I will be doing a 24 hour mountain bike ride in April just for run.  After Badwater I plan to back off of the running and put my focus on cycling for the Furnace Creek 508.  If all goes well then I will be done with the long bike rides and runs for the rest of the year after the 508.  The months between the 508 and Ultraman will be focusing on speedwork and getting some speed put back in the legs.  This is the plan and it is doable.  I am ready to take on the challenge and see if it works starting with a run/walk tomorrow.

Running-  This is something that I am going to start focusing on now.  Tomorrow I will be hitting the treadmill and doing some running and power walking at a 7% grade.  I will be walking most of the climbs at Badwater so I need to work on training those muscles.  We really dont have great hills here in Lubbock. I will be doing most of my training on the treadmill for a while. Those inserts will be in my shoes and need to be where I can take them out if needed.

Race Across America-  Dont worry I will not be doing this.  i jsut got a press release today and my buddy Dave Haase is in the race.  I think this guy has a chance of winning. I would love to crew for this guy but it is a really bad time. I will be needing to do some of my most important runs in Death Valley.  I still might find a way to help out at the start...you never know.  He did help me with my fundraising and might be helping me put on my Super Spin Saturday here for the Boys and Girls club.

Super Spin Saturday-  I still need to explain this further but that will come.  This is a fundraiser that I am going to do here in Lubbock.  The date is going to be February 23rd.  I was hoping to do it at a Boys and Girls club but I am having trouble finding a gym that is willing to let me move the spin bikes. I do have a health club that will let me do it at their club but I wanted to promote the boys and girls club more.  I will give it a shot anyway so I am going to be very busy working on all the details.  Something tells me that I am going to get a crash course on doing one of these. I will have to get shirts and flyers made for this also...yikes!

Bible Study-  This is something that I have been doing one-on-one with a good friend.  He works at the Boy's Ranch and has been teaching me some things. I will be getting Baptized this Sunday.  This is long over due.  I meant to do this a few years ago but never got around to it.  I am not a part of a church and really will not be joining any of them. I do however want to help out with some of the kids programs at the churches.  I am looking forward to this Sunday. 

Baking Cookies-  I have some clients coming in and they are all bringing me cards for Christmas.  I want to give them something also so I am in the process of burning some cookies up for them.  Tonight I was wipping up a batch of oatmeal cookies while I was roasting some pumkin seeds in the oven. Next thing I knew the oven had some smoke coming out of it.  I did manage to save some of the pumkin seeds for my healthy treat.  I did also manage to spray cookie doe all over the kitchen trying to spin it off  the beaters. I had a huge mess to clean up but I have some oatmeal and mince meat cookies to show for it. Another gift is the trail mix for my clients that should not be eating cookies.  This was harder to do then any race.

Posted: Dec 17 2007, shanna

orthotics

I just got home from Ft.Worth.  My mothers side of the family are all in Ft.Worth and we have a bug Christmas party every year.  It is really a lot of fun and is one of the best parts of Christmas.  I usually take my trainer with me and get a really long workout in while the others shop but this year I decided to enjoy Christmas with the family.  We had a really good time.

Orthotics-  My second cousin Donna is a great athlete herself.  I usually camp at her house. She paced me at my first marathon a long time ago and mentioned that I needed to get some orthotics.  I look really bad when I run and everyone comments on it.  I have purchased two pair of orthotics that were over three hundred dollars each and they were worthless.  The people that made them knew nothing about running so it was a waste of money. This led to a bad attitude about them.  I got so many comments this year about my running style at ultraman that I decided to see about getting some of these shoe inserts.  My cousin was stoked and knew a guy that worked with lots of ultra runners in Ft.Worth. My mom and dad were nice enough to buy them for me for Christmas.  This really helped out!! 

I was really impressed with what the doc said and he was right.  I have horrible neck problems and he could tell by the way I was sitting that my neck and back were in pain.  He even knew what side was bothering me most.  I was really surprised.  My ankles and feet are really locked up and I have high arches. This guy is going to fix the problem gradually instead of making the finished product right off the bat.  This is what I need.  I will have to change the way I run  and that wont happen over night. First we are going to correct the arches and put my weight on the right part of my foot.  Right now my toes are taking a beating and that is why I was in so much pain at the 100 miler.  After this is done we will make some adjustments and try to correct my leg length.  This will all take time.  I wore some temporary ones out of the office and I felt like rocks were in my shoes.  I dont think I was on my feet for 10 minutes before I was boohooing.  I am nervous about the change but I need to do it.  I will post the the video of my ultraman finish this year and you will see what inspired me to work on the run. I look really bad!!!! I dont see how I have made it this far with my run technique.

Back to training-  Tomorrow I will start back with some light training.  I think I am starting to get some post race depression from not getting my endorphins.  I can't wait to get started back!  I am still not sleeping like I should but I am going to work on getting back on schedule over the next two weeks.  I used to go to bed at 10 pm and would like to get back to doing that.  The past two years I have been bouncing around so many time zones that it has been hard to keep a schedule.  I am certain that the mono is gone since I am not able to sleep. I was sleeping just fine with mono.

Posted: Dec 16 2007, shanna

Power Walking

Well I did not get 10 miles in today.  I was up until 4 am tossing and turning.  I suppose that it is since I am worried about my friend.  I have not been sleeping well as it is. 

Power Walking-  I did get about 8 miles in and did some practice on the power walking. I ran for the first part and then slowed the treadmill down to 4.5 miles per hour.  This was feeling doable but after about 5 minutes it was really getting hard.  I got about 15 minutes of power walking.  After the first of the year I will start doing some power walking more in the run like I would at Badwater.  The plan that I want to do at Badwater is to walk and run.  I dont want to get into the habbit of walking for to long since I know that after 50 miles those running muscles are going to tighten up.  This makes it almost impossible to break into a run once you are frozen.  I dont really want to power walk all of it either.  It would be nice to get a rythem between the two.  I will try to devise a plan and stick to it at the race.  I know this plan might not work at the end of the race but at least I will have a plan.

Get Fit Lubbock-  This is over and we had a big ball with a band tonight.  We hardly had any people show up but at least we tried.  i got some free finger foods and hung out to see who the winners were.  I was expecting to see some really ripped people since 11 of them excercised more then me.   Everyone there was having a good time.  We had an 80's theme and I did not dress up.  I did not want to dress like I did in Jr.High.  I looked like a druggie with my teased up hair and eyeliner.  I was not going to be seen like that again. I suppose I could of put my hair in a pony tail on the side of my head and wore some leg warmers but I dont own any.

Race Reports coming soon.

Posted: Dec 13 2007, shanna

GEt Fit Lubbock

Well this competition is over.  I am an endurance athlete and I got 12th.  I am wondering who the others are and what they look like.  We are having our Get Fit ball tomorrow night so I will get to meet the winners and see myself.  I failed my team but I did learn a lot and that is why I am going to take some classes so that I can learn how to work with non-athletes and motivate them.  My team might think it is over but we really have not even started....literally.

Racing Season-  I am resting up now but next week I will get started again.  I am looking forward to the racing season and I doubt my travel plans change much for the weekends.  I will just be going to Austin or Ft.Worth every other weekend instead of California.  I have lots of friends to see and train with.  I am very lucky to have these friends.    I am also lucky to have found a hobby that I love doing so much.  I know that my lifestyle might not seem all that great to someone else but I feel like I am living a dream. All of my races  (except RAAM 2005) and training bring really happy memories that make me happy.  The races that I have lost at have also been fun.  I think that I had the most fun in Switzerland when I was so sick.  Too bad I was sick but the trip was still fun and the race was a great challenge.  The Gigathlon is something that I will always be thinking of and I cant wait to go back prepared.  I am looking forward to next year and will have another great season with Badwater, the Furnace Creek 508 , and ultraman.  This is going to be an easy year compared to the last 3 years with long ultra cycling races.

Gigathlon Camp Photos are posted-  These photos are on the website now. You will see why I loved Switzerland so much.  These pictures are just a small part of the race.  The other girl in my picture was Sarah and she got second in the couples at the gigathlon.  This girl was a great mountain biker and wore me out.  Rodger is the guy you see and he is the clown.  I think he won a 3 day race...he was lots of fun to train with.  Danni the race director is the one taking the pictures.  This was one fun week for me but the Swiss really wore me out.

Badwater-  I am starting to get some good feedback now from some other people that I have contacted.  Right now I am marking the calendar to go train a weekend in death valley with some other ultra runners.  I also think that I have found someone that has crewed Badwater a bunch to crew for me.  I am pretty much set on a crew so this is good.  I also have purchased a book about crewing at badwater and one about taping the feet. Trust me you can't get to much info.

power walking-- As if I dont have enough stuff to train for I am going to start some power walking.  This is what ultrarunner do when they are not running.  I failed to train this muscle group for my 100 miler so I paid the price after the race.  I am going to do 10 miles on the treadmill tomorrow but I will be slowing the treadmill down to do some power walking for some of it.  I hate walking but I must do it.

Orthotics-  I have an appointment to get some of these on Friday.  One thing I have is lousy form on my run.  I have been needing these for a long time.  I have one leg that is short and it is from a short tibia bone. I got kicked in Jr.high and it stunted the growth.  I got a video of my ultraman finish and I am running sideways.  I had a fellow ultra runner suggest to do something about it now so I am.  I am going to a doc that works with ultra runners and will only do small changes.  I will have to change my running form up and that will be hard but I will be better off in the long run. This doc is in Dallas and he is going to see me on Friday.

Best Friend-  I have some worries about my best friend here in Lubbock.  She has a lump on her neck and a spot on her lungs. She is getting some tests done and I am hoping it is nothing.  She got rushed into these tests today and we are just waiting and praying that nothing is wrong.  She is the woman that I went into business with and she is truly my best friend.  I dont say that about to many people.  I am praying that it is just a false alarm. It has me a little bummed and scared..

Posted: Dec 12 2007, shanna

Pictures Posted Soon

Blogging-  sorry I have not updated the blog lately. I have been working on some other projects.  I will have my pictures posted on the website soon and I am also working on some race reports.  Keep checking and you might see some changes.

Training-  I have not done to much as far as training goes.  I did get on the mountain bike once and have done a few runs. As far as I can tell I have recovered from Ultraman and will be starting some training next week.

Badwater-  this is a race that I have been wanting to do for about 5 years.  Over the past two weeks I have contacted several people to see if I can find out how other people train.  I have not gotten any really great advice.  I did find one guy that I really liked...he was a character but I am not sure if he would of been the best coach for me. This guy is amazing!  He has tripled Badwater self supporting himself with a cart.  I also checked his training log and saw that he was way more dedicated then I am with the running. He was running 19+ hours on the weekends.  These guys that do Badwater over and over again are tough people and have my respect!  I am not sure how I am going to train for Badwater.  I do plan on trying to maintain my cycling and swimming so it will be tough to figure out.

Iona Mackenzie-  This was the girl that was kicking my butt on the bike at ultraman.  She just told me a funny story about how she fell and hurt her ankle.  She was at a wedding in Illinoise and needed to pee.  She decided to jump a fence to pee and it turned out there was a 50 ft bluff on the other side.  She fell 20 ft hit her head, flipped over and fell another 30 ft. She landed on her butt and ankle.    What ever happened to a regular bathroom?  Anyway she did Ironman Wisconsin two weeks later and still qualified for Hawaii.  She did the race with duct tape on her ankle in pain.  She is one tough girl!  She can make top 5 in Hawaii easy.

Super Spin Saturday-  This is a fundraiser that I have been working on and I think it will happen here in Lubbock on February 23rd.  I still have to get some details taken care of to make sure.  If it happens I will be very busy working on flyers and stuff.  I am really looking forward to the project.

School-  I have enrolled in some classes to take this year for coorporate wellness.  I guess instead of taking weeks of for races it will be school this year.  These are just to get certifications.  I dont see college in the future.

I am not sure if there will be a blog everyday. I have been taking a break from blogging and working on other things but I will update it when I can.  You will have some race reports and pictures on it soon.

Thanks for reading

Posted: Dec 11 2007, shanna