Mountain Biking

Ft. Worth

This morning I got up and did not have any massages to do since I made arrangements to go to Arkansas. I am glad I stayed home.  i got some things taken care of.

Mountain Biking-  i hit the mountain bike trails and my buddy Dwayne was out riding.  We got a good two hours in and had a good time.  My legs are not real strong from all the running i have been doing.  I rode most of it but Dwayne rode all the really hard stuff.  I was moving along pretty good and noticed that I had sound affects coming out of my mouth.  I was making motorcycle noises while tackeling the more challenging stuff.  It worked but my noises were more like a moped and Dwayne was on the harley.  I did have a good wipe out and I bet that I get some good bruises from it.  It was not on anything technical.  i just turned the handle bars and next thing I knew I was under the bike. My ankle was twisted a but and it was hard to get up but I managed.  Dwayne decided to copy me later and tackel a hill and down he went so it was lots of fun.  It is nice to have someone out on the trails with me. 

Errands-  Today I got some stuff done.  I needed to get my brakes checked and it turns out there is water in the brake line so the good news is that will be cheap to fix and they will do it next week.  I also went by my car stereo place and they will help me get my amber lights on my car for Badwater and put an invertor in it that will power a blender if I need it to.  Since I am going to be stuck with the van for a very long time I might as well get it fixed up a little more.  i like to have oatmeal before races and I will be able to do so now.  This will make the van really cool for camping at mountain bike and running races now.  I also got my dad two huge things of toilet paper.  This man goes through 12 rolls a week.  I know that he is putting his spit from chewing tobacco in it.  I hated walking out of the store with two big things of toilet paper.  I dont know why but I hate buying it.

The rest of the errands were some more wellness coaching and i stopped by some gyms and weight watchers to check on some things they offered for Corporate Wellness. This is all just research and it is challenging.  These people want to know who I am working with so they can talk to the corporation themselves.  It is sort of frustraiting to get info out of some people but I do get it.  I am also gathering info on fast food resturants and other things so it is time consuming. 

public speaking- I had a call today and it was another speaking engagement to do.  I am stoked to get another one to do and it is here in Lubbock.  It is in April so I have 3 for April now...yikes!  I am still wanting to speak to teens but I am working with the pshycology department to make sure that I dont pass along wrong messages.  Teens are hard-headed.....I know since I was and still am hard headed.

Giant-  I now have two new beautiful bikes that Giant has sent me.  I am sponsored with these bikes and they sent me some stuff to hand out to people.  If all goes right I might be able to get them to give some stuff to my "Super Spin Saturday" next year.  I am going to have this event next year.....just wait and see!

Ft.Worth-  My cousin Donna has some massages lined up for me in Ft.Worth.  This means tomorrow after giving some massages that I will hit the road again but my trip will actually make a little money even with the gas expense.  I have two really long runs and some cycling and there will be lots of people to train with. 

inline skating-  There is a slight chance that I might get a skating lesson as well. There was a guy on the last 200k ride that I did that races inline skates.  He skates around the place I run so you never know I might just get to have a little lesson if I feel up to it.  I do plan on doing the Gigathlon again next year.  I can't let the mountain biking and skating wait.

Gigathlon- This race is the 900 mile race I did last year.  I made the mistake of thinking that I could learn how to skate in 6 months.  I thought that the course would be a straight and have no hills in it.  Boy was I wrong!!!  I was scared to death!  I was picked as a favorite and had a big picture and article in the paper.....luckily it did say that I did not know how to skate.  This was really obvious on the first day.  After my lousy swim on the first day the skate was next.  We skated out of the transition and there was a curb with a rt turn and a tiny downhill. I was hanging on to a fence I think and freaking out.  There were lots of hollers of "Go Shanna Banana!"  I asked one person how he knew that I was Shanna Banana and he said because he read the article and I mentioned that I could not skate....I was by far the worst skater in the Gigtathlon.  Since I did not understand all the directions that were in German I was clueless as to what was going on at this race.  When I was hanging on to the fence I could see the other athletes stopping and waiting for some sign to go.  I decided to let go of the fence and run into them all like a cannon ball.  I never learned how to stop so all the Swiss got a real kick out of me flying into them.  Next thing I knew there was some signal to go and all the skaters were off and I was the caboose in the back.  I thought that I was doing pretty good and then Georgio Allesi caught up to me...my ulraman buddy.  I was happy and surprised to see him.  I was happy to ahve the company but it only let me know how bad my swim must of been.  Georgio is always one of the last ones out in the swim at Ultraman.  I usually get almost 2 hours on him in the 6.2 mile swim at ultraman but at the Gigathlon he was right behind me.  I suppose I lost a lot of time trying to swim up stream...hehehehehe  The story is not over.....more later.

Damn Dog-  Well I got a nice run in tonight.  My grandad got all excited about the toilet paper and went to get it out of the garage.  His dog that does not listen to me got out in the process and i had to chase it down.  I hate to excercise at night!

Thanks for reading

Posted: Mar 13 2008, shanna

Nope!!

Nope....no Arkansas. 

I got up and looked at the forcast and it was an 80 percent chance of rain.  My cousin Donna agreed going so far to run in cold and wet stuff was not a good idea.  She also brought up that I might get hurt since I fall down all the time on trails......I am home now and just got a call letting me know that tornadoes are all over the place in Arkansas. 

Running-  Today was a long run and I felt really good.  I had a long run in the middle that was really pushing it and I was running fast for me.  I had my headphones on and was wondering what I was going to do with them at Badwater.  I hold the ipod in my hand but that ain't going to work at Badwater...I am going to want to get sprayed often.    We will see what I do.  I like my music.

Swimming-  I had to get next to Mr.Flipper and the tidal wave today.  I also wrote my workout down in pen that disappears when water gets on it so I had to make up my own workout. It was the same yardage and I sort-of remembered it.  I should of taken out the fippers and given the guy next to me a taste of his own medicine but I didn't.

Wellness Coaching-  I had my first class tonight and did not make a good impression at first. We are all on the phone listening to the instuctor and my phone would not mute.  I got a small lecture about that right off the bat.  I have to have it fixed soon.  We all did introductions and everyone except me has a list of degrees.  I suppose I could of blurted out my race resume like they blurted out their degrees but I didn't.  I had hell trying to keep quite.  I turned the computer on once and the instructor made a comment.  I was the only one that could not mute my phone so he knew it was me.  I also had to go in the closet once since a damn dog was scratching at the door.  Oh yeah...my grandad barged in once and I had to cough in my pillow.  So much for settting the phone down on speaker phone...now I have a sore neck.  I will get this phone thing down by the next week.  I was told to do so.  If there was anymore racket with the dogs I was going to get kicked out of class.  I did go into the closet about 3x to get away from noise.....how loud to old people need there TVs anyway?  The class was good but I do feel out of my league since I do not have a list of degrees but oh well.  I think my life has been pretty cool.

Shoes-  I got a chance to check out some new Badwater shoes. I was watching a vidoe about Badwater and noticed that some of them had sandals on.  I have been doing some research and some of them are walking in Teva's and Choco's.  I got a chance to try some on today but they are a little pricy so I will wait to get them.  I will be getting some but I might just wait a little while.  I am going to finish Badwater.  I am not going to finish barefoot either.

No stories tonight..I have to fill out some class work to let them know I was attending class.

Posted: Mar 12 2008, shanna

Do I stay or do I go??? RAAM 2005

Today I did not do any training and I feel bad about it.  I had intentions of working but never got around to it.  I am signed up for this online class and they sent me a ton of emails with stuff that I need to study.  I was up until midnight trying to figure out how to download my printer stuff online since my granddads dog ate my cd that came with the printer...damn dog.  I actually figured it out and have been printing out stuff all day to study.  I really hate to read and I have a ton of stuff to read before my class tomorrow night.

Arkansas-  I have looked at the weather a million times today and I am wondering if I should go or not.  The forcast is calling for a 50 percent chance of rain so I am not sure what the heck to do.  I really do not want to be in the rain and cold all 3 days camping but I really do want to run.  I will look at another 3 forcasts in the morning before I decide.  Right now it is all up in the air.  I do have my fingers crossed that I get to go.  It is all up to me and with the luck I have had the past two years the clouds will be there when I arrive.  I always call my cousin Donna to see what she thinks so she will be getting a call from me in the morning.  I have to have someone to blame it on if I go and get wet.

The Banana Mobile-  This is my conversion van that looks like an ice cream truck cause of all the stickers on it.  This weekend some of them were removed and the ones that are still up are mostly my fault.  I have all these darn banana stickers on it and that is what really make the van look so bad.  They are still up so I guess it does not bother me that much.  My T.V. has been broken since a parking garage ran in to me...it ran into me...i did not run into it.  The parking garage put a nice skylight in my van and I guess it has damaged the TV.  I was messing around with this TV this weekend and left the cover off of it so today it ended up falling out and landing on the floor of the van.  Someone told me to hit the TV to get it working so if falling  5ft does not get it going then nothing will.  Looks like the laptop will be my entertainment this weekend.

RAAM 2005-  This is a funny crew mistake that I am responsible for.  My teammate and I made a trip to Sam's and got tons of food that we thought the crew might eat.  This was before we had gotten the RV so we were thinking that we would have all kinds of room to put all this food in.  We piled it all in the middle of the garage and let me tell you.........it was a ton of food.  We got the RV a day before we were planning to depart and there was no way that any of the food was going to fit on the RV or any of the crews bags.  There was hardly any storage under the RV.  All that shopping and for nothing.  Well there is nothing like having a good old doctor teammate to fix the problem.  He just went and bought a brand new nice trailer to save the day.  I have asked others that have done RAAM and most of them have never seen someone use a large RV and a trailer for the race.  What is worse is that the crew never even got any of the food out of the trailer...they would still go into all the stores and buy the same stuff and expect the teammate to pay for it.  Almost all of the food ended up back here in Lubbock, Tx.  We were all a bunch of rookies and you could tell as soon as we pulled into the parking lot.

Thanks for reading

Posted: Mar 11 2008, shanna

Arkansas

This morning I felt like I had been out all night at the bar.  I felt a little beat up from yesterdays run but my legs were not sore.

Wellness Coaching- I got up and got dressed for work just like a normal person.  I headed out to an office that I plan to be working with the next year for Corporate Wellness.  I had 8 people to visit with at this office and the sessions were taking a little longer then planned so the swim at lunch was canceled and I got to coach about 6 people.  These are people that are contemplating working out or eating better but they are not sure what to work on first.  I also am getting to know them and there needs to create a program that might work for them.  I have all kinds of homework to do and some literature to gather for them to have next week.  This is a challenge but it is something new and different so I like the change.  I had massages tonight and got home at 9pm so it was a 12+day for me but that is a good thing as well.

Arkansas-  the weather is not looking to promising on the forcast that I am looking at but the van is still packed . I will make my decision on Wednesday on weather or not to go.  I am not going to run in rain and cold unless it is my key race.  I prefer to stay nice and healthy when I am in training.  I look at the weather about 3x a day so I will know something come Wednesday night.  My funds are tight as well so another weekend here at home won't hurt.  Keith has the travel bug and I can sense that he was ready to go on a trip.  He has crewed with me for lots of races and has been stuck in Lubbock for a while.  I guess we all have the bug here in Lubbock.

Gigathlon-  I know what the Europeans go through now when they come to the states to race.  They get directions in another language and have to listen to our banquets and stuff in English.  I was having to listen to German most of the time at the Gigathlon.  This really did cost me on the first day.  We all were lined up for our almost 8 mile swim down a river and the announcer was talking in German and giving us swimmers directions.  I was separated from my crew so I had no idea what was going on.  The announcer was telling us what side of the river to get out on.  We had a damn or something that we had to get out and run around in clogs.  It was only about a 2k run but we had to get out on the left side of the river...the same side that we entered.  I was told by a girl the night before that we had to get out on the right so I was planning on that.  I was trucking along pretty good on the swim all by myself thinking that I was speedy fast until a girl in a boat started hollering at me.  I had swam past the place we get out and I was on the other side of the river.  I had to swim up stream and across the river to the left side.  I did have trouble getting back up river and I was almost deadlast.  I put the clogs on for the run and that was the fastest part of the swim for me.  When we entered the water again I asked a guy what side of the river to get out on and he told me the right.  I hopped in and swam as fast as I could only to get stopped by a boat again telling me the same thing.  We got out on the left side again.  The girl the night before was all wrong.  It made the swim a real adventure for me.  The water was below 70 so I was not to happy about being in the water longer.  The naked transition is another story for another day.  I could not beleive all the naked bodies running around...yikes!

Thanks for reading

Posted: Mar 10 2008, shanna

RAAM 2006

 Running-  I was so proud of myself.  I got up really early so that I could get my run done at a decent time.  NOT!  We moved our clocks up and hour so I did not get started running until 9 am.  I ran over a marathon distance and was moving along pretty darn good.  I ran with my gloves and a heavy coat on to train for Badwater. The last part of the run was funny my shirt under my coat was drenched with sweat and it was dripping out of my coat sleeves.  My feet were also bothering me a little with the orthodics but I am getting used to them and I dont feel right without them either,  my form is much better so I hope that I will be used to them for all of Badwater. 

Badwater-  I am not going to tell you that I feel really confident about this race.  The truth is that I am scared to death of it.  This morning I was thinking that the training was going great and I was going to be so ready but by the end of the run...I was thinking that I was an idiot for signing up for it.  I think that doing RAAM has killed some brain cells.  I am still enjoying the challenge of training for Badwater but I do fear the race.  I purchased some tickets today to go train in DV the last weekend of May...can't wait.

Ultraman-  I emailed my friends on the big island today and we are all set for ultraman.  The same crew is going to be ready for me.  I have a free place to stay, and I booked my tickets tonight on my frequent flyer miles.  I know this is at the end of the year but I need to make sure that I keep up with all my races and crew this year.

The 508-  I have two great people for my crew already.  It is Daniel and Keith who were with me at Le Tour Ultime.  I would like to have one more but I am not calling around for this next crew member.  It can be done with two people but it would be nicer for 3 to be around.  I can't beleive that I am going to do this race again!  This bike race hurt so bad!!!!  I was in tears at this race and was a bit bitchy as well. I hope I am not like that again.

Arkansas-  Right now it looks like I will be in Arkansas doing a 3 day race this next weekend.  I have a 50k, 50 miler, and 20k.  This is a lot of runnning but it will be good training.  I am sure that most people train more for it but what the heck.  I will get through it one way or another.  I fall down a lot on trails so we will see.  I will be camping in my van and taking a tent to put up for fun.  The last time I camped I was to lazy to build my first tent but I will have 3 days to get it up.  Keith is going with me...he helps out a lot and needs to get out of town once and a while.  He is pretty much going to be driving me home.  I have a feeling that 11.5 hours is going to be rough on me,  i will be driving half of it as well.

RAAM 2005-  I got home today and hopped in the shower.  I took a bath with some oil the last time I took a shower and almost feel down today when I stepped into the tub.  I smiled with the save and then remembered something that was funny at RAAM.  This was at the base of Wolf Creek pass.  We had a hotel room and I got to take a shower there.  The crew was not allowed to use the RV but we did get a hotel room for them to grab a shower every 4 days or so...yes they all stunk and were jelouse that I was taking 3 or more showers a day.  Anyway I sat down in the tub so soak my legs and could not get up.  The winds and storms had started and my arthritis was flaring up big time.  I was stuck and so I hollered to see if Karan the girl was out in the room but she wasn't. Jerrod answered my call and I started laughing and telling him that I was stuck.  He was the only one that could help me and so he came to my rescue....I was butt naked and asked him to close his eyes.  This made it really hard for him to find me and sweep me out of the tub.  His hand slipped and I swooshed back into the tub so water was everywhere.  I kept staring at him to make sure he did not open his eyes.  When I swooshed back into the tub my tail bone hit the bottom of the tub so I said "ouch."  It was very hard for Jerrod to no open his eyes but he was a perfect gentleman and we laughed a lot after that.   He reminded me of when my dad would make sure that I  soap out of my hair whe  I was little.  He would enter with a towel up by his eyes so that he could not see me.  This was when I was getting older and mom was gone occasionally.  Jerrod was pretty nervous. 

Posted: Mar 09 2008, shanna